Foreigner

This was a fantastic (albeit surprising) science fiction novel. Generally I'm not a fan of the whole new worlds, alien creatures type of scifi-a lot of times I feel inundated with extraneous technical information, which bores me, frankly. However, Cherryh has done an outstanding job of creating a believable "new" world, while keeping the techy stuff to a minimum. What I loved most, apart from her created language, was the obvious tension and conflict felt between the atevi and human races. Bren Cameron, a sort of human diplomat to the atevi race, simply CANNOT make himself understood and in turn has an impossible time coming to terms with the motivations of this alien race. It was an incredibly fascinating read, and I can't wait to show more continue the trilogy (story arc? here's another reason I don't normally like books like this-it branches off into different story arcs and simply confuses me). show less

According to my records, I read this in 1996, a week after reading Cyteen. Just re-read it for the first time since, and wow, what an excellent book. I was particularly struck by the two introductory chapters, each essentially framing short stories for the novel, and how rich a backstory and society Cherryh paints with them, accomplishing more than many average SF books do. And then there's the main story, which I think I appreciated and followed much more this time around.

Back in 1996, I didn't like the aliens, especially as shown on the cover,
and it was all confusing. (It still is, but in a good way.) I had expected to sort of slog through this reread, on my way to the 10 (?!) sequels that have been written since. Instead, wow, I have show more nearly as much Cherryh as I've read before ahead of me.

(This wasn't as much a shock as rereading _40,000_ and having it go from 2 to 4 stars, but I clearly missed a lot of Cherryh's depth the first time around.) show less

Cherryh, C. J. Foreigner. Foreigner No. 1. Daw, 1994.
Rereading the first novel in C. J. Cherryh’s long-running Foreigner series, I was impressed by how many clues we get to themes and plot elements that are developed much later in the series. First, Cherryh is careful to establish that human scientific superiority does not mean that they can implement all they know. Their existence on land and in space is marginal and fraught with political division. When their undermanned starship abandons the station built in orbit around the only habitable planet within reach, the station cannot maintain its population. Their goal is to plant a colony on the planet and use the Atevi, its native humanoid species, to create the technological base show more they need. But the Atevi confine the colonists to one island and negotiate with them for the technology they want, which is not always the technology the humans want to give them. When the starship returns two-hundred years later, the fragile détente is endangered. This background story, told in the first fifteen percent of the novel, grounds the political drama developed in the next several trilogies in the series.
Most of Foreigner follows protagonist Bren Cameron and his relationship with the Atevi family, with whom humans have established political relations. Bren is primarily a linguist charged with learning to communicate efficiently with the Atevi. He finds that he cannot learn the language without partially assimilating into Atevi culture. His efforts to balance his duty and connection with his human family and colleagues as he begins to think almost like an Atevi are the core of the series.
The Atevi are a conservative, xenophobic society that is just beginning to industrialize. They look to numerology to evaluate every new idea and have no concept of emotions like love and friendship. Atevi society is a patchwork of loose associations with conflicting clan loyalties. Justice is dispensed by a guild of assassins that act has bodyguards for the rich and powerful. Tabini, who would be the head of state if the Atevi had such things as states, is interested in using his connection with the human colony to increase Atevi power and secure his position against his Atevi rivals. His powerful and dangerous grandmother does more than anyone to educate Bren into the Atevi rituals and values. Bren’s two assassin bodyguards are his closest companions. Even in this first novel, there is already sexual tension between Bren and one of the bodyguards. Cherryh’s adroit limited third-person narration let us follow Bren’s conflicted emotions and calculations as he works to understand what it will take to survive. Foreigner is character-driven science fiction at its best. 5 stars. show less

Classic Cherryh set-up! Some poor schmuck ends up alone among an alien group (sometimes human) trying to figure out what he/she has to do to survive. In this case a spaceship en route to set up a new space station along a trade corridor is thrown of course, like, wayyyyy of course, into an utterly unrecognizable galaxy. The culture on the ship is divided in two--the Guild of pilots and the civilians who will build the station. After a long search they find a habitable planet and build a station around it. They know there is an advancing culture down there (they have steam, for ex). The pilots want to keep exploring, the civs want to go live on the planet. A deal is struck. Down they go. The real story begins 200 years after, with Bren show more Cameron, the designated Paidhi, whose job is to act as the speaker of humans to atevi. Humans are, bit by bit, doling out the technology they think the atevi can "handle" ecologically and culturally (e.g. peacefully), but things are coming to a crisis and Bren is caught in the vortex of change. The atevi are marvelous. You can say "humanoid"-- their basic structure is similar to ours, but the point is that they have evolved differently and do not have the same emotions or social structures as humans. No words for "trust" or "friend", no tears, adult are not so much organized by family groups as a web of alliances and allegiances. They are brilliant with number, the atevi, so humans are nervously aware that likely they are progressing secretly, in ways they can't control, less and less, as they approach a tipping-point of knowledge of physics. There are atevi factions that fear and loathe humans, are convinced that they plan to take over the entire planet, etc. that have kept them banished on a large island, isolated and apart, and the paidhi is the only human who interacts with them (and only at the highest level) and then something unexpected happens which triggers . . . major upheaval. And a lot of pain and suffering for poor old Bren. The atevi around him, mainly the guard, Banichi and Jago, come through as individuals, and as truly different, fearfully unknowable. There is a feisty grandma who rides their version of a horse like a whirlwind. . . and the atevi, Tabini, who runs the Western Association, Bren's lifeline. I love it, I'll be reading this like a mad thing all winter, I expect. ****1/2 show less

The only human allowed into an alien society is thrust into a situation that challenges all his preconceptions.

Intellectually, this book has a lot going for it. It's structured in such a way that the reader is fully immersed in a carefully constructed alien society. The main character is reasonably easy to relate to. The writing style mirrors his thought processes as he reacts to everything around him. There's tons of food for thought as Cherryh explores the differences between atevi and human hardwiring.

And I really, really wish I could say I'd enjoyed it, but it just didn't work for me. There were two short segments when my attention was fully engaged, but for the most part I just didn't care. I couldn't get involved with Bren or his show more predicament. I was pretty durned glad when I finally finished it.

I think I would have gotten more out of it if it had been pared down to only its most essential elements. I didn't want all the little details of atevi society. They're different. I get it. I didn't need to be told so over and over and over again. I often felt like Cherryh was giving the me the same example of their differences over and over again, in slightly different ways each time. It just got to be too much for me.

But I think the style was the biggest sticking point. I believe I'd have enjoyed Cherryh's style quite a bit if this had been a short story, but it just didn't work for me as a novel. I sometimes felt like I was decoding the book as I sifted through Bren's realistically recorded thoughts, and I always find that frustrating. If I'm invested in the characters and their story, I'm willing to work for the payoff. If I'm not, I'm not, and that was the case here.

And finally, I guessed what was going on almost instantly and became increasingly annoyed with Bren as he failed to see what was happening.

So no, this most definitely wasn't a winner. I may read the next book eventually, just in case the series gets better, but it's far from a priority. And I'll definitely be borrowing it from the library instead of buying it. show less

Third read, 8/18/16:

What can I say? Until it gets to Bren, I'm not attached to the story much, but the fact that so much of them comes back to haunt us in subsequent novels makes me *want* to pay attention. But other than that, once Bren is in the spotlight and we're in his head, I'm there, and this becomes one of my favorite novels. :)

Why? The psychology, mainly. The Atevi are really fantastic aliens and the real diamond in this series is the fact that they are not hardwired the same way as us. Their knee-jerk reactions are *not* ours, and Bren, our interpreter/diplomat, starts out in the middle of an assassination attempt on his life for reasons he doesn't understand and political associations and alien emotions that refuse to be show more cracked. It doesn't help that the Atevi think of everything in a type of numerology, that word orders and groupings of people or objects are either fortunate or unfortunate, that Bren must do the equivalent of tensor calculus with ever sentence, and then he gets thrown into the really life-threatening situations.

The whole novel is about trying to understand his situation, and its harrowing and I'm just as concerned and confused as the MC. And this is still true even when I've read a good portion of the rest of the series and this is my third read for this one. Can I be even more impressed than this?

Will Bren's decisions alter the destinies of the stranded human colony and the aliens? Is he betraying his own kind? Or can he rely on his gut reactions? Can he ever trust the Atevi?

Totally amazing thriller. :)


Original review:

My personal favorites of Cherryh are the Foreigner books, hands down. And that's even while excluding her actual Hugo winners, Downbelow Station and Cyteen.

It's been so long since I started the Foreigner series that I only very vaguely recall having to struggle a little bit at the beginning. The second readthrough, on the other hand, was an absolute joy, picking up and retaining all those previously annoying details that then brought the tale to life. Nothing is wasted. The tension between remaining loyal to the human community and getting sucked into the political tensions of an interesting alien race that could seriously benefit from a greater stream of technology was like a draft of pure clean water in comparison to so many years of ham-fisted Star Trek.

The seriously twisted mental gymnastics of having to speak through numerology made me really believe, deep down, that these aliens were not only brighter than us, but they were also natural Shakespearean poets. I also learned more about herd mentality from this book than I did from any other source, and she made it truly exciting.

What will Bren do? Will he betray his own kind? Is it right to do so? Is he being set up to die?

The poor Paidhi was so lost. I loved it. show less

This had a very slow start, with two different prologues. And the entire first half was mostly a lot of internal monologuing and descriptions. But I'm still giving it four stars because the aliens were just that good. They have their own fully-constructed world, culture, animals, history, everything. And the human ambassador, who is the main character, has spent his life studying them and still doesn't understand.

There's a plot, but it's not really about the plot. It's about the impossibility of understanding and predicting someone who doesn't think or feel the way you do.

As a science fiction writer myself, I shut this one with a mind teeming with ideas of how to make my work better. That makes it one of the most important books I've show more read this year. I'm glad I didn't give up on it. show less