Rating: 
Summary: It's the end...
Review: Farewell to Bren and Jago and Illsidi and Jase and Banichi, as well as all the other characters...It's hard to part after 6 books!
Rating:
Summary: No, It Can't Be the Conclusion-- I Want More
Review: First, I suggest don't try to read this book without having read the previous ones. While it can stand alone and Cherryh gives a good review of the back story, it is impossible, I would think, to fully appreciate the nuances of the human/atevi interface without having read the previous volumes.Cherryh's experience as a translater has clearly aided her in creating an interesting character in Bren Cameron and a fascinating society in the world of the Atevi/humans. Marooned by his dedication to the spirit of his job and his sense of justice in an alien culture, Bren manages to form attachments and create his own role in Atevi society. That the relationships he develops with his alien hosts are easier for him to understand than his relationships with his family is a great piece of irony. In this book the introduction of the second alien culture, the necessity of the association of Atevi and humans to withstand the stresses involved in contact with this new force, creates an engrossing storyline that expands on the previous themes introduced by Cherryh. This is definitely the thinking being's science fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Explorer
Review: Having read all 6 books in the Foreigner Series, I am sad to see this series at it's end. As Bren would say "One highly recommends" this outstanding series by C.J. Cherryh. It is however suggested that all 6 books are read in order.
Happy reading
Rating:
Summary: He does it again - thanks CJ for keeping the quality supurb
Review: I have all these books including this one and have loved each of them. It is one man who desperately wants to be the link between cultures so that war doesn't occur but as he lives with another species, he grows more like them all the time and normal humans have problems with him. I like him better every book and the remote car's used in this book was so cleverly weaved as they were used to (1) pass time on a boring journey with everybody competing to build the best; (2) make a break through with a new species who had good reason to hate humans, and finally (3) used to carry bombs and other explosives arround corners, etc. You are awesome, CJ (from a 47 year old). I have all your books CJ (except for those wrote with Ms Lackey - I am not into demons or gods) and you remain my favorite author. Can't wait for the next. Other sequal books I would like to see you write:
Cocoos Egg
Pride Stories (I have all 5)
Tristan stories
Rating:
Summary: He does it again - thanks CJ for keeping the quality supurb
Review: I have all these books including this one and have loved each of them. It is one man who desperately wants to be the link between cultures so that war doesn't occur but as he lives with another species, he grows more like them all the time and normal humans have problems with him. I like him better every book and the remote car's used in this book was so cleverly weaved as they were used to (1) pass time on a boring journey with everybody competing to build the best; (2) make a break through with a new species who had good reason to hate humans, and finally (3) used to carry bombs and other explosives arround corners, etc. You are awesome, CJ (from a 47 year old). I have all your books CJ (except for those wrote with Ms Lackey - I am not into demons or gods) and you remain my favorite author. Can't wait for the next. Other sequal books I would like to see you write:
Cocoos Egg
Pride Stories (I have all 5)
Tristan stories
Rating:
Summary: This book rocks!
Review: I have always loved Cherryh, and I read Explorer very fast when I finally got it. I was a little disappointed with Defender, but Explorer more than made up for it! Most questions were answered, and new ones were raised about the kyo, the new alien race. I can only hope she writes more about them. I would have liked to know a lot more about Sabin, the enigmatic captain. She seems to have changed a lot since Precursor, and it was a little confusing. I would not be so nice to someone who had poisoned me. I want to know what happened to the rest of Taylor's Children. I think Cherryh completely forgot about them, because at first there were six, and now there are only two. But, overall, Explorer went into things more deeply, and was a lot more exciting, than Defender.
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Summary: Disastrous infelicity of two becomes felicitous three.
Review: My favorite series continues in this book. The atevi-human association sets off on the "Phoenix" to rescue the stranded humans of Reunion Station. Bren Cameron, now named by Tabini-aiji, ruler of the Western Association, as lord of the province of the heavens, sets off with the expectation of alien contact with Tabini's grandmother and heir to complicate his mission. The book opens with the voyage to Reunion nearly complete and new revelations of ship-captains' duplicity, giving an inauspicious air to the last space-fold, which ends with worse news ... The book does continue Cherryh's formula of pacing and structure, and the [bad] outlines of the story become a bit predictable by this, the sixth book. But that is a quibble, because a formula is only to be criticized when it ceases to work. Cherryh's has not. There is the usual blend of cerebral culture-shock and taut action. Entertainment, it offers amply, as well as a long-awaited visit to familiar people and cultures. This book is easily readable for a general audience, but without reading the entire series one wastes one's time. The nuance built up over the life of the series is the background of relationships which shift and characters that change in behavior and in the perceptions of others. To those who have read none of this series I recommend "Foreigner" with frank envy at your opportunity to experience this universe fresh. By the way, one suspects more books, since six is a marginally infelicitous (infelicitous two and felicitous three) number. Nine, for example, would be much more felicitous. One can only hope.
Rating: 
Summary: Finishing the series with a flourish.
Review: n this final volume of the current Foreigner trilogy, the Phoenix returns to the "scene of the crime" to tie up loose ends. A contingent of humans were left on a space station in a distant star system after their peregrine wanderings violated the territory of mysterious aliens who then apparently attacked the outpost. Why the aliens attacked is unclear. Even more unclear is why the captains of the Phoenix, including the deceased Rodriguez, left humans on the space station when they fled to the atevi world ten years earlier. The possibility that most worries the atevi and the Mosphiera humans is that the hostile aliens might attack the atevi home world after locating it from data on the station or captured humans. As the Phoenix nears the foreign star system, three overlapping but distinct agendas are clear: the atevi, the Mosphiera humans and the ship humans. The situation becomes even more complex when the Phoenix arrives to find that both the humans on the space station and the mysterious aliens have additional agendas. The autocratic Pilot's Guild is firmly in control of the station and clearly wants control of the Phoenix and later the atevi home world. The aliens lurk mysteriously. The question is who can negotiate the treacherous waters and avoid interstellar war? For fans of the series, Bren Cameron is the obvious answer. Peeling the complexity of the situation reveals layers of deception, including mischief by the late captain Rodriguez, that make a peaceful solution seem a near impossibility. The good news for Foreigner fans is that after the dreary "Defender" novel, Cherryh returns to the strength of the series. Namely, the protagonist must get inside the minds of people about whom he knows virtually nothing. Success or death are the alternatives. The bad news is that the first three chapters are terribly tedious dialogue filling pages that lack any discernible action. Cherryh does shake the lethargy and finishes in fine fashion. Just plow through those first chapters and you'll find a worthwhile story.
Rating:
Summary: "But when she was good..."
Review: On _Defender_, one of the reviewers wrote that "when Cherry is good, she's very very good. But when she's bad--" This second Foreigner trilogy went from bad, to worse (apologies to those who liked the books - I wasn't one of them) to absolutely fantastic. Explorer is, unlike the first two books, more than a filler. More than a money maker. Honestly, I'd started to feel like I'd picked up a volume in the Animorphs series when I waded through one of those. But Explorer redeems the author, the whole series. I won't rehash the plot here, other than to say Bren finds aliens, talks to aliens, and miraculously keeps everyone from getting killed. One point strongly in favor of this book is that the letters home are limited to those segements of Bren's writing that contribute to the story. And he does more than hop from tea party to tea party. If you liked the first two books, you'll love this latest installment. If you didn't like the first two, you'll still love this latest installment. Happy reading!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and thoughtful addition to Cherryh legend
Review: The combined human and atevi group is nearing the damaged space station Reunion, but are no closer to agreement about what to do when they get there. The pilot's guild, which runs Reunion, still has loyalties among some of the humans on the spaceship. The aliens who attacked Reunion are likely to be waiting, watching. And the guild is certainly unlikely to peacefully agree to give up their traditional powers. It doesn't help that Phoenix's late captain had [decieved] the crew and the planet dwellers about what he left behind when he fled Reunion. For Bret, translator and court functionary between the atevi (planet alpha aliens) and humans, the dangers are clear, but so is the potential. He's devoted his life to bridging the huge differences between atevi and humans. To communicate with a third race would be a dream come true. Of course, before he can manage that, he's got to persuade his fellow humans and the atevi he serves to go along. Sadly, it's the humans who cause him most of his problems. EXPLORER starts out slowly, with pages of discussion of past history (partly to set the stage for readers who are not familiar with the Foreigner series and partly because this seems to be author C. J. Cherryh's style and worrying about what ex-captain Ramirez did and how his actions might have been read by an unknown alien species, but definitely heats up with the arrival at Reunion. Cherryh provides a powerful balance between intriguing characters, including richly detailed atevi characters, action, and the best of speculative SF with her analysis of how communications might be established with the new group of aliens. Fans of the series will definitely need to read this book.
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