Reading Wednesday: Resurgence (Foreigner #20) - C.J. Cherryh

[chomiji]

Holy crap. Foreigner is up to volume 20.

This series is not my favorite C.J. Cherryh reading: it comes after Alliance/Union, Cyteen, and the Chanur series. The endless perils of human ambassador/interpretor Bren Cameron as he attempts to keep human and Atevi factions (plus, in recent books, a completely different non-human species) talking and not shooting is becoming much of a muchness. I confess to skipping over multiple paragraphs of the political situation every time I read one of these.

And yet, and yet … there's such a level of comfort of slipping into Cherryh's distinctive prose once again. I'm also more than a little fond of the scenes from the viewpoint of young Cajeiri, the atevi prince who has known Bren almost since babyhood and so is becoming (it seems) the real key to understanding between the species. I really want more of Cajeiri and his young human associates (Atevi don't have friends, we are told again and again), but the three kids from space are almost entirely offstage for this volume.

In a nutshell, Bren and his aishad (inner household, consisting mainly of intrepid bodyguards who are members in good standing of the Assassins Guild) and the redoubtable and cranky atevi Dowager Ilisidi are pursuing peace/accord with some atevi factions outside of the usual core ethnic group that has been sponsoring Bren for most of the series. Most of the action takes place aboard the Red Train, the specially reinforced and secured rail conveyance of the aiji of Shejidan, the Paris/London/Washington of the atevi world. There is skullduggery, fighting, and dirty politics. And things come to a resting point rather than an end, because the series is structured in trilogies, and this is the middle of one.

Meanwhile, back in Shejidan, Cajeiri starts to understand the nature of the restrictions on his life and grows up a little, including taking a step unthinkable several volumes ago. It's a little sad, but sweet.

So: if this is your cuppa, it's more of what you would like. If you haven't liked previous volumes, you won't like this one. And if you haven't been reading along, obviously, volume 20 is no place to start a series.

Comments

[sholio]

I wish I liked this series more than I do. I read the first book and it didn't engage me enough to go on to the next one. There's a part of me that just sadly wishes that if she was going to write 20 volumes with one set of characters/one world, it would be one of the ones that I'm more into than these.

But I've also only read one book, so one of these days I should give another book or two a chance, and see if I like it better once I get deeper in.

[yhlee]

I feel the same way about this series--I made it like three or four books in, realized it wasn't wrapping up anytime soon, and gave up, probably not helped because I find Bren Cameron really annoying. The thought of having to wade through 20 volumes of Bren Cameron to see what's the current state of affairs is a hard no. But OTOH, it must be making money for her if the series is still going???

[chomiji]

From what I can tell, Foreigner keeps the lights on and puts food on the table at the Cherryh/Fancher household, my friend. Looks like it's a guaranteed sale, every volume. Theoretically it provides her with time and money to write whatever else she likes ... assuming she has the energy. She's going on 78.

I do find it very easy to slip into the formal speech that represents Ragi, the language of the Atevi. I nearly addressed you as "nadi" at the end of the first sentence, but then I got bogged down in "What's the real difference between 'nadi' and 'nandi'?"

I think the series speaks very strongly to the imposter syndrome and feelings of being an outsider that so many fen have. Bren is always going to be the foreigner, no matter how much he becomes integrated into atevi society. He's so much almost one of the cool kids, and yet his value is the bridge he forms between them and the mundanes, who live their dreary lives up in the space station or their less dreary but still constrained, very ordinary lives on the human island nation Mospheira.

Note that CJC is still sharp as a tack. Following her on Book of Faces allows fans to see what interests her and what she finds intriguing or problematic about those topics.

[chomiji]

It really is a series of trilogies, so if you can get past the first one and then finish the first trilogy, you'll know whether the long haul is for you.

And yeah, I could wish for a lot more Alliance/Union. But Alliance Rising left me vaguely disturbed. I'm wondering whether it's because her wife Jane Fancher was a co-author, so it doesn't read like the Cherryh I know.

[oracne]

UGH, that means I am like 15 or 16 volumes behind. OTOH, 15 or 16 volumes of Cherryh that are new to me!

[chomiji]

XD

My sister realized, a few months back, that she had lost track of the series and asked me whether I could lend her some. I pulled together all of them I'd bought as actual books ... even without the last several that I bought as ebooks, it was a mighty stack!

[viridian5]

I wish more of the recent Foreigner books would advance things further than they do, but I still read them. (I got so excited by the surprise in Visitor but not much has been done with it since...) I haven't gotten to Resurgence yet since my "to be read" pile is massive.

Maybe you might be able to help me? I have a friend who has an extra copy of Emergence (Foreigner #19) and I'm wondering if you know someone who'd like a free copy of it. Thanks!

extra copy of CJC Foreigner #19

[chomiji]

What a nice, thought, but I have no one nearby. Most of my SF-reading friends are online. If I had it in hand, I'd probably leave it in one of the ubiquitous Little Free Libraries in our town, or take it to work for the put-and-take bookshelf. I'm surrounded by readers, but few seem into SF.

Re: extra copy of CJC Foreigner #19

[viridian5]

Thank you so much for your reply. It'll probably end up being donated to a library.


I'm surrounded by readers, but few seem into SF.

I can relate.

[tabacoychanel]

Would you recommend the first few Foreigner books to someone who enjoys Cherryh's work? And would you consider them required reading or do you think there's some other overlooked gems I should tackle first?

Where to start with Cherryh

[chomiji]

Umm, it depends? Although CJC's distinctive voice runs through all her books, she has a number of rather different settings.

The problem with/benefit to Foreigner is it's just so HUGE. People either love it and await every volume ago with anticipation (and often buy them in hardcover, even), or they get weary by the end of the first three and wonder why anyone would keep going. (I mean, the fans are so fannish that you can get a fan-produced glossary of the language spoken by the Atevi faction who are Bren's patrons.) Bren really does spend an awful lot of time getting poisoned, beat up, and otherwise injured, for example, which sets up a nice stream of hurt-comfort, but how much a reader will like that really depends on how much that reader likes Bren himself! I was getting pretty much over the series when Cajeiri was introduced as an alternate viewpoint, and that really saved it for me.

Books I've sometimes suggested for new readers would be include:

The Pride of Chanur, which was written as a stand-alone to begin with (the link is to Jo Walton's retrospective writeup on TOR - she did a whole series on CJC's works, and I enjoyed them a lot). In it, the aliens (or at least, one species of them) are the people and the lone human they find is the alien.

Merchanter's Luck, a fast-paced thriller that makes a good introduction to the Company Wars, which are the background for a number of CJC books (they'll show up as a plot point in Cyteen a couple of times, although physically very far off from the planet Cyteen). Boy (sole owner of a very decrepit spaceship) meets girl (younger member of a very wealthy ship-based family) and ends up with her and a few of her cousins on his ship, on a mission that is not what it seems.

Another TOR reviewer, Liz Bourke, just did an article on this very subject: Sleeps With Monsters: Jumping Into C.J. Cherryh’s Alliance-Union Books ("Sleeps with Monsters" is the name of Bourke's blog and of her column on TOR). The comments include some more suggestions of good starting points, beyond Alliance-Union.

(Cherryh has also written fantasy, some of which turns out to kinda-sorta be SF, so some people might want to start there.)

Re: Where to start with Cherryh

[tabacoychanel]

Thank you for taking the time to draw out the pros/cons for me, I appreciate this! 99.9% of what Jo Walton enjoys I also enjoy, so that decided me for Pride of Chanur.

I have read Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle and I always did wonder why she bothered draping the fantasy in SF accoutrements