Foreigner Books

This is a sweet story about a big topic: interracial romance and marriage. The story, though short, evolves slowly. Yoshiko breaks a taboo and speaks to a foreign man; her GI sweetheart, forbidden to meet her family, nevertheless learns about her world and quietly shows his honorable intentions with thoughtful tokens (fish for her father's pond, wine and rice for the family shrine and, most importantly, learning to speak and write in Japanese). Because of his patience and earnestness, Yoshiko's family is eventually won over.

The best part of the story is on the last page- you'll have to see to figure out why.

This story is indeed both convincing and touching. By the end of the book, I truly came to respect the kindness and dignity of the characters. In addition, this is a nice introduction to Japanese culture and modern history, as well as Japanese-American history. The illustrations, though at first a bit harsh-looking and odd (the Japanese people seem to have stern, wrinkly faces when riding on the train in Tokyo), lovingly depict the warmth of family life in rural Japan, as well as the development of the unlikely relationship between Yoshiko and the American soldier.

I purchased this book for my 7 year old daughter. We read it over and over again. Her favorite part is when I cry at the end. This is a beautiful story that young children will love, especially when they see the real photo on the last page and realize it must be true ! This is a treasured part of our collection and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Ch'en and Link's Chinese Primer series is an excellent introduction to the language. Detailed and clear grammatical explanations complement texts that give individual attention to each of the four areas of foreign language learning: reading, writing, listening and speaking. However, the best feature of Princeton's texts is the dialogues: rather than tread through the same-old tired sequence of "greetings", "where are you from?", "how old are you" etc., the authors creatively use the most basic vocabulary and sentence patterns to create conversations that are humorous and full of life.


Nathan Dummitt
author of Chinese Through Tone & Color

This book fills a void. The grammar is straightforward, the examples clear, and there are plenty of exercises. It's excellent for students of chinese who have some foundation already and are looking vastly and quickly improve upon it.

I lived in the Czech Republic when I was 16-17, and this book was a huge help! Highly reccomended.

The latest version is called "New Czech Step by Step." It's a wonderfully illustrated text plus workbook and CD. I bought it at the Kosmas publisher's warehouse in Prague, two blocks from the I.P. Pavlova metro station, but until Amazon has it in stock, you can order it from the publisher's website at www.kosmas.cz. Highly recommended as a follow-up to the Pimsleur comprehensive course on CDs (see my review). Happy learning.

This is the book that every learner of French needs to read. Forget those travel phrasebooks or college textbooks, this book teaches you the real way people speak French. If you don't understand slang words or informal expressions, you will get nowhere in France. I wish more foreign language books were written like this.

All those years in French class, and whodda thought rules are for fools? If yer gonna speak French, ya gotta get this book!

It's a good dictionary, but I wish it was also Korean-English. Also, you wouldn't know it, but the book is the size of your hand. So, it's almost like a pocket dictionary.

I bought this as a gift for my little sister for her birthday. She was very excited and happy. Her rating on this scale she says she gives it a 5, jokingly, she says if it was one to ten, she would give it a 20. I schemed through it and its actually very useful. She has been using it while watching her korean movies and she understands it clearly now.

This book is interesting and easy to read. It seems to give a good detailed view of what it was like for some of the westerners involved in the Boxer Rebellion.

And that is also it's fault and why I only gave it four stars.

Even though the author tries to give some historical background and makes attempts at being even handed she falls short.

After reading the book I still do not feel I have a good grasp of what it was all about, nor do I know anything about how it was perceived or what the reactions were among the Chinese.

It seems to be a westerners view of what happened with a subtle bias against the Chinese, and unspoken support for armed invasion resulting in a multitude of deaths, atrocities, and crimes against history in order to rescue a few hundred westerners. As another reviewer said this book could have been written in 1905.

With the usual disclaimer of not knowing enough to judge the scholarship of the work I think it is worth reading considering the short amount of time it takes to finish.

The author does an excellent job of writing and researching this book however, it is obviously based from the point of view of the imperial powers. This would be fine if she expressed this clearly and emphatically in the Prologue or even added a chapter at the beginning describing the opium wars and a more thorough description of the actions of the imperial powers leading p to the rebellion.

Later in the book Ms. Preston mentions several quotes from German military and political leaders but fails to follow up on their implications in future events. Comments from German officers about the inadequacy of French troops and statements that they could defeat "all of America with a Berlin Fire brigade" clearly set the tone for Germany's attitude towards the armies they would later attack. Germany's' other ominous statements are also glossed over "the Chinese "would feel the iron fist of Germany heavy on their necks"" (p.25) and later "You must know my men, that you are about to meet a crafty, well-armed foe! Meet him and beat him! Give him no quarter! Take no prisoners! Kill him when he falls into your hands! Even as a thousand years ago. the Huns under king Atilla made such a name for themselves as still resounds in terror through legend and fable, so may never again will a Chinese dare to so much as look askance at a German." (p.209) The author also mentions that most of the Chinese modern weapons and war ships came from Germany and especially from the krupp family but fails to follow up with the fact that the Krupps would continue to enrich themselves by selling arms to both sides in many conflicts and by encouraging the following world wars. Despite the fact that they would be tried for their crimes the Krupp manufacturing empire still thrives in plastics.

In summary Ms. Preston seems to fail to put the long term effects of the boxer rebellion especially of the multinational rescue force that would later be fighting each other, into a larger historical context. This leaves the book as a fascinating first hand account of the besieged and their rescuers viewpoints, but fails to adequately explain the reason for the uprising in the first place, and its long term results. This combined with the lack of a Chinese point of view results more in a collection of personnel narratives, impressions and feelings and less of an analysis of the Boxer Rebellion and how it "Shook the World".

R Philip Reynolds
Research Education Librarian

The short lived, generally forgotten Boxer Rebellion took place in North China in 1900. The Boxers were Chinese rebels who hated foreign Christian missionaries, their converts, and the foreign diplomats who had taken up residence in China during the last century. They wanted China to be rid of all of them. They were called "Boxers" because of the martial arts they practiced and the poses they assumed. It was very short lived, put down in a couple of months by a coalition of troops from Great Britain, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States.

The author is an Oxford trained historian, writer and broadcaster. As she states, the book is a popular history, telling the story of what happened, not necessarily why. It is published by Berkley Books, a division of Penguin Group which has specialized in best selling authors. While it is intended for a general audience and has been a best seller, the support and documentation for the narrative would make any scholar proud. Relying upon many published sources and unpublished letters, diaries, and statements of the Western survivors, many of them women, the book, which contains extensive endnotes, sets forth the day to day resistance of the foreigners and converts encircled in the diplomatic area of Beijing. To a lesser extent it chronicles the movements of the allied troops slowly coming to relieve them. Finally, assuaging the understandable curiosity of the reader, she tells what happened to the major characters as the disastrous twentieth century progressed. For those readers who have no familiarity with this long forgotten war, the book reads like a novel. The tension every novel must have is present in the slow revealing of how the end came and who survived.

The causes of the war are stated very briefly and without extensive Chinese citations. In fact, this war cries out for a history written by the Chinese, perhaps similar to Arthur Whaley's The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes. The cause, in summary, was that the Boxers were angered by the Christian missionaries (mostly Catholic) and their converts, the "rice Christians." They were also incensed by the disruptions of traditional Chinese life by the construction of railroads and the establishment of other businesses by foreign companies. The diplomatic missions were imposed upon the Chinese as a result of a conflict with the French and English in 1860. Concessions to the Japanese were made as a result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1894. By 1900 there were 672 foreign companies in China, more than half of which were British. The takeover by the foreigners of sections of Beijing and their unilateral actions as occupiers, were not endearing to the Chinese. They certainly were entitled to strongly resent their presence.

The actions of the various nations involved were harbingers of the events to come later in the century. The European powers present in China, as in Africa, were competing for colonies and economic concessions and were keeping more than just an eye on each other. The British had the largest fleet and controlled much of Chinese shipping. The French conversely appeared to have no stomach for armed conflict. The Japanese, on the other hand, were willing to fight and die with the tenacity the world would witness forty years later on Iwo Jima and other South Pacific Islands. The United States, although most of the missionaries were American, was the one nation that just wished everyone would leave China alone. Finally, the Chinese demonstrated a disastrous lack of cohesion and leadership, especially of their military forces.

The barbarity of the Boxers is on display throughout the book. They tortured and killed tens of thousands of missionaries and converts, hacking them to pieces, skinning or burying them alive, or burning them to death. Like the Taliban of recent history, they destroyed churches, temples and other buildings, tore up railways which they particularly hated, and destroyed buildings. They also burned the Hanlin Academy and the only surviving copy of the "fabulous Yung Lo Ta Tien, an encyclopedia completed in 1408 by 2,000 Ming scholars and comprising about 12,000 volumes bound in yellow silk." (139) This was in spite of British efforts, while under attack to extinguish it. Religious fervor or hatred then, as now, seems to lead to the bloodiest acts. The author does not dwell on why.

The characters of some of the players in the drama are well drawn. Of course, pictures help. The British minister to Peking, Sir Claude MacDonald, looks like a British minister should look and he acts the part, leading by undramatic example rationing food, directing the placement of defenses and not being shaken by any of the many small defeats that occurred. The senior American officer present, a future Chief of Staff, Major General Adna Chafee, has an equally representative countenance. His threatening eyes matched his aggressive and courageous actions in directing the American soldiers and in paying respect to those who had fallen. Perhaps the most remarkable is the description of a few members of the diplomatic corps who hid in the British legation compound during the fighting, surfacing to sit outside and drink what appears to be an endless supply of champagne during the lulls. They are contrasted to the women who spent most of the time cooking, making bandages and filling sandbags. The extensive looting that followed the occupation of The Forbidden City is set forth in detail, seemingly accepted as the right of victors.

The Empress Dowager, "the old Buddha," Tzu Hsi, "a woman of unimaginable sexual appetites and political ambition who murdered anyone" (xiii) is a central figure. She and her "state department," the Tsungli Yamen, equivocated; waiting to see if the Boxers would prevail. They judged wrong and threw the weight of the government and its nearby available troops in with the Boxers. Although armed with some of Krupp's most recent weapons they lacked the marksmanship of the U.S. Marines and the discipline of the British and Indian troops. After one false start, led by a British Vice Admiral, Sir Edward Seymour, with only the soldiers and sailors available from the foreign ships in the area, which was repulsed by the Boxers, the allied countries brought in over 20,000 troops from the Philippines, India, Japan, Russia and Indochina. With very little preparation, they fought from the port of Taku through Tientsin, where the first attempt was halted, to Beijing, arriving on August 14 to relieve the encircled missionaries, converts and diplomats.

The questions left open by this book are numerous. Why did the Empress equivocate, letting a rebel group within her country destroy infrastructure and kill missionaries? Why were the diplomats so out of touch so as not to see the violent rebellion coming? What intelligence did they have? After all one of an embassies most important functions is to find out what is going on in the country in which it is located. The leaders of the Boxers are not identified, who were they? We are told the fates of some of the major characters, but are left wondering what their thoughts were, and where all the loot resides. That being said, the author intended to write a popular history and has written a very detailed and interesting one. Many war histories are dulled by endless recitation of where units moved, body counts and rounds fired. This one is not. The author has combined the actions of the civilians in defending themselves and avoiding starvation with the courage of the troops, or the lack of it in a few instances, in rescuing them with little time to spare.

Preston's book is typical of the ethnocentric views characteristic of the previous literature on the subject. Although written in the politically correct present, it still harbors those biased sentiments of the past. Little is said about the arrogant Western powers running ramshod over China, grabbing land, carving spheres of influence and insulting the locals. Little is said of an incident during the Boxer rebellion in the Amur River town of Blagoveshchensk, where all Chinese inhabitants of the neighboring 64-villages were driven at gun-point into the Amur to drown en-masse. Thousands died and what was Chinese terrritory was taken over by the Russians. On the cultural side, the plunder of art treasures by both troops and diplomatic personnel went unchecked. The rape of civilians and summary executions by the occupying troops followed. The famous Admonitions scroll, one of the oldest masterpieces of Chinese painting, now in the British Museum, was looted at the time fom the Imperial Palace. The horrendous indemnity levied against the Chinese, 450 million taels of silver, one tael per person when most Chinese were barely making a few cents, is downright criminal. When the indemnity was paid in full by 1939, China was suffering the ravages of the Japanese invasion while the West continued to sell Japan the oil and other raw materials that allowed her to prolong the war. History is not one-sided as some people might wish to interpret it. The definitive Boxer Rebellion has yet to be written and is eagerly awaited.

Preston's book has a number of fundamental weaknesses which belie its title and ultimately can only be characterized as racist in their utter indifference to the lives and personalities of the Chinese. Preston again and again quotes the racist drivel of the White officers and politicians, without once taking distance from such remarks, without once calling them what they were--despicably racist. I very much agree with the first review that, the Preston's book presented "`good Europeans' vs. the `bad" Chinese" and that, "Rudyard Kipling would be proud."

Throughout the book Preston repeated refers to the Chinese men with the racist epithet -- "Chinaman," and repeatedly and uncritically quotes the racist U.S. and British troops and government officials calling the Chinese "chinks." Preston also frequently uses "coolie" without clarifying the usage of this term for Chinese men as cheap laborers, or who have been press-ganged into labor or indentured servitude. It is certainly considered racist and Preston should have clarified why she felt she had or could use it, instead of simply saying "laborer" or a Chinese man.

Preston also refers to some of the Chinese solders, the Kansu, as "braves." While the term "Kansu brave" was the common racist term used at the time, there is no reason for Preston to repeat it.

Even the conservative and historically racist dictionaries such as Websters and the OED are clear on the matter:

--"CHINAMAN: 1 capitalized : a native of China : CHINESE often taken to be offensive" Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

--"COOLIE: [...] b. S. Afr. [Afrikaans koelie (also used).] An Asian or Indian, esp. one of the lower classes. Also attrib.
1920 Cape Times 1 Apr. 3/2 Great Public Sale.+ No coolies. 1959 L. Lerner Englishman xiv. 220 It was his girl the other one took, the one who slept with koelies. Ibid. xv. 226 You wont, you koelie girl. 1967 Guardian 4 Oct. 13/7 In South Africa the word `coolie' is used by some whites to describe Asians, and is as bitterly resented by them as the word `Kaffir' is resented by Africans." Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Ed.

No doubt such was the despicable language of the time and the author should accurately quote this reality, but it is also true that to fail to distance herself from this racism, makes her susceptible to being identified with it.

As is often the case with most "histories" of events involving whites and people of color, the history is written from the perspective of the whites. Rather than a history of the Boxer Rebellion, Preston writes a gushing and admiring history of the lives of the elite whites from the various legations (embassies of the day) that were under siege. Preston makes no effort to explain or analyze what events had taken place that led to this uprising. She also failed to provide any background of the persons in the legations. Rather than admirable heroes, these ambassadors or ministers were the persons in charge of imposing the humiliating and murderous policies of collecting crippling payments of "reparations" imposed at gunpoint by invading forces, as well as deleterious trade policies forced on the Chinese by occupying forces. Preston fails to make any mention whatsoever of this very important background that explains in good part the ire of the Chinese people toward these foreigners.

Why were so many millions of Chinese enraged against the foreign invaders who had imposed their presence in China at gunpoint, who had killed thousands of Chinese, and forced the sale of opium addicting millions of Chinese?

Why were so many Chinese enraged at the missionaries? The book does mention in passing what it characterizes as the "high-handed attitude" of the racist missionaries. It fails to mention the slave labor utilized by the missionaries, the humiliations and beatings and worse of Chinese at the hand of the missionaries. These missions were usually established on stolen lands, often using false accusation to force the Chinese authorities to handover lands they desired.

Preston fails to mention all this and much more. Preston refers with great sympathy to the killings of missionaries, calling them "murders" and using inflammatory terms such as "gruesome" to describe the acts. Yet such language is missing from any description of the terrible murders of tens of thousands of Chinese in their own country at the hands of foreign invaders. Preston makes great effort to arouse the reader to the alleged atrocities against the foreign missionaries. Yet the murders of the Chinese are largely presented as trifles by Preston. In Preston's book murder is reserved only for the death of whites. It would appear that Preston does not assign Chinese lives the same value.

Only briefly does Preston mention the near apocalyptic famine killing millions of Chinese peasants between 1887-1901. Another publication, "Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third Word, by Mike Davis, does a good job of documenting the fact that these famines were in part due to droughts but in fact they were largely due to the inhuman demands of the European governments for "reparation" payments imposed on the Chinese.

Preston also fails to provide any background to the readers concerning the procolonial character of the missionary societies. In fact, the missionary societies served as spies and provocateurs, and provided pretexts to justify colonial demands and attacks against the Chinese. An example was the use by the French of alleged slights against missionaries as the pretext for invading and seizing Vietnam. The author Mike Davis explained, "The first phase of drought, which lasted from 1897 through summer 1898, caused acute distress in the western and southern counties of Shandong, where anti-foreign anger was already at a fever-pitch because of repeated German military interventions on behalf of Catholic missionaries."

Other than a handful of Chinese elite generally described unflatteringly by Preston, there are no Chinese people in her story. In Preston's book, the Chinese are largely nameless caricatures who simply serve as examples of primitive cruelty, except for the noble and servile Christian converts. Of the thousands of converts being held in the legation not one has a name. Interestingly, even the Japanese other than their commanding officers have no names, and no accounts are given by Preston. It seems odd that none of the Japanese would have written diaries nor given interviews about their experience. Indeed, the descriptions of the social life and partying of the interventionists does not include any descriptions of the Japanese, except to refer to their military bravery and discipline in killing Chinese, and their subsequent mass rapes and slaughtering of the Chinese.

Another example of Preston's viewpoint is provided when she writes "for most the diet was a monotonous one of horse, pony, or mule and rice, which gave many people digestive problems and make the feel `out of sorts'." The "most" that Preston refers to are the white Europeans, which is eloquently revealing of Preston's values. While the colonialists are bored with meat, the Chinese converts are left starving, eating tree bark, or if they are lucky, Preston describes the Europeans occasionally leaving the Chinese the largely inedible head and guts of a horse, after they took all the meat.

Preston's descriptions of the Europeans are the usual adulatory tripe of the jolly good and decent, noble and brave white men and women, who faced the hordes of savages with a touch of humor and a dash of fashion. In one part of the book Preston describes the dashing whites who, notwithstanding the inconveniences of the war, were sure to keep clean and wear clean clothes. Preston describes a laundry service for the whites. Unsurprisingly, she does not clarify who was doing the washing. Obviously, it must have been the Chinese hostages who had been forced to keep the Europeans' clothes clean, while the Chinese were filthy and dying. Moreover, as the Chinese were severely malnourished, imposing such hard physical labor as washer-men and women can only have hastened their misery and death. But Preston expresses no concern for with such matters while she spends most of her book describing the parties, food, gossip and hardships, for the white Europeans, which an occasional obligatory mention of the Chinese hardships, and European discrimination.

"When a shell burst into the bakery and killed on the Chinese bakers, Madame Chamot kept the others [Chinese] to their work by brandishing a rifle." [page 159] How quaint!

Preston describes the rapes of the Chinese schoolgirls among the converts by the white soldiers, using a grotesque euphemism "unfortunate incidents" [page 182]. Preston belittles the horror in a titillating humorous tone that is absolutely shocking.

A far more thorough critique of Preston's book is certainly needed, as I have barely scratched the surface.

'Foreigner' is a slow-paced but compelling read, and ultimately worth while. The atevi society, with its fundamental and irreconcilable differences from humanity, has the promise of being extremely interesting, though Cherryh only touches the surface of it in this volume. The characters were very well drawn, even the enigmatic atevi; Bren Cameron, the protagonist, was a nicely non-typical coward and ditherer.

I was not thrilled by Ms Cherryh's writing style, though I may grow used to it as I read more of her. She seems to have little rhetorical resourcefulness, besides excessive use of the words 'and' and 'then' (if you've read her, I'm sure you know what I mean).

In the end, though, I'm glad I picked 'Foreigner' up. It's certainly good enough to draw me into reading more of Cherryh's work.

Cherryh is often compared to Ursula Le Guin, and with good reason; by the time I'd gotten a couple of chapters into this first volume of a lengthy epic, I was thinking of the similarities of its set-up to The Left Hand of Darkness. Mostly, it's because the protagonist is a lone, isolated human diplomat surrounded by aliens whose very near-human appearance makes it easy to forget just how deeply alien their psychology is. Five hundred years ago, a human colony ship came out of hyperdrive impossibly far from where it should be, so far the ship was completely lost. After many years, its crew and party of settlers make it to a system where there is a habitable planet -- which is already taken by an almost industrial-level species called the atevi. They build a space station and some of the settlers (or their descendants) land on the planet, trying not to mess up anything. But they can't help thinking in human terms, and after a century or two of technological uplift by the humans, the atevi attack, driving them back to the island where they had originally landed. The eventual peace treaty establishes the office of paidhi, a human interpreter who will live among the atevi and facilitate communications. Another couple of centuries pass and Bren Cameron is the current paidhi, at the court of the regional ruler. He tries hard not to make mistakes or assumptions in gradually passing on human technical knowledge -- the price of the treaty -- but his carefully constructed complacency is shattered when he's packed off to a distant mountain fortress. Not until late in the story does he find out the reasons for this inexplicable treatment, and then he knows humans on his world have as much to fear as its original inhabitants. The author does an extraordinary job of allowing the atevi to explain themselves through their actions instead of simply telling the reader what's going through their minds, as she did in both the Chanur and Kes'rith cycles. There are now nine volumes in this new cycle, and they're all lined up on my reading shelf. Beautiful stuff.

There is an old saying, that if tigers could talk, we still wouldn't be able to communicate with them. Our minds and experiences are so different that, even if we used the same set of words, we could still not understand each other. In "Foreigner," Cherryh brings us face to face with the tiger. Plot aside, the book is about how difficult it would be to understand the psychology of an alien race. And at that task, it succeeds admirably.

The premise of the story is intriguing. A human colony ship goes horribly off course during a hyperspace jump. Stranded in unknown space, they are forced to orbit and eventually land on a planet inhabited by a tall, dark-skinned humanoid race, the atevi. The humans, though technologically superior, are vastly outnumbered. The only way to survive the distrustful atevi is to strike a deal that trades technology - slowly, over generations - for peace. Humans are relegated to a single island, all but one: the "paidhi," the interpreter, who lives among the atevi and acts as the liaison between the races. Two centuries later, an assassination attempt on the current paidhi, Bren Cameron, sets in motion a chain of events that could destroy the delicate balance between the natives and their unwelcome guests.

At least half the book consists of Bren's inner monologue. Bren thinks a lot: about the byzantine politics of the atevi; about the effects of technology on their culture; about his struggle against using human concepts to analyze atevi actions. At first, the endless thinking annoyed me - I wanted more action and less analysis. At the story progressed, though, I saw that the analysis is the point. Bren is trying to figure out how to talk to the tiger. He struggles to explain such human concepts as "liking" and "trust," while grappling with atevi ideas about hierarchical loyalty and betrayal. And when he gets caught up in a life or death power struggle, the fundamental differences are laid bare. It made me think, too.

Although I appreciate the psychological depth of the book, I'm hoping - call me shallow - that the next one has less thinking and more action. I thought it dragged at times. Still, Cherryh has created a world rich with possibilities. I can't wait to start the next book in the series. Four and a half stars.

Although this book came out over a decade ago, I only got around to reading it (the first of what became a series) just recently. I knew from other novels of Cherryh's that I'd read that she is terrific at creating worlds and cultures, and Foreigner does not disappoint. The culture of the Atevi is a subtle creation, alien but with just enough similarities to human culture to lead the humans into mistaken assumptions, ultimately with extreme consequences.

Which is what makes the premise of the book so intruiging. In this story of "first contact", everything has gone wrong. A ship of human explorers/colonists is thrown drastically off-course by causes unknown and ends up in a system so distant that they cannot find even a single familiar star to use as a reference point, around a double-star with radiation so intense as to make human existence untenable. The desperation of their situation is captured with feeling as Cherryh jumps the reader through two-hundred years in the first 42 pages, with the situation caught in vivid snapshots like this:

"The navigator said next that Greene was sick, something about an accident, about miner-pilots and crews dead or dying of radiation, pilots training pilots to do their job once they were dead... something about the star they hoped to go to. The navigator had one for him, and they were fueled and going now, away from this hellish vicinity, this double monster that sang to him constantly in his slow-moving dark. For the first time in a recent, lonely eternity, new data came in... Goldberg would back him up. Greene, McDonough reminded him, was sick. Inoki was dead. Three years ago, earth time."

When the humans reach their new destination, they find it already inhabited by the Atevi, a civilization roughly at the stage of the early Industrial Revolution in human terms. And thus this first contact is brought about by accident, with a single group of humans completely cut off from any hope of support from the rest of humanity, and with nowhere else to go. Failure, as the man said, is not an option.

The bulk of the novel is told from the point-of-view of Bren Cameron, the paidhi or interpreter. But the job is much more than it sounds, for the paidhi is the only human the Atevi will allow among them, and it is his responsibility to interpret everything, including language, culture and - hardest of all - intentions, between the two races, and a single mistake can have dire consequences. Particularly given that among the Atevi, assassination is not only legal and accepted, it is an institution relied on for dealing with problems, and now someone is trying to kill the paidhi. And so Bren, cut off and on his own, must find out who - and quickly - in a culture that has no word for "friend". Highly recommended.

I happen to really "dig" C.J. Cherryh's writing. Her characters are fully realized and believable and her plots are excellent. You can never call her works predictable or ho-hum.

When I first read _Foreigner_, I couldn't get into the novel. I picked it up, read 20-30 pages and put it down again. This happened several times. Eventually I decided to lay in a chunk of reading--only to realize that the farther I got into the novel, the more drawn to it I became. The Foreigner series of books only gets better as it develops. I found the next two novels in the series to be entirely satisfying reads.

The plot and characterizations of this series are complex and fully developed--one of it's most engaging qualities. Too many novels seem have flat characters and predictable plotlines which is incredibly disappointing to a smart reader. I recently read _Poison Study_ because of it's cover review. Ack! Talk about tripe. It's great to come across books that engage the reader's intelligence and have you wondering "gee, how would I react in that situation?"

I've read all of the Foreigner series to date (8 novels) and they are truly some of my favorites. I rank them up there with Tad Williams great series like the Otherworld novels, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover stuff, and Melanie Rawn's Exile books.

If you are looking for an extremely intellegent, psychologically rich series, this is it. And if you like this series, check out Ms. Cherryh's Cyteen books--also a good read.

This is the first book I've read that dealt primarily with the current US occupation of Iraq, and was impressed with it. The author is frequently seen in the editorial pages of major American publications such as US News and World Report, and BusinessWeek. He is of Middle Eastern descent, and is knowledgeable of the Arab nations, having lived in, or traveled to many of them in his life, and so gives the book some credence that others might not have. The title of the book gives away the author's bias; he believes that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 was a gift to Iraq, and the Arab world as a whole. But like all gifts from foreigners, the receiver might not know what to do with it.

The book is comprised of several chapters, each of which focuses on one particular Iraqi, or group of Iraqis, and their lives over the duration of Saddam Hussein's life. So each chapter represents a history of Iraq as reflected in the life story of a particular Iraqi. Taken together, they create an image of a very complex country, with needs, aspirations and fears beyond what even its most wisest citizens can navigate. They also provide incredible insights into the Arab world, and the Muslim world also.

Though the book comes across biased for the American invasion, the author does not whitewash anything done by the Americans. The Abu Graib prison scandal, the corruption of the Iraqi police, the missteps of the Bush administration in dealing with Iraq's neighbors, etc... all of them get fair play in this book. Noticeably absent is any mention of Halliburton, Big Oil, and other players from the US corporate scene, and what their influence is in Iraq. But overall, still a great book to read.

I nver got the book so it is difficult to review. This was the first time I bought the product but you never sent it.

Oops, I thought I was reviewing the seller. The book is a dry read. It is written from the perspective of someone who knows all the people and the places over there. To read this and get something out of it, one needs extensive background knowledge of the situation and the people involved. I found it very difficult to read. Not real crazy about it at all.

1. Ajami is a Lebanese Arab who moved to the US at 18, and who holds US Citizenship. In this context he is about as "neutral" a source as Zbigniew Brzezinski is with respect to NATO enlargment into Poland.
2. Did you know that all those troops were heading off to the Gulf to give "gifts" to Arabs, who already collect $bn's in USD every year from the US Treasury?
3. Or were you one of those nice folks who thought they were sent in to save your babies from mushroom clouds?
And finally,
4. Will Americans ever learn to spot the Belgian Nun?

This is a short review. I liked the book but I felt it was somewhat too long and was lacking order. Sometimes the writer introduced a character only to say that this character knew another one and starts talking about the second one.

This is the second book I read by Ajami. I felt the same kind of confusion and lack of order in The Dream Palace of the Arabs, on the first chapter, the one about Lebanon. I tend to think that the whirlwind of characters, anecdotes, impressions, evaluations, sayings and images of the country is deliberate in these two cases: both places Lebanon during the Civil War and Iraq at the present are or were in the midst of a maelstrom of violence and sectarianism and Ajami wants to convey some of this overwhelming mayhem to the reader through this lack of order. The Foreigner's gift is like the chapter about Lebanon but through 343 pages!

Although I got tired sometimes, I liked it. The more I read about the Arab world, the more I appreciate the efforts of counted men and women to modernize their world, and I appreciate the obstacles they have to fight. Sometimes when reading about the politicians who want to make their country better but fight against unsurmountable odds and the inertia of the system and the people, I went on to think about Argentina (where I come from) and how it is not such a different situation (minus the homicide bombings). Hence, I was able to enter minds of some Arabs as if they were my own people and stop considering them an unknowable "other" (this doesn't apply of course to the pathological homicide bombers). Ajami is succesful in presenting a story of people reacting to great changes. And he is optimist. I hope that Iraq succeeds. This is a book for those who like America and for those who hate it. You can't hate what you know. And people need to know all the things that America is doing for the Iraqis, and how many Iraqis depend on the success of the reconstruction effort and the war on terrorism.

With over 50 years of reading top science fiction, I discovered Cherryh and the Foreigner series. Its world and its characters were so truly drawn that they became "friends" in whose future I felt deeply involved. I have awaited each new book in the series with great anticipation.

Wow, a lot of these reviews are surprising me. Everyone seems to think that this book is somehow _better_ than the original Foreigner. Well, I hate to say it, but the original Foreigner was _really_ good. Here I am now, stuck with about a hundred pages left in this book, and it's taking forever to get through. Literally... this book has been on my desk for about 3 weeks now, and I got through Foreigner in a week. The pace slows down incredibly in this sequel, to the point where the brief 3rd person/omniscient perspective (through the eyes of Bren) from the first novel changes into an ENTIRELY philosophical, pondering pile of stress (through the eyes of Bren.. again). For pages, and pages at a time. CJ Cherryh lets us realize that she is confused, stressed out, and pontificating in this novel, for chapter after chapter, while disguising it as Atevi/Human conflict. It's really, really hard to finish this book, but I loved the first one so much, and I still have 7 more to go after this.... so I'm going to struggle through it. I really hope that Foreigner 3 is more rewarding. I've heard that the series as a whole is amazing, so I'm praying this is just a speed bump on the road of the Foreigner novels. (crossing fingers)

This is the second volume -- the "bridge" volume, which are notoriously difficult to write -- in what originally was meant to be a trilogy but which is now a nine-volume epic. A couple of centuries ago, a human colony ship went badly astray and was forced to land on an already inhabited world. The native atevi were on the edge of an industrial revolution but have now been yanked into a much more advanced culture with the aid of slowly doled-out human technology. Following a war that resulted from profound misunderstandings between the two species, a treaty restricts the human population to the island of Mosphei and permits -- requires -- a single human in the atevi local capital as paidhi -- the translator and mediator between natives and foreigners. Bren Cameron is that lone human, far more talented than any of his predecessors, anxious to understand the often bewildering atevi psyche, willing to like and even love his hosts. But now the human ship from which his ancestors descended, and which had left the planet's vicinity shortly afterward, has returned unexpectedly and wants to refurbish the abandoned orbiting space station. They expect humans to provide unquestioning labor but don't realize how much things have changed, and Bren has to deal with the sudden change from two-sided relations to a triangular situation between atevi, Mosphei humans (including a rival padhi supported by an anti-atevi faction), and the ship. Cherryh is a master in the explication of very alien psychology and politics. This isn't "space opera," it's a very thoughtful, very detailed study of human-alien relations. Which means it won't appeal much to fans of sword-swinging fantasy and shoot-'em-up fiction, but more intellectual sf fans are gonna love it.

...because that's mostly what happens in it: the main character, Bren Cameron, thinks. A lot. He certainly has much to ponder. He is the "paidhi," the one human on the planet allowed to live among the atevi, the native race. As described in "Foreigner," the humans are descendants of a lost colony ship. The survivors build a space station around the atevi homeworld, but the ship itself leaves, forcing the station dwellers to migrate to the planet. After a devastating war, humans are now confined to a large island. Bren serves the atevi court as the Interpreter, the only direct link between atevi and human. When the original ship returns after centuries of absence, the fragile balance is threatened by conservative elements from both races. Bren must scramble to bridge the cultural and linguistic gaps between the parties in order to keep the peace.

The story only covers about a week of time. And in that time, Cherryh seemingly shares every single thought that passes through Bren's mind. Fortunately, a lot of it is quite interesting. Cherryh has built a rich and complex alien culture, and lavishes great attention on the intricacies of atevi psychology, language, and politics. It is truly an admirable creation, and for long stretches I was quite caught up in it. But in terms of plot, not much happens. For every action, Bren must spend at least 20 pages ruminating about it, analyzing atevi reactions, worrying about ramifications, and so on. If you strip away the thinking, the action could boil down to about 30 pages. And it is clearly a middle book in a series. The "ending" would be totally unsatisfying on its own, and is designed merely to lead into the next book.

So I have mixed feelings about "Invader." The world building is superb, and the characters are interesting. But the pace can be glacial at times. I'm trying to decide if it's worth reading the sequel. Hmm. Let me go think about it...

Invader, the second book in what ultimately became the Foreigner series, is an excellent sequel to the first novel, Foreigner. It picks up immediately after where Foreigner ended, with the humans and the atevi both in turmoil over the unexpected reappearance after 178 years of the human ship Phoenix, both groups wondering the same things: why has the ship returned, what does it want, and how will all this affect the delicate human-atevi treaty which has kept the peace for so long?

Again, the story is seen through the eyes of Bren Cameron, the paidhi, the sole human allowed to live among the atevi, the man whose job it is to translate between the two races and who must at all costs prevent the kinds of mistakes that led to the first human-atevi war. The reappearance of the ship has, to say the least, made his job a hundred times more difficult. To make things worse, when Bren returns after treatment for injuries suffered in the previous book, he finds that his temporary replacement as paidhi, the openly hostile Deana Hanks, has not only thrown an entire box of monkey wrenches into the works, she also is refusing to leave, and it is all Bren can do to keep any number of atevi factions from having her legally assassinated in the normal atevi way of dealing with a problem.

One of the things that Cherryh deals with well in this novel is the difficulty of communication, be it on the species level, between human and atevi, or within species as Bren must deal with factions within the human community and factions within the atevi community, and ultimately on the purely personal level as Bren has to reevaluate his relations with those closest to him. As in the first novel, Cherryh continues to show just how hard true communication is, particularly when no groups really speak with a single voice, when unknown agendas are in play, when all sides shade or even withhold information seeking to gain an advantage, and when alien biology makes certain concepts simply untranslatable.

And added to all of the things weighing on Bren's mind in the midest of his growing isolation is the problem of what appears to be a mutual desire between him and Jago, the female atevi assigned to be his bodyguard. He is the paidhi, the translator, and yet he doesn't have the slightest clue of what he should say - or not say - to her, or how to interpret what her overtures might mean - or not mean. More to come on this in future installments, I'm sure.

All in all, an excellent sequel, guaranteed to keep you reading. Highly recommended.

Bren Cameron, the paidhi-aiji to the leader of the atevi, and two years before appointed Lord of the Heavens so he could be sent out to deal with the unknown aliens at a distant Pilots Guild-run space station, is looking forward to a long vacation when he and his staff break out of hyperspace near the atevi home planet. But the returning starship finds things chaotic on the station, and it's all because a coup took place shortly after their departure and Tabini, the aiji, hasn't been seen for months. Is he dead? Or just waiting for the ship to return? Because Bren, after long, hard thought, has to admit that much of the cultural tension that led to the revolt (assisted by rival clan ambitions) was indirectly his fault. The conservatives don't like all the changes their society has undergone, nor the speed with which it has all happened. But Bren also knows that none of that could be helped, not if both atevi and humans were to survive. But to make his case, he has to get himself, the dowager (Tabini's slightly scary and very astute grandmother), and the aiji's young heir down to the planet and over to the mainland. Among the atevi, a leader has to lead from the front, and that's where Bren has to be while he tries to make contact with his boss -- if he's still alive. This seventh volume in the saga has overtones of a parachute drop behind enemy lines in World War II, with stolen farm trucks, allies picked up as they can, and a firefight at the climax. The politics -- which Cherryh lays out in very great detail -- can be difficult to follow, and will probably bore readers with less patience, but I enjoy the sociopolitical cut-and-thrust and the paidhi's struggle to understand the web of clan allegiances and the effects of manchi on alliances. An absorbing series. One small annoyance, though: Michael Whelan, whose work I have always enjoyed, has been doing all the cover paintings, but for this volume he has, for some reason, changed the style considerably. I liked the somewhat stylized rendering of the atevi on the earlier covers -- but now, suddenly, they have faces of a different shape and their hair is in corn-rows, for chrissakes.

Bren and his associates return home to discover that Tabini has been usurped by a former rival he was persuaded by Bren not to eliminate, a state of affairs made possible by general Atevi discontent at the pace of change which has impacted their man'chi and traditions, and with Bren and his Humankind on the Mosphieran enclave, the focus of blame.

Given the backdrop to this title I found the attention to courtly behaviour and sensibilities to be verging on the intrusive. The mainland is supposed to be in upheaval, after all. So Illisidi's leisurely trisection of her egg, Bren's recurring concern about the starchiness of his lace, and the need to get in-flight catering underway during shuttle descent, for example, tended toward an unwelcome distraction, even though such details do, in the end, embellish the cultural aspects of the proceedings.

Interesting thoughts about inter-clan concerns, the impact of well-intentioned government interference in the economy, and how an external influence can heighten problems. Those interested in reading about such things in more detail, may wish to consider the following suggestions.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn: Liberty or Equality.
Hans Herman Hoppe: Democracy, the God that failed.
Bertrand De Jouvenel: The Ethics of Redistribution

Bren and his Atevi comrades return from their latest mission to find the Atevi homeworld in chaos and the space station they had relied on, cut off from the planet. Together with the prince and the dowager, they travel in secret back to the planet to start a rebellion.

I'm a big fan of these novels. Bren is an interesting and likeable character. I particularly like how Cherryh handles his relationships. He is very dedicated and married to his job. He really has no human friends except for his brother. I like the prince and was sad he never got to celebrate his birthday. I find the dowager a trifle annoying but at times amusing. Please. Get rid of Barb.

This was an exciting addition to the Foreigner series.

Slow moving? That review was written by idiots. In 30 years of reading science fiction, I have to say that there has never been such a whirlwind of writing as C. J. Cherryh. She is utterly brilliant, to the point that I often suggest that people start with her early work and read up, lest they be overwhelmed. You may need to read a book two or three times to catch everythign that she is saying. There is no book by this author not worth reading. The only thing close is 40,00 in Gehenna, which is more purely sociological than will appeal to some readers.

Simply put: if you have enjoyed Cherryh's previous books in this series, you will enjoy this as well. If you haven't... why are you still reading, anyway? And if you have not read the previous books, start with Foreigner. These are not stand-alone books.

This book has, in my mind, much more action than most of its prequels. Much is going on, and in a relatively quick tempo, even though, in a way typical for Cherryh, we get also a great deal of Bren's thoughts and self-reproach. All in all, Cherryh's writing is as good as ever.

It is difficult to say anything too specific about this particular book without giving things out... except that maybe, if you haven't yet read any plot summaries, you shouldn't do it at all. I think I might have liked the book even better if certain things would have taken me completely by surprise. Anyway, one thing I enjoyed in this book was Cajeiri. Our "little" rascal is growing up. (And still being a rascal.)