Defender

Rating:
Summary: Well paced, with a neat ending.
Review: Another three years have passed, the space station has been considerably refurbished, a new star ship is under construction, the space ship, Phoenix, has been refuelled, and Bren Cameron finds himself at a loss as to why Tabini wanted him to hurry down to the atevi mainland for a strange funeral ceremony, a brief chit-chat and a sudden return to the space station. Then Stani Ramirez - one of the Phoenix's senior captains - suddenly dies.

Bren discovers that he has been left out of the loop. The plot thickens. And the intercultural protocols become terribly strained.

This book's ending was nicely done, the lack of gun-play fitting well, with the general tone of the story. I also wondered about Bren's father, who was never mentioned. Maybe he was in earlier books and I've forgotten the details.

Jago's shoulder-belt buckle/clip was something that caught my eye, in this, and previous titles' artwork, but couldn't fathom why. This time it clicked: it bears a strong similarity to the DAW logo - so to speak.

Hopefully Explorer isn't too far in the future. Defender was something I'd hoped to be getting about eighteen months ago.

Rating:
Summary: Defender - waiting impatiently for the next in the series..
Review: As usual, Cherryh has left us wanting more, and knowing we'll get it!

The latest in the "Foreigner" series is no disappointment, except, of course, that the next one is not out for us to grab, run with, and get lost in ... yet.

The depth of the characters just continues to grow, surprises are sprung, and we are kept comfortbly intimate with our established characters. New views, new twists, new horizons, maturity, and new members of the cast strengthen our need to read and pull us into the associations.

I can hardly wait for "Explorer", and the one after that, and the one after... well... you get the picture.

Rating:
Summary: Defender-Great Stuff
Review: As usual, Cherryh has maintained her high level of writing in this 5th book in the Foreigner series. While I still think the first book, "Foreigner" was the best, the rest of the books continue to build on the complex political and cultural intrigue of the Atevi civilization. The premise of the series involves a human colony stranded on a planet inhabited by the Atevi, a mathmatically brilliant race with a superior and complex culture. Bren Cameron, the brilliant young human chosen as the single translator between humans and Atevi continues to evolve and develop in this book. Unlike many of Cherryh's protagnists, who are never really deeply developed, Bren emerges both as a diplomat and a person. His human family concerns continue to stress him, while his Atevi connections grow stronger. In this fifth book, Bren is shaken to discover that his Atevi lord, Tabini, has kept him completely in the dark regarding a plan to recover lost human colonists from another space station. Bren is left to question his value to Tabini in a society that uses assassination to remove troublesome rivals. Faced with another daunting diplomatic task, Bren is for the first time unsure of his authority and his standing with Tabini. Cherryh makes no effort to resolve all the issues raised in Defender and leaves us anxious for the sixth and pending book, "Explorer". I am hoping for more books to follow. This is one of Cherryhs' absolutely best series for fans of literate and complex science fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Defender-Great Stuff
Review: As usual, Cherryh has maintained her high level of writing in this 5th book in the Foreigner series. While I still think the first book, "Foreigner" was the best, the rest of the books continue to build on the complex political and cultural intrigue of the Atevi civilization. The premise of the series involves a human colony stranded on a planet inhabited by the Atevi, a mathmatically brilliant race with a superior and complex culture. Bren Cameron, the brilliant young human chosen as the single translator between humans and Atevi continues to evolve and develop in this book. Unlike many of Cherryh's protagnists, who are never really deeply developed, Bren emerges both as a diplomat and a person. His human family concerns continue to stress him, while his Atevi connections grow stronger. In this fifth book, Bren is shaken to discover that his Atevi lord, Tabini, has kept him completely in the dark regarding a plan to recover lost human colonists from another space station. Bren is left to question his value to Tabini in a society that uses assassination to remove troublesome rivals. Faced with another daunting diplomatic task, Bren is for the first time unsure of his authority and his standing with Tabini. Cherryh makes no effort to resolve all the issues raised in Defender and leaves us anxious for the sixth and pending book, "Explorer". I am hoping for more books to follow. This is one of Cherryhs' absolutely best series for fans of literate and complex science fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Defender-Great Stuff
Review: As usual, Cherryh has maintained her high level of writing in this 5th book in the Foreigner series. While I still think the first book, "Foreigner" was the best, the rest of the books continue to build on the complex political and cultural intrigue of the Atevi civilization. The premise of the series involves a human colony stranded on a planet inhabited by the Atevi, a mathmatically brilliant race with a superior and complex culture. Bren Cameron, the brilliant young human chosen as the single translator between humans and Atevi continues to evolve and develop in this book. Unlike many of Cherryh's protagnists, who are never really deeply developed, Bren emerges both as a diplomat and a person. His human family concerns continue to stress him, while his Atevi connections grow stronger. In this fifth book, Bren is shaken to discover that his Atevi lord, Tabini, has kept him completely in the dark regarding a plan to recover lost human colonists from another space station. Bren is left to question his value to Tabini in a society that uses assassination to remove troublesome rivals. Faced with another daunting diplomatic task, Bren is for the first time unsure of his authority and his standing with Tabini. Cherryh makes no effort to resolve all the issues raised in Defender and leaves us anxious for the sixth and pending book, "Explorer". I am hoping for more books to follow. This is one of Cherryhs' absolutely best series for fans of literate and complex science fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Hmmm....
Review: C.J. Cherryh is my favorite writer. I read all of her books with a kind of insane fixation, and every time I get a new one I devour it within a day. _Defender_ was no exception.

Bren defines himself as the paidhi. The first book (_Foreigner_) was rife with symbolism suggesting Bren as mankind's sacrifice, a second messiah. By this fifth book now there are at least three paidhi (Jase, Yolanda, and Bren himself) and Bren lives mainly on the Phoenix, worrying about assassination attempts that never manifest, his mother who's been dying (on again, off again) for years, and Barb, his quasi-ex-fiance who can never make up her mind or get a life. Finally Bren is sent away from his political-sacrificial limbo for good, empowered by Tabini to be paidhi-aiji to the nebulous but obviously very scary aliens.

After I finished _Defender_ I had to re-read the first two in the series. My favorite part is Bren's explanation of 'tears.' But especially after finishing _Foreigner_ and _Invader_ again I felt _Defender_ had a few flaws:

At the beginning of the series, Bren is considerate, cautious, intelligent, and responsible. Now his character is shallow and officious, and his 'likeability' has gone the way of Banichi's sense of humor. Bren is cardboard.

Secondly the sense of danger, that no matter how good or perceptive Bren was ('hard-wiring' taken into account) he would *always* need to be careful of atevi sensibilities, is gone. Ilisidi is no longer a wild-card, but now just one more way to show the reader how great Bren is. There's no awareness that Bren is human--and the atevi are *not*.

And then the atevi stand in awe of Bren and tell him their man'chi takes no detours--but this seems like a way to get possible conflicts with atevi out of the way so Bren can agonize more about the (again, unmanifesting) threats to his life. Or everybody else's life, which shouldn't be a part of his responsibilities anyway. That was the biggest problem with the book: considering the explosive nature of the first two in the series, the sense of pending catastrophe makes you expect something truly awful to happen, something that will require a miracle and/or a sacrifice from Bren. And it never did.

Cherryh's books are always a pleasure to read, but this one could have been so much more!

Rating:
Summary: non defender
Review: Cherryh's strength has been her characters, as much as her plots. In the Foreigner universe, she has created some of her strongest.

But the latest release, Defender, both plot and characters have received short shrift. In fact, at the end of this short book (it has 314 pages, Precursor had 438), the characters and the situation are almost identical. There is little interaction between Bren and Banichi, Jago, and Ilisidi. With a little editing, this book could have been 2 or 3 chapters of the next book. If you miss this one, don't worry. Nothing happened.

Rating:
Summary: A stolid installment
Review: Defender is by far the weakest book of the "Foreigner" series, and probably the weakest of the many books by Cherryh that I have read. In a complex relationship skillfully painted in four prior novels, Bren Cameron evolved from translator between humans and Atevi to confidante and advisor to the leader of the Atevi people. The key event that overarched the earlier novels was the return after a 200 year absence of the starship, Phoenix, which had dumped and stranded a group of humans on the Atevi home world. During that absence, Atevi and "planet" humans developed an uneasy but working relationship. The returning ship needs help, however, having encountered hostile aliens in another star system who destroyed one of its space stations. In Defender, we learn that humans were left at the station (contray to the initial claims by the captains of the Phoenix), and that the hostile aliens could use them to find the way to the Atevi home world. Prompted by this danger, the Atevi-human alliance moves to launch Phoenix quickly in an effort to rescue the people from that station and, with luck, leave no trail for the aliens.

The book moves at a glacial pace. Virtually nothing significant happens in the first 70 pages. Cherryh's writing is uncharacteristically turgid and the plot is flat. There are long passages describing a dinner meal, for instance. This type of information was interesting and informative in the early novels when the Atevi were being introduced and readers had to learn the nature of people very different from humans. By the fifth novel, the characters and their societies are well-developed, however. If the reader does not know why a table for two is anathema for Atevi, "Defender" will unfathomable. Cherry also drags into the novel Bren's difficult relationship with his family and human ex-lover. This is tiring and adds nothing to the plot. Having verbatim whole letters to and from various family members and others is very annoying. The real failing of the book is that nothing *really* important to the series happens. There is tremendous grist for plotting and intrigue (for instance, how did the Atevi leader and the senior captain of the Phoenix begin and then keep secret their plans for re-launching the Phoenix?) Cherryh uncharacteristically misses the ball.

I like many of Cherryh's readers greatly anticipated this sequel. However the book had the feel of a "rush job" and was quite disappointing. Cherryh is quite prolific. Clumsy work by an artist usually skilled in English usage suggests that other exigencies may have come into play. I hope more care is paid to the crafting of the final novel in the series.

Rating:
Summary: A stolid installment
Review: Defender is by far the weakest book of the "Foreigner" series, and probably the weakest of the many books by Cherryh that I have read. In a complex relationship skillfully painted in four prior novels, Bren Cameron evolved from translator between humans and Atevi to confidante and advisor to the leader of the Atevi people. The key event that overarched the earlier novels was the return after a 200 year absence of the starship, Phoenix, which had dumped and stranded a group of humans on the Atevi home world. During that absence, Atevi and "planet" humans developed an uneasy but working relationship. The returning ship needs help, however, having encountered hostile aliens in another star system who destroyed one of its space stations. In Defender, we learn that humans were left at the station (contray to the initial claims by the captains of the Phoenix), and that the hostile aliens could use them to find the way to the Atevi home world. Prompted by this danger, the Atevi-human alliance moves to launch Phoenix quickly in an effort to rescue the people from that station and, with luck, leave no trail for the aliens.

The book moves at a glacial pace. Virtually nothing significant happens in the first 70 pages. Cherryh's writing is uncharacteristically turgid and the plot is flat. There are long passages describing a dinner meal, for instance. This type of information was interesting and informative in the early novels when the Atevi were being introduced and readers had to learn the nature of people very different from humans. By the fifth novel, the characters and their societies are well-developed, however. If the reader does not know why a table for two is anathema for Atevi, "Defender" will unfathomable. Cherry also drags into the novel Bren's difficult relationship with his family and human ex-lover. This is tiring and adds nothing to the plot. Having verbatim whole letters to and from various family members and others is very annoying. The real failing of the book is that nothing *really* important to the series happens. There is tremendous grist for plotting and intrigue (for instance, how did the Atevi leader and the senior captain of the Phoenix begin and then keep secret their plans for re-launching the Phoenix?) Cherryh uncharacteristically misses the ball.

I like many of Cherryh's readers greatly anticipated this sequel. However the book had the feel of a "rush job" and was quite disappointing. Cherryh is quite prolific. Clumsy work by an artist usually skilled in English usage suggests that other exigencies may have come into play. I hope more care is paid to the crafting of the final novel in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent insights and social commentary here
Review: Defender provides a fine sequel to Precursor, and familiarity with this complex story is recommended for quick, thorough appreciation of the characters and setting of Defender. An exiled human colony faces newly-empowered aliens as a starship's return and gifts affect their careful balance. Excellent insights and social commentary here.