C.J. Cherryh
My friend Kate kept telling me to read the Foreigner books by C.J. Cherryh, and I kept resisting. A few times I checked the library or the bookstore for the first book, but it was never there, and I admit that I didn’t look all that often. Finally, Kate actually sent me the first three books so that I had to read them.
And holy shit, are they ever good. I’m just finishing the second book now. It’s interesting that I’ve just been reading Edith Wharton because, oddly enough, these books remind me of her writing.
Cherryh writes about Bren Cameron, a diplomat and the only human allowed to live among the atevi—a species of people who live on a planet where humans sort of crash-landed 200 years ago. The atevi are enough like humans that they have language and culture and technology and all that, but they don’t have the same kinds of emotions as humans, and Cherryh writes a lot about how Bren navigates through all the many problems this causes. Like I said with Wharton, I almost can’t believe how much minute detail Cherryh can pile up and still keep me interested. Bren is always questioning every thought he has, every move he makes, and I can’t get enough of it.
It helps that Cherryh has also made a really convincing world and people, and that she seems to have considered, oh, every possible small thing that could happen if a whole bunch of humans were completely cut off from all other humans and had to live on a strange planet with people who didn’t want them there. It’s amazing. Really. If I could, I’d just take a week of vacation and lie around reading these books. Because here’s another cool thing! After I’m done with this second book, there are six more! Woohoo!