Foreigner by CJ Cherryh

Foreigner lagged a little in the middle of the book for me. Cherry lays out this complex society, complex worldbuilding, complex understanding of atevi cultural norms, in stages that track with Bren becoming a different person than at the start—braver, more understanding of those around him, and more realistic about risks and rewards. More atevi, less human. Naturally, Bren needs to be left alone some, in order to allow these changes to proceed realistically, to be processed in his mind. Rather than skipping this step, Cherryh writes it out. All of it. Using Bren’s changes to further illuminate aspects of the world, to recontextualize earlier situations, to drive home human and atevi relations and differences. She does this through repetition, rephrasing, and showing. The Bren of the start would not have been saddened by the death of one of his torturers. The Bren of the end is saddened by it. And this difference is key to the story's arc.

Trust was a word you couldn't translate. But the atevi had fourteen words for betrayal.

This structure—action followed by internal change—stops and starts the pace of the novel. First, a ship launches into FTL and doesn’t come out where they aimed, cue panic and sacrifice—and a lack of reflection here disorients the reader. Then, 100 years later, the ship’s descendants essentially crash-land on a planet that is already occupied by atevi, and one human gets kidnapped—and a lack of reflection here disorients the reader. But rather than this being a compilation of short stories, the next start is the last start, when, 200 years later, a man named Bren shoots at somebody invading his bedroom, followed by quite a few pages of reflection on that and fallout from it. Bren goes to Malurgi, followed by same pages of reflection. Bren drinks poisoned tea, followed by same. And then happenings start to stack again, start to occur simultaneously and speed the pace back up: the power goes out and Bren finally gets Jago to open up, followed by some reflection. Then Ilsidi’s wild ride, tourists coming to the castle, and another assassination attempt all happen in the same scene. And that’s when Bren really loses control. Too much is happening too fast for him to track with, leaving the reader to fill in some blanks—in a great way. And then we’re already at the breakneck paced end of the book, with the flight, the fights, and the arrival of the excession ship, which recontextualizes the whole novel up to that point, but still leaves mystery to the atevi reactions.

The sounds that reached his ears were rich enough, the wind and the creak of leather and jingle of harness and bridle rings, the scuff of gravel, the sighing of the grass along the hill—but he’d never been anywhere, even Taiben, where he couldn’t see power lines, or hear, however faintly, the sound of aircraft, or a passing train, or just the generalized hum of machinery working—and he’d never known it existed, until he heard its absence.

The middle is bookended by consistent action, is more introspective to Bren beginning to finally understand the alien atevi culture than anything else. This contrast made it feel like it lagged a little for me. I know Cherryh is using this space to really put flesh on her world—and it worked brilliantly. Somewhere about the torture scene I realized in my head, I believed and understood, just how alien atevi culture is to humans. A piece, a clue clicked into place, and I understood Bren's struggle as a result. And that is an important realization for the readers. Cherryh’s tactic did what it should have. But, and this is merely a niggling point as I did love this novel, the middle lagged a little in interest. Don’t read this book if you’re looking for pulp fiction, it’s a lot of worldbuilding.

He’d fired a gun, he’d learned he would shoot to kill, for fear, for—he was discovering—for a terrible, terrible anger he had, an anger that was still shaking him—an anger he hadn’t known he had, didn’t know where it had started, or what it wanted to do, or whether it was directed at himself, or atevi, or any specific situation.

Cherryh focuses here on one character. With her distinctive voice, it takes time to extrapolate a whole world from that one character. Yet she builds Bren into such a strong character that I understand his optimism, care, goodness, before they're explicitly stated. She shows and tells, perhaps telling just a bit too much, and Bren’s path through the world allows her to engage other interesting characters. Ilisidi, Cenedi, Jogi, Banichi. I couldn’t stop reading. It’s a rare book that grips me and fills my mind like this one did. But the point of these notes is to find why it did grip me.

Maybe it was paralysis of will. Maybe it was instinct saying Be still—don’t defy the only friend humanity has on this planet.

She tells the alien atevi and the alien human so well. This is a characteristic strength of Cherryh’s: alien cultures. Her work here starts with both seeming familiar and safe, but as questions and unexpected twists and turns begin stacking up in Bren’s mind, the alien nature of human to atevi grows clearer. Bren embodies Polybius’ task—Bren is the Mospheira human sent to the atevi to work closely with their ruler, explaining humans to atevi, and atevi to humans. So this discussion of the differences between the two cultures constitutes his profession, and a main focus of the novel.

As if the mind could leap, that quickly, back to ski catalogs. His damned well couldn’t. It didn’t like informational voids; it didn’t like silent guards lurking in his reception room, or the chance there was a reason to need them, possibly slipping up the stairs outside.

Yet Cherryh doesn’t focus on the differences so much on Bren trying to understand them, and overcome them. Some of my favorite moments were Bren steeling himself for taking up the gauntlet the old woman had thrown down—drinking her tea after she had already poisoned him with tea, being frank where she challenges him to, riding the hunting beasts over the mountains, and finally bravely saving her life without any need, an act that earns her and her bodyguards’ respect. He realizes this tough old woman, who has a fondness for surrounding herself with young men, tests everybody around her, is sharper and more perceptive than everyone around her, and has standards that she rigidly holds. Yet instead of treating all of this like some alien inexplicable trait, Cherryh treats Ilisidi as a character. A normal character. She’s not human, and she doesn’t come off human, but she is just another character with all of her preferences and dislikes.

He made an effort to fold up the computer. Jago shut the case for him, and disconnected the cord. After that—the necessity of getting up. He made it that far. Ended up with Banichi’s arm around him, Banichi standing on one leg. The dowager-aiji said something rude about young men falling at her feet, and go sit down, she was in command of the plane.

And Cherryh builds the atevi culture out of these character studies. Bren at the start only understands Tabini and two other atevi. Then he realizes that he doesn’t understand Tabini and starts to pay attention to those around him. By the end of the book, both he and I understand atevi culture only as far as the people Bren knows: Cenedi’s professionalism, Ilisidi’s desires, Tabini’s desperation, Banichi’s lack of understanding, Jago’s discomfort with human ideas, Djinana’s devotion to cultural history. Through these characters, a range and diversity of atevi culture is shown and told. Instead of dumping some wikipedia-esque explanation on the reader, Cherryh takes Bren into the culture, with the reader riding inside his head, and lets the culture explain itself. This is some of her strongest storytelling in this way. And the theme should be readily apparent by now: overcoming differences in priority respectfully, relying on empathy. In other words, who is the real alien here? By the end I understand less about human culture on Mospheira, because Bren and the whole book have been in atevi lands.

Not damned fair. The only thing in his life he enjoyed with complete abandon. And it was a damned death wish.

The repetition Cherryh typically engages in often strengthens the reader’s understanding. But here it goes a little overboard. It’s a little heavy handed through Bren’s struggles, how his brain keeps trodding over the same ground again and again and again. I understand that in reality, as my brain does the same when faced with problems like this—unintended offences, a lack of understanding other people, cultural differences, mistakes at work. But it’s not the most enjoyable to read through the whole book.

He’d become, he decided, thoroughly paranoid. Afraid. And he didn’t think a crew from the national news network was going to produce explosive devices. It was stupid.

That all said, this book read very well. These two small critiques of Cherryh’s work still allow this book to be better than most science fiction I have read. It’s not her best work, but it’s also not the forgettable, necessary intro that many reviewers have dismissed it as. Yes, I want more complexity and less repetition in Bren’s development. Yes, the middle grows a little stale because of that over repetition. But find me another writer capable of injecting such a deep understanding of alienness, and I’d be really surprised. Well worth reading, and I love it.

He wished he’d done better than he’d done. Didn’t know how he could have. He was alive and they hadn’t found him. Better than some of the professionals had scored. Better luck than poor Giri, who’d been a decent man.

[Edit 10-2-19: When first introduced to Bren, Cherryh tells the reader that he works as a diplomat and translator. Yet Cherryh’s plot and characters show him like a spy: his kidnapping, torture, ignorance, and actions do not match up with what Cherryh tells about Bren. By the end of the book, I realized that Bren learning about his ignorance was a point of the book. He slowly becomes more competent through the next two books, but clearly shows a rising understanding, and the personal conflicts of a changing role in life, changing personality. By the time of the fourth book, his competence is clearly shown and told. And Bren finally starts to really shine.]

[Edit 10-11-19: One thing just struck me about why this book doesn't work as well as later books in the series: Cherryh tells us again and again that Ilisidi is difficult to deal with, but she seems most pleasant on the surface. The poisoning comes off accidental, and she seems to be forced into the interrogation. Instead of showing us just how difficult she can be, Cherryh asks us to trust her, and that's a tall task to trust her through 90% of the novel when the evidence on the page implies the opposite.]