|
-
Hivemind social net
-
News
- Features
- Blogs
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Google Toolbar scifi
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Destroyer (Foreigner sequence book 3) by C.J. Cherryh
01/02/2005 . Source: Pauline Morgan 
pub: DAW. 345 page hardback. Price: $24.95 (US), $36.00 (CAN). ISBN: 0-7564-0253-0. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.dawbooks.com
released: 01 February 2005
C.J. Cherryh is a specialist in space opera. Although she has included some fantasy novels within her oeuvre, she is most at home in deep space, amongst alien species. From the beginning of her career, she has introduced us to space-faring sentient races, her best known being the feline Hani. In her universes, humans are the late-comers. They are outnumbered by the aliens and in many cases are out of their depth. Often, her human characters come across as wimps when confronted by the superior technologies and strange mores of the predominant species.
'Destroyer' is the latest volume in her 'Foreigner' series, of which there have been six previous episodes. Joining the series at this point is like starting to watch a long running soap opera. You may not know what has gone on before or who the characters and their relationships are, but you pick up enough clues as you go along.
In a previous episode, Bren Cameron had been at the space station of Reunion, helping to solve the problem that the humans had got themselves into with a hitherto unknown sentient, space-faring species. The result was the evacuation of the space station. With him are a small group of atevi, the natives of the planet Bren and the spaceship crew call home. Cajeiri is eight years-old, Ilisidi is his grandmother. They are there as representatives of their race. At the start of 'Destroyer', they are nearing home after a year away.
When the humans arrived on the planet several generations ago, they were not aware that it was already inhabited by the atevi. Once each other's presence was discovered a bloody war ensued, the conflict only being resolved when the humans were granted the island of Mospheira. Effectively they were quarantined but trade was allowed to develop, including technology and resulting in the construction of a space station. Not all the atevi was happy with this situation. As a result, while Bren and his crew were gone, a coup had been staged.
Bren's usual job was as a paidhiin, a kind of translator, not just of the language but also of social mores and psychology to try and prevent offence being given by either side. When their ship docks at the space station, there is an urgency to get down onto the planet so that Ilisidi can discover what has to be done to retrieve the planet-side situation and for Cajeiri to be reunited with his parents - leaders of what was the leading faction before the coup.
The ensuing events provide a fast-paced adventure. Cherryh has drawn her aliens carefully giving them nuances in behaviour that humans might find incomprehensible. It is part of Bren's job to help prevent accidental misunderstandings through ignorance. The atevi, though are humanoid bipeds, reasonably compatible with humans despite physiological differences - in fact Bren's lover is atevi. Other authors, such as Iain M. Banks, make their aliens totally unlike us. 'Destroyer' does not have the intensity and complexity of her Hugo winning novel, 'Downbelow Station', but Cherryh, however, writes an enjoyable story. The only thing I worried about was the way Bren continued to function at a reasonable high level of competence despite not having appeared to sleep for several days.
Pauline Morgan
|
|
