Cherryh: The Foreigner Series
Apr. 24th, 2006 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienLast month, I read C. J. Cherryh's latest, Pretender. Then, as tends to happen with that series, I went back and reread the whole thing (two and two-thirds trilogies) from the beginning, in quick succession, much to the detriment of my sleeping patterns. After that I embarked on a reread of the Alliance/Union books, and after that, if I get ambitious, I may tackle Cyteen again, but that's for a different post.
I think this series (exclusive of the prologue bits at the beginning of Foreigner[1.1]) may be the longest thing that Cherryh has written in a single viewpoint -- and it's all strongly-filtered tight-third, stream of consciousness of a character who hardly ever stops thinking, and second-guesses himself a lot. Fortunately, Bren isn't stupid, though he can be naive, and he does grow over the course of the series, though not necessarily in the direction of becoming a more rounded human being; rather, he gets more and more into the mindset of his atevi associates until I sometimes wonder whether he's still fully sane in human terms. Considering what the atevi have put him through, Stockholm syndrome seems like a distinct possibility.
I think I'm getting better at reading Cherryh (if not spelling her); this time through, all the layered betrayals and conspiracies actually seemed to make sense, though I'm not completely sure that the early history of the ship stays consistent. Maybe it's not supposed to, and the contradictions reflect Bren's deepening understanding as he learns more about the ship-humans.
A fast close re-reading does tend to show up continuity glitches, a notable one being Bren's various Bu-javid lodgings. Precursor, (2.1), mentions a second-floor apartment confiscated from a disfavoured family and given to him sometime after the end of the first trilogy, while at the end of Pretender, four books later, he's expecting to go back to the Atageini's third-floor residence where he was installed in Invader, (1.2). On the whole, though, the series hangs together pretty well. The style of revealing deeper and deeper layers of threats every book or so is an interesting way of keeping the overall story moving along while leaving open the possibility of tying it up neatly if the contracts ran out.
I was a little worried at the end of Pretender that this trilogy arc had been wrapped up too quickly, but on reflection I can see plenty of backgrounded threads -- like the little matters of the ship, the space station, the Kyo and their enemies -- that should provide enough material for another book and probably the next trilogy as well.
Also, a personal reminiscence.
Nearly ten years ago, when I was still living in London, I was on my way back from a hastily-arranged trip to Colorado. I'd managed to lose my wallet; I still had a bit of cash and a couple of hundred dollars in traveller's checks/cheques, but no means of getting more, and I was flying alone. Because the arrangements had been made at short notice, I was flying from Denver to Minneapolis on United, and then transatlantic on NorthWest. Of course, it went wrong; the United flight left about two hours late after a series of mess-ups over the loading of the smallish plane on a hot day. (The plane had actually pulled away from the gate at one point, and then got called back to bump more people.) I missed my connection, and spent the night in a hotel courtesy of United; even so, I had to change one of my checks for 'incidentals', and I didn't get much sleep because I had to call my mother at the time I would have landed in London, which was about 3am local; then when I got back to the airport NorthWest made me pay about $100 to change the ticket, much to my dismay. That left me with several hours to kill in the airport, very unhappy and with severely limited funds. The bookstore had Inheritor(1.3) in hardcover. I'd been going to wait for the paperback, but I thought I could manage $20 or so of treat to keep me sane until I got home. After much dithering, I bought the book, and read it happily most of the way home. I still have that copy, still with the NorthWest London travel advisory leaflet for August 1996 tucked into the front, and I managed to find used hardcovers of the first two to go with it; these days, the series is pretty much in the 'buy in hardcover as soon as it shows up, never mind waiting for Amazon' category.
I think this series (exclusive of the prologue bits at the beginning of Foreigner[1.1]) may be the longest thing that Cherryh has written in a single viewpoint -- and it's all strongly-filtered tight-third, stream of consciousness of a character who hardly ever stops thinking, and second-guesses himself a lot. Fortunately, Bren isn't stupid, though he can be naive, and he does grow over the course of the series, though not necessarily in the direction of becoming a more rounded human being; rather, he gets more and more into the mindset of his atevi associates until I sometimes wonder whether he's still fully sane in human terms. Considering what the atevi have put him through, Stockholm syndrome seems like a distinct possibility.
I think I'm getting better at reading Cherryh (if not spelling her); this time through, all the layered betrayals and conspiracies actually seemed to make sense, though I'm not completely sure that the early history of the ship stays consistent. Maybe it's not supposed to, and the contradictions reflect Bren's deepening understanding as he learns more about the ship-humans.
A fast close re-reading does tend to show up continuity glitches, a notable one being Bren's various Bu-javid lodgings. Precursor, (2.1), mentions a second-floor apartment confiscated from a disfavoured family and given to him sometime after the end of the first trilogy, while at the end of Pretender, four books later, he's expecting to go back to the Atageini's third-floor residence where he was installed in Invader, (1.2). On the whole, though, the series hangs together pretty well. The style of revealing deeper and deeper layers of threats every book or so is an interesting way of keeping the overall story moving along while leaving open the possibility of tying it up neatly if the contracts ran out.
I was a little worried at the end of Pretender that this trilogy arc had been wrapped up too quickly, but on reflection I can see plenty of backgrounded threads -- like the little matters of the ship, the space station, the Kyo and their enemies -- that should provide enough material for another book and probably the next trilogy as well.
Also, a personal reminiscence.
Nearly ten years ago, when I was still living in London, I was on my way back from a hastily-arranged trip to Colorado. I'd managed to lose my wallet; I still had a bit of cash and a couple of hundred dollars in traveller's checks/cheques, but no means of getting more, and I was flying alone. Because the arrangements had been made at short notice, I was flying from Denver to Minneapolis on United, and then transatlantic on NorthWest. Of course, it went wrong; the United flight left about two hours late after a series of mess-ups over the loading of the smallish plane on a hot day. (The plane had actually pulled away from the gate at one point, and then got called back to bump more people.) I missed my connection, and spent the night in a hotel courtesy of United; even so, I had to change one of my checks for 'incidentals', and I didn't get much sleep because I had to call my mother at the time I would have landed in London, which was about 3am local; then when I got back to the airport NorthWest made me pay about $100 to change the ticket, much to my dismay. That left me with several hours to kill in the airport, very unhappy and with severely limited funds. The bookstore had Inheritor(1.3) in hardcover. I'd been going to wait for the paperback, but I thought I could manage $20 or so of treat to keep me sane until I got home. After much dithering, I bought the book, and read it happily most of the way home. I still have that copy, still with the NorthWest London travel advisory leaflet for August 1996 tucked into the front, and I managed to find used hardcovers of the first two to go with it; these days, the series is pretty much in the 'buy in hardcover as soon as it shows up, never mind waiting for Amazon' category.