Foreigner: A Novel of First Contact

Rating:
Summary: Foundation - Unpredictable & occasionally baffling
Review: Opening a book with expectations of the Authors style is frequently unwise, and never more so than when Cherryh is the artiste.

Unpredictable, and occasionally unintelligible & baffling.

'Foreigner' is very complex and involved, and we learn far too much of Bren Cameron's thought processes to maintain much interest in the guy.

He is the interpreter between the human settlement in the alien Atevi world. The differences are vast, and language barriers abound.

It was fascinating but also too long-winded, with too much time (IMHO) dwelling on how baffling it all was for Bren, and how a human couldn't relate to the emotionlessness of the Atevi...

Story as follows: Human spacefarers venture out with a full crew compliment to set up a base - something goes wrong during the jump and they are thrown out beyond the known galaxy. Alone and resourceless some of the passengers decide to settle the nearest habitable world, which also happens to be dwelt on by the Atevi, tall, ebon-hued humanlike species with some peculiar difference in society & habit.

Assasination is a valid solution, and approved by courts in Atevi, and Bren as the ambassador to the Atevi is soon drawn into untangleable political games, with himself as the dupe.

Loved the story, love the aliens, weakness, one humans disintigration away from the familiar, and the frequent waffling on of thought-trains.

Believe a lot of the Atevi mindset needed to be included to set up future novels in series

Kotori [e-mail]


Rating:
Summary: a different type of Cherryh SF novel, definitely
Review: Or at least I think it is. It took me two tries to read this one, and I'm a big fan of Cherryh's work; I pretty much forced myself to read it even though I didn't find it that engrossing. After a lot of consideration, I have to put that down to some intangible factor the book lacks that I cannot identify and that probably is not a factor for many people.

I think that's pretty much a matter of personal taste here, because it is unquestionably a very deep book with an interesting, original alien race (rely on Cherryh every time to do that right) and a lot going on. By all appearances, it should appeal to me more than it does.

Given four stars out of fairness--I can hardly give five stars to a book I didn't exactly adore, but I think it was more a matter of chemistry (me/book) than any identifiable stumble on the part of the author, and it does include a lot of what Cherryh does well. Might not be the best choice for one's first taste of Cherryh (for that, I suggest _The Dreaming Tree_, _The Pride of Chanur_, _The Faded Sun_, _The Morgaine Saga_ or _Downbelow Station_), but will probably appeal to most established Cherryh enthusiasts.

Rating:
Summary: Very intriguing but wordy.
Review: Over all, I did enjoy reading it. But there were times, several times, when redunancy was overwhelming. When I finally muddled through all the irrelavent details, I was disappointed in a story where so much more could have happened with the exact same typeface and same number of pages. Nontheless, it was interesting

Rating:
Summary: Great start to a great series.
Review: Since the departure of the spaceship, Phoenix, centuries ago, humans have lived on the planet of the atevi. During that time the atevi and humans have been to war, the subsequent peace being held through their almost total segregation, and a trade agreement via which the humans trade their advanced technology to the less technically advanced atevi. Only one human is permitted direct access to the atevi on their mainland home, Bren Cameron, the Paidhi (interpreter). Normally Bren Cameron has little to do but study the atevi's customs and language, dutifully make a record for his sometime successor, and intermediate as and when the need arises. Then, without warning, things suddenly change and Bren Cameron finds himself thrown into a dangerous political situation. And he doesn't why. Not until the atevi are sure of their man...

Foreigner is the first in a series that, for me at any rate, is representative of the best of today's sci-fi writing. This is because the plot is tightly linked to the little things and bigger things that go to make up the why that motivates the characters to do what they do. Sometimes the little things seem to be simply mundane decoration, but C.J. Cherryh sure knows how to build them into the fabric of the whole, giving her work an emotional impact that is hard to resist; the motivation for reading more.

Rating:
Summary: Too Wordy
Review: The meat of the tale is well laid out by the top reviewer. However, the editors at DAW should take care to preserve quality in the books they publish. This story is good and Cherryh is a talented writer, but here she has fallen into the trap so many famous-old-time-science-fiction writers have fallen into..... too many words, too much "remembering" and not enough meat to chew on to keep one awake late into the night. C.J., please cull your own manuscripts since the editors don't seem to be doing the job anymore for any of the authors. All the reviews so far have been quite accurate, and if you have read this far, you know very well what kind of book this is.

Rating:
Summary: Too Much Interior Head Talk
Review: There are some cool non-human life-forms in the novel and I'm sure that I would like them much better if they would do away with the brainless human who is the main character. He thinks and talks to himself endlessly and therefore becomes a pain in the neck to the aliens and the reader. I finished this one out of a sense of duty and dogged determination.

Rating:
Summary: It takes 300 pages to get interesting.
Review: This book is incredibly wordy and redundant. It had a typical "mystery" beginning where a character has an attempt made on his life, and his bodyguards and protectors keep him in the dark as much as possible throughout the rest of the novel. In most stories the character manages to piece together some information about the attempt on his own life. Not in this book, however, as nothing is revealed until 300 pages into the story. Prior to that we get a diary of an individual who is conducting a rather lengthy and boring cultural study of a wanna-be feudal Japan. Also, the ending never had a full, final explanation to what was going on. In short, this book was short on action and heavy on cultural didactic, and, as a result, it was extremely boring.

Rating:
Summary: Aliens, Politics, and Angst, Oh My!
Review: This book is the first in the Foreigner Universe series. It is an amazing web of political intrigue, action and a skimming of romance. Cherryh creates an amazing world, upon which live one of the most unique alien races I have encountered in the many years I have been reading science fiction. The characters are very personable, and the imagery is rich and life-like. For a truly excellent read, see this book, and the second in the series, "Invader" (I just finished it today, and I can't wait to get a copy of the third, "Inheritor.").

Rating:
Summary: Good execution, bad idea
Review: This is a well-written novel that falls short because the central character is, frankly, an idiot.

We are asked to believe that Bren Cameron is the most skilled diplomat of his culture. If so, they're in trouble. He's passive, obtuse, and ineffectual. He whines a lot (in internal monologue), usually about things he doesn't have the power to change. He goes on at length about not understanding his alien hosts, although they're actually no more alien than some Earth cultures. He doesn't take their good advice. He makes the same mistakes over and over. When he does finally act, he's *stupid*--potentially getting the only people who can save him *and his entire culture* killed in an ambush. Cherryh repeatedly rubs our nose in how much bigger, stronger, better, faster, more competent, and more potent the atevi are. It's well done--Cherryh is certainly a good enough writer to make it credible--but why in the world does she want to do it?

Compare this novel to Bujold's _Barrayar_, with which it shares a number of interesting similarities: a warlike but less-advanced culture jerked into the modern world by contact with space, an individual protagonist alone in that culture, personal relationships superseding the rule of law, betrayal, politics, fleeing on horseback. _Barrayar_ succeeds because Cordelia is interesting, active, and credible (even when she makes mistakes). Bren Cameron is none of the above.

Rating:
Summary: A unique book
Review: This is the only novel I know of that actually makes clear why being able to speak and understand another language, even very fluently, doesn't automatically make it possible to function with ease in that language's culture. The _Foreigner_ series is an excellent and fascinating course in the kind of linguistics and anthropology that we Terrans are going to have to be able to do as "globalization" of this planet continues. Wonderful book....

Suzette Haden Elgin [e-mail]