Foreigner

a novel of first contact

Paperback, 432 pages

English language

Published Nov. 1, 1994 by DAW.

ISBN:
978-0-88677-637-4
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
31348025

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (28 reviews)

Humans stranded on an alien world. Accepted by the aliens, until suddenly it was war. Because when the aliens are hard-wired in their brains to not even be able to understand the concept of friend; and loyalty to your boss is unbending and forever, until you realize a higher boss has pulled you away -- and that's not betrayal just natural, well, then, how can humans possibly interact? So, now, one man, Bren, is the sole interpretor for all human-alien interactions... and then the whole dynamic changes. A fascinating insight into what it really means to discover an "alien" culture. Gripping story that sets off a series now more than 13 titles strong.

6 editions

Extreme third person

4 stars

Pretty amazing world building but... Yes there is always a gotcha... The author says she writes in "extreme 3rd person". What this means is it is one continuous stream of the main character's inner thoughts. No real break. It is different. Stream of conciousness at it's worst/finest. Yes there is dialog. Yes there is strong world building. Can it get repetative? Well do YOU ever go over stuff in YOUR brain? At any rate a good book and a better series (22 books to date I believe).

Review of 'Foreigner' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This story took me a little time to get into. There are hints of species-level differences throughout the story that just enhance the story itself. It definitely picks up towards the end of the book, and I launched straight into the second book as soon as I finished the first.

Review of 'Foreigner' on Goodreads

3 stars

1) "The foreign star was up, riding with the moon above the sandstone hills, in the last of the sunlight, and Manadgi, squatting above strange, regular tracks in the clay of a stream-bank, and seeing in them the scars of a machine on the sandstone, tucked his coat between his knees and listened to all quarters of the sky, the auspicious and the inauspicious alike. He heard only the small chirps and the o' o' o' click of a small creature somewhere in the brush."

2) "'So what more, paidhi? Rockets to the moons? Travel amongst the stars?'
A far more dangerous topic. 'I'd like, yes, to see atevi at least reach that threshold in my lifetime. Nai-ji, so much is possible from there. So much you could do then. But we aren't sure of the changes that would make, and I want to understand what would result. I want …

Review of 'Foreigner' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

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 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).

Review of 'Foreigner' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

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 nearly as much Cherryh as I've read before ahead of me.

(This wasn't as …

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Subjects

  • Science Fiction
  • Fiction - Science Fiction
  • Science Fiction - General
  • Fiction / General