Review.
C J Cherryh calls this the 'First Contact' series, but most websites refer to it as the 'Foreigner' series.
Inspired by a comment from Jan (of Dapper fame) I decided to chew my way through a couple of these.
It's a long series, but the main story is delivered in batches of three, and most of those would work as stand alone titles. I would strongly advise not to read them out of order though...
Audiobooks
Though I haven’t had much time to read I had ample time to listen. Traffic jams do that for you. I first tried to learn a language, but lost interest in it quickly as well as too distracting when driving. I now alternate between music (when in a hurry) and audiobooks (when stuck yet again).
I’m currently finishing arc 5 of this series, which ends with Peacemaker.
It is an interesting universe, and at first I was impressed with the ‘non-human’ nature of the Atevi. It’s one of the pillars under the books, but I’m getting a little tired of the endless ‘humans are not hardwired’ and so forth. In fact, I think it is very easy to understand what drives the Atevi: it’s a herd-mind, with extreme loyalty towards the leader. Perhaps a simplification, but such an approach would work for all practical purposes. Either that, or I’m totally not getting the point.
Further concepts Cherryh introduces are numerology (with a preference for prime numbers), and language / mindset relations, ie. the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (well, you could Google or Bing for it 😉)...
Current titles
- Foreigner - 1994
- Invader - 1995
- Inheritor - 1996
- Precursor - 1999
- Defender - 2001
- Explorer - 2002
- Destroyer - 2005
- Pretender - 2006
- Deliverer - 2007
- Conspirator - 2009
- Deceiver - 2010
- Betrayer - 2011
- Intruder - 2012
- Protector - 2013
- Peacemaker - 2014
- Tracker - 2015
Language
Does language create a worldview , or does worldview create a language?
Perhaps it works both ways, I don’t know, though I am convinced language does influence the thought process more than is often allowed for by the academics. Vance’s The Languages of Pao is a great SF book involving this subject, so is Delany’s Babel 17 (I have to re-read that one).
Those who tend to the other side of the spectrum should have a look at the TED talks by Steven Arthus Pinker. Unfortunately his presentations tend to be a bit boring, especially if you do not agree 😉
Sex
Back to Cherryh. Interesting world building, good characters, great aliens (hey, we all like to date a super loyal two and a half meters long assassin alien, and have lots of sex with her in the bathtub, whilst her father guards the place)...
Don't worry, nothing hard-core.
If there is one con it would be Cherryh repeating herself, in yet another repeat / rehash / retell. She's also a little predictable now and again.
Worth a read? Yes, unless you cannot stand long dialogues.
Oh. And Cherryh should allow Diego to ‘remove’ Barb. It’s about time 😶
More
Dapper / RetroTales #89
No comments:
Post a Comment