Reviews of Foreigner

This file contains reviews by

Dani Zweig
David Langford

by Dani Zweig (dani@telerama.lm.com)

Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 02:57:42 GMT

C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner is subtitled "A novel of first contact." Humans have lived alongside the Atevi for centuries (involuntarily, after their ship went astray), and they're still at the first-contact stage, trying to understand them. The two species have a great deal in common, but some key concepts simply will not translate. Atevi cannot comprehend what it is to 'like' someone, for instance, and Humans keep coming up with mistranslations of "man'chi". (Atevi form interlocking associations, rather than nations, but define themselves, as individuals, by their choice of an over-riding loyalty.) These misunderstandings led to war in the past past (the Humans lost, and negotiated a prolonged and orderly transmission of their technology), and threaten to do so again.
Cherryh has carved herself a recognizable niche through her portrayals of alien species trying to get along, trying to understand each other, and often settling for some degree of mutual accomodation. Her Chanur novels, for example, are set in a Compact of space-faring species, some of which can barely communicate with others, and they combine interesting stories with thought-provoking backgrounds. In Foreigner, Cherryh focuses upon the problem of understanding the alien at the expense of the story, and it doesn't work very well. In the main, we get over three hundred pages of Bren Cameron - the Human liason - and his guards stepping on each others' sensibilities.
The problem itself isn't that interesting, either: The source of the friction between Atevi and Humans is not so much their inability to understand each other as the insistance of each on relating to the other as they would to members of their own species. Whereas a Hani would say "I don't understand them, but I can trade with them, and if things blow up I'll duck", Cameron wants the Atevi to like him.
I didn't enjoy Foreigner. The story, such as it is, consists of a not-very-interesting character trying to cope with a situation he doesn't understand, and to deal with issues that Cherryh's handled in more interesting ways in other novels.

by David Langford (ansible@cix.compulink.co.uk)

Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 19:20:16 GMT

Cherryh is on good form in this densely textured novel of alien relations. A stranded Earth colony on a remote planet has survived two centuries by trading technology with inscrutable natives who have no word for trust but fourteen for betrayal. It's all convincingly precarious, multi-factioned and messy; deceptions abound as the sole diplomat allowed out of the human ghetto is deviously put to the test. Despite early longueurs, the story grips hard.