re:considering

In our galaxy, in a future far far away humans have happened upon a strange race, a hive mind. Only one Family is accepted, out of the trading families plying the heavens with their barges, but once accepted the human Alliance puts the whole area under quarantine. Thus isolated humanity develops in a carefully balanced symbiosis with their hosts. When we enter the story 700 years later the social and economic inter-species contracts are just about to crack…

Signature Cherryh, if I may say so, and even if it is an old one (first published in 1980) it is suitably disturbing in its challenge of what, really, is humanness, and what do happen when you isolate a group – deprive it of outside contact, of outside impulses; put humanity in a Petri dish, set aside for X time, and see what happens… and as usual with Cherryh the result she imagines is highly probable. Which makes it even the more uncomfortable.

Seen from a 2012 perspective Serpent’s Reach bear likeness enough to Forty Thousand in Gehenna (first published in 1983) to be  a preliminary sketch, a study in preparation for a more elaborate – and much scarier – tale but despite that it stands well in its own right.

I would not recommend Serpent’s Reach as an entry point to the Alliance-Union books – my personal favourites remain the Company Wars books, and Cyteen. All those tell enough to make some of the implicit background add an extra layer to the other books set in that Universe.

Still, a good read and definitely on I’d recommend.

So, Intruder – Foreigner book #13 – read and reread. I take a look at the shelf, and at the LibraryThing collection listing my To Be Read books. What then do I do?

Well, what is more natural than to reread Deciever (#11) and Betrayer (#12)!!!

I would lie if I said that it was my first reread. And the only reason I chose not to reread Conspirator (#10) too, and thus reread the previous story arch in its entirety, was that I had a very vivid memory of the goings-on in that one and didn’t feel a need to renew the acquaintance.

I’m not going to disseminate books 11 and 12 in detail. I just want to say that every time CJ Cherryh releases a new book I read it as fast as I can and every time I love it, more or less. And I have to admit that sometimes I don’t know if that love is because the book is truly good or because I’m, well –  a fan, and thus slightly off my head.

But reading Deceiver and Betrayer AFTER having read Intruder proved them to be even better now, when read as “history” than I first thought them to be.

Yes, there’s always inconsistencies. Some things you suspect is due to the author’s memory loss (hey, the film industry has continuity secretaries but what author can afford such assistance?!), and most of them are unimportant, like the colour of a dress. Others might change the story, like the vanished (and not) Bujavid apartment. But sometimes things that seemed weird or obscure when you first read about them gets crystal clear in hindsight, and many of the things in Intruder made happenings in the two previous books so much more clearer.

At least to me. So now I enjoyed those two books even more than I did in my previous readings of them, and it makes me realise that while Cherryh is no Ian McDonald or Iain M Banks, just to mention two of my other favourite authors,  she is a master of macro-politics, intrigue and character development.

She rocks, and I am totally justified in being a fan!

Feels good :D

And because I can’t just leave the Foreigner universe there I think I’ll go reread some old goldie. Like Intruder (#2).

*wanders off…*

CJ Cherryh is a master of conspiracy. So much so that readers experienced with her works suspect every single small turn of word as an indication of something brewing in the background… and her great mastery, one of them, is to sometimes actually let thing be just what they are while suddenly seemingly safe things flare up, evolving fast into major incidents. Great in building suspense!

After having spent the entire munitions store of the continent-spanning aishidi’tat during the last story arch not a single shot is fired in Intruder, book number thirteen in the Foreigner series, and first in this fifth three-book story arch. Not that the sense of danger is lessened; rather we now move into the domain of political plot-making and manipulation, with the situation in the aiji’s innermost circle as the focus point, paired with the healing of the aishidi’tat; something not appreciated by everyone.

In one scene Bren reflects that neither the aiji nor he is the young men they used to be and this captures some of the reason this series manages to uphold interest – the characters evolve over time, as do the complexity of the story, and the story is allowed to span not a book or two but five or six, or more; it could be argued that every one of the thirteen books are part of one and same story, as it spins out over the years.

In some ways the Foreigner series is like a loved TV show. You get to know the people and eventually even the ones that you dislike becomes familiar and understandable and, sometimes, loved. Each new instalment, then, can’t be judged as a standalone but on its qualities in respect to character and plot development in relation till what came before. This book takes Bren and his aishid back to Shejidan and firmly brings back stability, at the end, while plot and characters develop in a satisfying way, consistent with earlier goings-on, which means this is a very good episo… sorry, book.

One of the draw-backs of the familiarity is the tension between “human” and “alien”, and the many ways in which we can misunderstand one another even when we think we’re doing just fine, is mostly gone. Bren has become rather deft in interpreting man’chi, and in asking his aishid when he is in doubt. This has turned the series from being pure science fiction and more into a political sitcom, even when it is obviously involving aliens, space ships, and – perhaps – more aliens. Hopefully we’ll see more of the alien-human interface and its pitfalls during the rest of the story arch – Tabini HAS allowed Cajieri to see his associates from the ship for his ninth birthday :)

So, a promising start to a new sub-tale :)

It is high praise for C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series that when I received notice that my copy of Betrayer had landed at the SF bookshop I went to town after dinner to get it, arriving 15 minutes prior to the shop’s closing time.

Despite some problems with continuity, like certain populations varying in size (and with no small numbers, either), or with proof-reading the richness of the world, the step by step discovery and understanding of a very different culture, and the character interplay drags the reader into it, book by book, making it a personal experience.

Did this latest instalment live up to expectations?

My first reaction was “it’s so THIN”. So few pages… and the cover is not that well executed; it feels as it was done in great haste. But what counts is between the covers, so I dove into it, closing my eyes to the visual representation on the outside.

At first it was slow going. Not because I couldn’t read but because nothing much happened, storywise.
One of the things I liked with Deceiver was it was full throttle from the very start. Betrayer is a return to the older format were the first third to half is dedicated to reiteration of what happened earlier and to build-up. This builds tension, and ensures the reader remember the pertinent parts when things go sticky, so fills a purpose, but to someone like me, who have read the previous instalments a number of times, it’s a wee (very wee!) bit boring. The world in itself, and the renewed acquaintance with the people, makes it less so, though. And soon enough the pace quickens, which is reward enough.

The story itself, then. WARNING! SPOILER ALERT!!!
A handful of pages in quiet Algini reveals the existence of a rift within the Assassins’ Guild with a splinter faction trying to wreak havoc in the aishidi’tat – a reaction to the transformations to the atevi culture and economy (and political power) in the aftermath of the return of the Phoenix 13(?) years earlier. The renegade faction has manoeuvred to use Machigi and his ambitions on the Western coast as their smokescreen, making him the focus of the aishidi’tat, but with Bren’s, and then the dowager’s, arrival in Najida and then Bren’s arrival in Tanaja, their hand is forced.
Neither the dowager nor Bren had any idea this renegade faction existed and neither had they any idea the legitimate Guild had worked long on exposing and handling these renegades. They thought what happened (in Conspirator and Deceiver) was a plot amongst local lords, the infighting normal to the Marid area, and both finds themselves in over their ears.

Action commences.
END SPOILER

When the dust settles and the book is over my main urge, despite putting another and very interesting read on hold, to go back and reread all of this fourth story arc.

Definitely not a book to start this series with, and perhaps not the strongest instalment either, but definitely a worthy episode for us who need our shot of Foreigner Universe every now and then.

Though a slim volume – by modern standards – Cherryh‘s Voyager in Night took some time to get through. The reason is this is no light and easy read. Despite it’s outer trappings – a group of young people trying to establish themselves stumbles on a first contact situation with a very alien alien – and a truly cheesy cover this is a book about how we face the other and about individual identity and about what makes us Human.

Siblings Rafe and Jillan, with Jillan’s husband Paul, have invested all their savings (mainly Paul’s inheritance, as the Rafe and Jillan is more or less destitute) in a run-down insystemer ship. They’ve just started off their new lives, in a new part of space, when an alien megaship comes crashing in. Their small ship gets swept up by the alien, entangling them in an esoteric and strange struggle for power.

The multiple character story can be very confusing, as it’s hard to keep track of who’s who – normally I don’t have that kind of problem but in this case very little distinguishes the individuals, if indeed they are individuals. But if you persist in your reading you will, in the case of Voyager in Night, reap a considerable reward. So, despite the cons I’d definitely recommend this book. At least if you’re an SF reader.

Yes, I know, I reviewed it not long ago but since I have a) reread it, and b) people now have had the opportunity to read it, so now I can go ahead and be as spoilerific as I want :)

Most books I don’t read twice at once and I must admit that part of my motivation for doing so with this one was to be able to discuss it with my fellow Shejidanites – I just might have done it anyway, but I’m not 100% sure. Because normally I deem life too short, especially in relationship to all those unread books out there in bookspace.

Deceiver starts with the shortest and fastest recap in the history of the Foreigner series. The story go almost present-time in a record 15 pages or so, when Tabini storms into Bren’s office, demanding an explanation for the actions taken by the aiji-dowager; the aiji then proceeds to a shout-out with Ilisidi herself… and this pretty much sets the general mood of the book – non-stop action, and with lots of things that feels nice for the real fan, in terms of interpersonal relationships of all sorts.

Cajeiri gets to mature incredibly but believably fast, which makes for certain turns as not everyone recognises this and reacts as if he’s still just a kid behaving irresponsibly.

Toby and Barb gets their respective selves in their own kind of bad spots, and I generally agree with everyone who thinks someone should just, hrm, eliminate Barb… but she does provide the story with some humorous moments even if she herself doesn’t recognise it.

And the dowager… ah, well. A real piece of work, that lady. It’s entirely possible to sympathise with Tabini’s frustration over his meddling grandmother, but really she does know what she’s doing. Her agenda is hers alone, though, and as always it is risky. Which Bren gets to realise in a real hard way, this time around.

My only complaint is a rather large inconsistency in back history regarding a character in the supporting cast, but hey, I can live with that. The character is not that important, long term. And the atevi universe is one of my favourite unreal places, stuffed with wry reflections on our own value judgements, communications deficits and social or economic or political order, sneakily packaged as easily digested action.

I know this series isn’t for everyone, and the first parts of the first book… well, you have to read it, obviously, at least the first time, but it isn’t really what the core story is about. At all. Still I can’t but think that every fan of science fiction should at least give it a try.

Deceiver (Foreigner #11) continues where Conspirator (Foreigner #10) left off, with Bren and his aishid, and with Cajeiri, Ilisidi and Bren’s brother Toby (and Barb…) still at the seaside estate of Najida, recuperating from the events that transpired only days ago, while simultaneously making preparations for assaults to come.

In this eleventh book the storyline that started in Conspirator shifts gears, from local to something larger, and with the paidhi trying to improvise on a mix of lack of sleep, too much violence, and fast politics. Business as usual, in other words. And as usual Ilisidi provides a key… a key that leaves one Bren Cameron & aishid in a very tight and uncomfortable spot.

The story is ever more tightly written, with a breathless pace and Cherryh’s trademark humour and a delight in surprising the protagonists.

When the the last page is turned I can only agonise that the concluding book while already written, and named Betrayer, has a year to go before it hits the bookshops. (Update – CJ recently said the cover is being made NOW and that this usually is about 6 months prior to publishing…)

This series is only getting better with each book.

My first encounter with the fiction of C.J. Cherryh was the Foreigner books. An online acquaintance (‘Fox, I’m looking at YOU!) thought I might like those books and he wouldn’t let down until I tried. So I did. Rough going, initially, and I’ll admit that I perhaps would had not gotten to the real story had he not told me to keep at it.

Later I learned that those initial parts were requested by the publisher, and I’m in two minds about them being there – they do explain some of the back story but they also feel pasted on.

Anyway, I got hooked more or less on the first page of the real story, and while waiting for #9 to be published in paperback (it felt infelicitous to buy the third of the third in another format) I went on to read – and enjoy – Cyteen, and then DownBelow Station… and the rest of the Company Wars books. And The Faded Sun omnibus. And Chanur. And some more, notably 40,000 in Gehenna and Wave without a Shore. And as I reread the Foreigner books I came to think of them as rather lightweight and feelgood, compared to those other books.

Still, loved them, and have reread them times innumerable. Most recent time was these past few weeks – I was in the process of starting Green Mars but had a monumental two-day headache – NOT what you need when you deal with Kim Stanley Robinson! – so I decided to read the first Foreigner story arch. I ended up reading most of the books, just omitting the two dealing with the Reunion situation, which I have reread more than the others. And I can’t help but feel that despite the sometimes not top-notch editing, and with some problems regarding continuity (for example in Deliverer it’s Geigi’s niece that wants to marry but then in Conspirator it’s the nephew, or Bren suddenly not knowing which province Banichi is from, despite being told that in book #1), and with a lot of the story going on inside the head of Bren, it’s still a fantastic and worthwhile piece of storytelling.

The way the tale deals with topics as language and culture, and how language reflects culture, is informed, as is the topics of alienation and assimilation – might I even mention Stockholm Syndrome, when I’m at it? – and while, yes, it’s, for the most part, lightweight in comparison that IS in comparison with works like Cyteen, which could be read as a Russian classic turned crime story. Which means people expecting a lightweight space opera probably thinks it too dense. Me? I just love it. And with #10 – Conspirator, the first book in the forth arch – the whole story took a new and unexpected and very political bent, leaving the reader crave for more.

Luckily book #11 – Deceiver – is announced for April. And – of course I have pre-ordered it, from the brick’n'mortar SF bookshop in town. Because I do want them to stay in business.

I know, I’m reviewing them in the wrong order, but it’s a reread review and I started out with Hellburner just because that was the book I remember liking the best.

It was not my first reread of Hellburner, either, but this was my first reread of Heavy Time. In retrospect I think that was because when I finished the pair I a) felt them to be very different, and b) while I had enjoyed Heavy Time I had enjoyed Hellburner more. Well, now is the time to admit it – I was wrong!

Hellburner does stand on it’s own. Yes. But – reading both of them is preferable; even recommended. At least by me.

Heavy Time tells three different tales, at least on the surface. It tells how Ben Pollard, Sal Aboujib, Meg Kady and Paul Dekker came to know each other. It tells about how small people are exploited by big corporations. And is sets the stage for the Company Wars suite, in which this is the first book, chronologically; sketching how the push to build the carriers affected corporations and small people both. While the perspective is intensely personal, often claustrophobic, it’s also more issue-oriented than it’s sequel; the politics are obvious there too, but the focus is on the people and what happens to them – that we might not agree, from a value judgement point of view, that sinking money in military tech aimed for use in a war Sol is doomed to lose is sane we still want the ‘program’ to succeed. Because that’s what the protagonists want.

In Heavy Time the we don’t get to see much of the military but they’re part of the “establishment”, and the “establishment” is presented as corrupt; as being backwards; as having the “wrong” ideas about what’s going on out in space – we view life from the eyes of the disenfranchised, the alienated and the outcast, with all what it means.

Maybe this difference between the books was what got to me the first time, and what made me decide I liked the sequel better. Today I’d say they are both good, both worth reading.

I recommend reading them back to back, preceded by a reading of Downbelow Station but prior to Merchanter’s Luck, Rimrunners, Tripoint and Finity’s End.

I honestly thought that my first 2010 review would be of The Search for the Perfect Language. Instead, with 80 pages to go on that one, I got dragged heads on into Cherryh‘s Hellburner. It’s a reread – I think this was my third or forth read of it – but according to records the last time was 2 years ago, and despite loving it I had not planned to reread it again, any time soon; too many unread books stacked on the shelves to leave much time for that.

The reason for the unplanned reread was I got it in ebook format, and my first intention was to just test the reader software. But once I started I found it impossible to put it away, even though I know everything that happens, and despite the frequent conversion errors (“com” often spelled as “corn”, for example).

Hellburner is the sequel to Heavy Time, but both books works as standalones (yes, I’ll reread Heavy Time as well, now that the ereader turned out so good) as well. In Hellburner we follow how Pollard, Meg and Sal is co-opted into a program that developed the rider ships that was attached to the EC carrier ships, featuring in the later books in the Company Wars sequence. Dekker is already in the program, by his own free will and choice, but when “accident” strikes his former partners are brought in, as a way to save the program.

The story captures the different cultures at work – earther, insystemer, and deep spacer; the misunderstandings that results, how politics interfere with rational judgement, how powerful people can destroy the life of the powerless, but most of all how skillful spin can pull the tables in your favour… if you lack what could be called decent ethics.

Cherryh’s stories are seldom one-dimensional or “easy”, and that is why they lend themselves to rereading – even if you know what’s going to happen on the surface there’s always new dimensions to explore.

This is also what makes the Merchanter and Company Wars books special. Each on its own may not be a special piece of literature but taken together they paint a multidimensional picture involving lots of people with different positions and loyalties – a picture that challenges our ideas of who the “good” and “bad” guys really are.

Science fiction when it’s real good. A recommended read, for anyone.