Foreigner (Foreigner #1) by CJ Cherryh

Gosh, I must have been in my early- to mid-teens when I first picked up Foreigner by CJ Cherryh, and over the years I've kept meaning to read the entire series from start to finish again, now that it's easier for me to lay my grubby mitts on the books. Back then I relied extensively on the library for my reading, and it was generally impossible to find all the books that are part of a series. Well, it's still difficult as all heck – the ebooks simply aren't available here in South Africa for whatever obscure reason IDK. So, I'm relying on second-hand books when and where I can find them, and thankfully I'm slowly able to cobble together my collection.

It's always interesting to see what I take away from a book years later, upon a reread, and Foreigner is a prime example. Most of the subtexts went whoosh! over my head when I was younger. There's so much more that I've picked up now. The theme that is central to Foreigner is that of colonisation, and in this case, it's humans who've broken away from their orbital station to make landfall on a planet – this is after something went catastrophically wrong with their generation ship that's toddled off elsewhere while they try to survive in a solar system that was not their intended target.

Setting up a colony planet side would not have been so much of a bother if it weren't for the fact that a humanoid race with a complex socio-political structure already exists. The atevi are physically formidable and utterly alien in terms of their interpersonal relations. While humans might have the more advanced technology, that gives them an advantage when they first arrive, the atevi have numbers and an innate talent for violence that rivals our own. The inevitable conflict is brutal, and we join the bulk of the story a few years after peace has been negotiated – the atevi have ceded an island where the human settlers may live peacefully – in exchange for knowledge of their technology. Naturally, the humans are reluctant to hand over all the goods – after all, their position might become even more tenuous once they no longer hold any bargaining chips.

We see this entire situation through the eyes of Bren Cameron, the paidhi (diplomat, interpreter, perhaps spy) who has to walk the knife edge of human-atevi relations, and here Cherryh's masterful grip on the subtleties of characterisation come into play. Bren is isolated. He no longer relates to humans, and he's been among the atevi so long that he struggles with his own essence. He's neither fish nor fowl, and he has to constantly remind himself that the atevi are simply not hardwired like humans. His errors place him in one dangerous situation after the other, after a botched assassination attempt.

This is a slow boiler of a novel, as Cherryh not only explores Bren's increasing paranoia and sense of helplessness, but also brings readers into a deeper understanding of a culture that is vastly different from ours, not to mention inter-factional struggles that constantly knocked me out of my comfort zone. Patient readers will be amply rewarded with this rich, nuanced thriller chock-full of intrigue and detail. I've already laid hands on a rather noice hardcover version of book 2...