Central Booking

I've been pretty busy lately with various projects, but we made enough visits at the in-laws over the past couple of weeks for me to finish Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh. It was recommended by Claire from Notes from a Wildcat Fan, a fellow sci-fi buff.

From junior high to college, I read almost nothing but sci-fi. Oh, occasionally I'd pick up a textbook, but I'd quickly get bored and return to Rendezvous with Rama or The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat. Lately I haven't read as much sci-fi, partly because I'm trying to broaden my perspective a bit, but partly because frankly most sci-fi novels are a little disappointing. There are a few exceptions -- Frank Herbert's Dune, for example, and most of Philip Dick's work -- but something about sci-fi doesn't lend itself to novels. Sci-fi thrives in the short story format, where a particular idea can be allowed to reach its logical conclusion without outstaying its welcome. Think of the better Twilight Zone episodes.

Foreigner is better than the typical sci-fi novel. Cherryh grapples with a topic that's big enough to justify the novel format: How does one cope in an alien society that is superficially similar to human society, but at a fundamental level is so different as to be virtually incomprehensible? The protagonist is Bren Cameron, a diplomat who represents an enclave of humanity whose ancestors crash landed on an alien planet several hundred years earlier. The humans are technologically superior to the native atevi, but physically weaker and vastly outnumbered. Even more troubling, the atevi mindset is confounding to the humans: they have, it is said, fourteen words for betrayal and not one for love. Humanity survives at the whim of the atevi, who allow the humans to survive in exchange for doling out technological secrets. At the start of the novel, the humans are on the verge of giving up their last secrets, and are in need of a diplomatic breakthrough with the atevi to survive.

One of the problems with a novel about a character who is stranded in a culture that is incomprehensible to him is that the frustrations of the protagonist are transferred to the reader. For about 300 pages Bren wanders around, engaging various characters in confusing conversations, intermittently trying to figure out what exactly is going on. There's almost no action to speak of until the last fifty pages or so, which means that there's nothing to keep the reader's interest except the desire to figure out who's on who's side and why various characters keep disappearing on strange errands, and then reappearing a few dozen pages later, breathless and rain-soaked. Frustrating your main character -- who has no choice but to keep slogging through -- is one thing, but frustrating your reader is a dangerous game.

Slowly the complexities of atevi society begin to emerge, and things begin to pick up in the final chapters. There is a reasonably exciting climax, and a satisfying conclusion, which hints at the the possibility of a future of coexistence between humans and atevi. Cherryh's writing style is excellent, and she has obviously has spent a great deal of time working out the details of atevi culture. Foreigner is an interesting, occasionally thought-provoking, and somewhat frustrating novel. Overall it's an enjoyable read, but it's not what I'd suggest if you're looking for a good novel about contact with an alien race. I would recommend Heinlein's Red Planet or Clarke's Childhood's End, off the top of my head. I've also heard that Contact, by Carl Sagan, and The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are good.

Next up: Haroun and the Sea of Stories suggested by Hayden of Lyric Flight.