Carolyn Janice Cherry (born September 1, 1942), better known by the pen name C. J. Cherryh, is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has written more than 60 books since the mid-1970s, including the Hugo Award-winning novels "Downbelow Station" (1981) and "Cyteen" (1988), both set in her Alliance-Union universe. She is known for "world building," depicting fictional realms with great realism supported by vast research in history, language, psychology, and archeology