Pretender by CJ Cherryh

The second of the counter-revolution trilogy within the larger Foreigner series. The setup at the end of the last book⁠—getting everybody into one place except the pretender to the throne⁠—explodes here. Battles take place in the house they’re all stuffed into, enemy Assassin’s Guild shows up in the house, and then everybody gets on busses, planes, and trains and heads into the capital to try and take back power. Followed, for the first time in this series, a sort of epilogue. I mean, the fighting stops about two chapters before the book ends⁠—I expect Cherryh to end her books right after the central conflict is resolved. Her typical tactic is to start somewhere where the tension isn't immediately apparent yet, build out the characters and context for the first third of the book which increases the tension drastically, then an explosion of action for two thirds of the book, and end about ten pages before the reader fully grasps what's going on, leaving the book to further unravel in the reader's mind—which works because of the rationality driving the characters. But here she pauses and shows some of the fallout, the start of knitting the world back together after the coup and counter-revolution. This pacing works for me. Instead of sitting and contemplating potential fallout⁠—like in the last trilogy how they rescue the Reunion stationers, then the next book starts with them about to drop out of lightspeed into atevi space, and readers must fill in the year-long gap. Here we get a sense of what happens in that gap, and it shines. Instead of ending on a bang, Cherryh lets us down slowly. I hope this tactic is something she’ll use again in the future. It’s great to see an author experimenting with her story-telling tactics this late in her career.

Ilisidi snapped, the head of the cane tucked against her chest. "Damned fools! Two years of managing for themselves and they develop their own channels, excluding all higher authority! Delusions. Delusions of competency. This will not be acceptable."

Political priorities rule this book, as clans come and go and discuss other clans. There’s complexity and foreshadowing throughout. But, as a reader who doesn’t exist in this world, it would be easy for an author to lose me here. Yet Cherryh doesn’t forget her readers. She knows that her readers don’t need to get lost in the details, but that her characters do. So she communicates enough to show and tell Bren getting lost in the details, but not enough to stress the reader’s patience. It’s a fine line and she walks it well.

"There is word of other foreigners, unknown to us—" A small murmur that quickly faded as he continued, "—but there will always be foreigners. The universe is very large. The more we know, as a world, the more authority we have."

The theme of this book simply shows change, and all that changes because of change. Everything is interconnected⁠—hence the complex loyalties of the clans discussed. And as technology has come and changed the world, in ways Bren and Tabini had planned for, it has done far more. Unexpected change happens around every atevi and how they react to the changing technology. In other words, everything that we learned through the last seven books has changed⁠—including how the main characters react to that change. Tabini and Bren react, plan, and act, worried about timing and collateral damage throughout. It seems Cherryh concludes that change just is, not that it’s good or bad. But how one reacts to that change does start to show positives and negatives, and it’s the important aspect.

They all had changed. The world had changed. And changed again.

One thing Cherryh dwells on echoes me learning about Beowulf in college. In Beowulf the old sword is better because it has lasted, proving that it was made well. In our day and age, the new phone is better because it has the latest and greatest. This story shows and tries to explain a culture going through that change. Atevi culture is big on traditions and hierarchy. Within this general preference, the traditionalists hold much influence. The old man whose house they occupy spent top dollar for security, automobiles, etc, and expects them to last as heirlooms like his other collections, yet the new comes in and outperforms the old. His secure phones endanger everybody instead of protecting, act more like megaphones. This story helps illuminate a lot of the industrial revolution underpinnings of the whole series.

No, no, no, their lord would say: he bought quality to defend his house and his province. Quality items once purchased ought to be good for decades if not the next generation—Lord Tatiseigi had no understanding at all of how radically the advent of electronics and computers had changed that basic precept of atevi economy. Quality things lasted for generations, did they not? One bought the most expensive and it was clearly going to last for decades.

And throughout all this change, where do you find the wise thing to do? What still matters? Timing, information, people, capabilities, understanding shortcomings, and keeping your head. These questions and answers face Bren and company throughout the novel, and it keeps a fascinating pace of information and action.

We have become much wiser, since. Let us deal with the next encounter at the safe distance of our station, where we and our human residents can establish our authority, take sensible charge of negotiations, and keep human fools and atevi fools—and we each have them in numbers!—from dealing with these new foreigners, who doubtless have fools of their own.

This book is great, really delving into ideas introduced in earlier books against the backdrop of counter-revolutionary fighting, and the invasion of the capital. Some of my favorite books strike this balance: action driving the characters forward, while the author delves deeply into interesting issues and character development. If I had any minor quibble, it would be that the unexpected couple of end chapters, the sort of epilogue, started off fairly directionless due to Bren not knowing what comes next⁠—Cherryh’s tightly focused voice and Bren being overwhelmed by the situation. But within a few pages it made sense and the whole thing worked brilliantly.

"Never forget confusion and folly, which always attend change, do they not?"