This is my first attempt at Cherryh, and I'm on the fence as to whether or not there will be more. I'm surprised that the reviews of this aren't more tepid.The atevi are interesting: the alien species at the heart of the book, dark-skinned, larger than humans, but more importantly hardwired in a different way. Their society runs on hierarchies based on duty, but friendship and trust are notably absent. They are mathematically astute and tend to glorify numbers and seem to desire to reduce decision making to equations. If an individual is getting in the way of the greater good, it's acceptable in their society to hire an assassin and remove them, but this hiring is a matter of public record.A ship full of humans has become lost in the galaxy where the atevi live. Eventually they decide to move on to the atevi planet. This well-intentioned choice is still an invasion and eventually leads to war between humans and atevi. Most of the book picks up (after two interesting early chapters that unfortunately don't really go anywhere) a few generations later, after a truce has been reached. The humans give the atevi technology (their society is at first far behind in technology, but the gap is narrowing) in exchange for being allowed to survive in the face of the atevi's vast numerical advantage. The story is told from the point of view of Bren Cameron, who has taken the role of paidhi. The paidhi is the only human who lives among the atevi, a very complex diplomatic position, as the differences between the atevi and the humans are not always obvious on the surface.But it's here where the story break down for me. As interesting as Cherryh's concept is, the execution is pedestrian. The insecurity of Bren's position leaves him constantly dithering and his perspective grows tiresome, too introspective. He doesn't know what's going on and for much of the book, very little happens. The book would be more entertaining if Cherryh had found a way to show us what the atevi are like through more action instead of telling us through Bren's rather bland stream of conscious. One of the challenges Cherryh sets for herself is to make the atevi difficult to understand as a species yet still make us interested in the atevi characters. Unfortunately, and I think particularly because we see everything through Bren's eyes, this doesn't happen. The atevi all blend together, with the exception of one conniving dowager in exile.To me this book only builds up steam in the final chapters, and by then I'd ceased to care. After 400 pages of reading, I felt like I'd reached a starting point for the series. That's a bit longer than I like my prologues! It took me a long time to get through this book, and I don't know if I'll continue the series.
well-respected and prolific science fiction author-cum-scifi-anthropologist C.J. Cherryh puts her considerable gifts to work in this introductory volume to her elephantine mega-series, as she begins a sensitive new tradition: fiction that is specifically geared to those unfortunate individuals who have no experience in reading, as well as to our fellows experiencing severe mental challenges. i for one appreciate the effort and am happy to report that the writing in this novel makes every attempt to be as repetitious, plodding, and as glacially-paced as possible, in order to allow the novice and/or challenged reader to fully grasp the ideas on display. to that end, each and every thought and concept and character bit is repeated extensively, often repeatedly within the same page, and upwards of a dozen times over the course of, say, two or three pages. surely this bold strategy will only serve to support those first-time readers in their endeavors, and can only help those challenged by low memory capacity and extremely short-term attention spans. the reader can literally forget or skip entire passages, and lo and behold, exactly the same commentary will reappear, again and again. bravo, Cherryh! this is certainly a step in a brave new direction. it is no wonder that this novel spawned so many sequels!i have constructed a brief fantasia that illustrates this arresting technique:Bren was extremely worried about the assassination attempt and was quite annoyed that his freedom of movement had been compromised. A worrisome Bren couldn't believe he had to suffer an escort everywhere! "I really am awfully worried that I can't phone home", said Bren, as he huffily realized that his ability to buy canned meat alone was no longer possible. "This really bothers me, I can't even leave my apartment without an escort!" notes Bren, as he paces his apartment in frustration. It was driving him crazy with annoyance and worry that not only had an assassin tried to kill him, now he couldn't travel alone anymore. He could not leave his apartment alone. After all, an assassin had just attempted to murder him. An actual assassin! Trying to murder him! It was all so worrisome. And as if the assassination attempt wasn't enough, now he couldn't even leave his apartment unaccompanied. "This is really very annoying and I feel awfully compromised, so much so that I am genuinely worried," reflected Bren.okay, this novel gets an extra star for two opening chapters (or "books", as Cherryh sees fit to call them) that are well-written and genuinely riveting. and that have nothing to do with the tedious narrative that follows.
Do You like book Foreigner (2004)?
Wow! Great opening to a series. As ever C.J. Cherryh writing style takes a bit of adapting to but her story is brilliantly plotted and you can see that from the get go she has designed the series to be larger than simply the one novel Something C.J. Cherryh is known for. The characters are all drwan brillianlty and the events of the story will actually keep you guessing. The alien culture portrayed is also well created providing a truly alien culture which will no doubt be explored in later book
—Christopher
Cherryh creates the best aliens. Always. This individual book gets 4 stars because it drags a little but I give the series 5 stars. The series currently has 10 books of which I have read 9 and am rereading. I like this series because the humans aren't in the power position. It is about two species whose hard wiring creates different concepts in language which in turn creates differences in culture. Our hero Bren is the only translator (the paidhi) between the two species. He is dealing with the Atevi who don't have a word for friend but have 14 words for betrayal.
—Joyce
Borrowing the words from Liviu: I tried this book, but it is not for me.This novel has good opening, but after that the story is dragging with unmemorable ending (I don't remember the ending, and I don't really care). And there are a lot of plots/questions unresolved.Then I found out that this book is the first of a pretty long series (around 20 years in the making between book 1 and book 15). Maybe that's why the ending is not so satisfying, but that's my opinion.I admit, I bought this novel due to the cover art by Michael Whelan. The cover art is displaying black tall warrior class alien. It is too beautiful not to glance the cover, and (as if) promising war-space-opera-science-fiction. But the first book is more like planetary adventure.Maybe I have wrong expectation that resulted in 2 star rating. I expected a single novel story, not a beginning of a series.
—Jokoloyo
