Six months have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix - the same ship which brought humans to the world of alien atevi nearly two hundred years ago, leaving a small and vulnerable colony to struggle for survival in a hostile environment. During these six months, the alien atevi have striven to reconfigure their fledgling space program in a breakneck bid to take their place in the heavens alongside humans. But the return of the Phoenix has added a frighteningly powerful third party to an already volatile situation, polarizing political factions in both human and atevi societies, and making the possibility of all-out planetary war an even more likely threat. On the atevi mainland, human ambassador Bren Cameron, in a desperate attempt to maintain the peace, has risked alienation from his own people by communicating with the staff of the Phoenix as spokesman for the atevi, and has arranged for one human representative from the Phoenix to take up residence with him in his apartments, and for another to be stationed on Mosphiera, humanity's island enclave. Now, Bren has the difficult task of indoctrinating Jason Graham, a young man who has never before set foot on a planet, in the intricate, delicate, and potentially lethal maneuverings of the human-atevi interface. And this at a time when, thanks to the assassination of an atevi lord who had been one of Bren's primary adversaries, and the near-collision of Bren's personal plane with a jet manned by an unknown pilot, the relationship between atevi factions is becoming more strained by the minute.
Industry Reviews
Praise for the Foreigner series: "C.J. Cherryh's splendid Foreigner series remains at the top of my must-keep-up reading list after two decades." --Locus
"This is the kind of anthropological SF of which [Cherryh] is an acknowledged master." --Booklist
"A seriously probing, thoughtful, intelligent piece of work, with more insight in half a dozen pages than most authors manage in half a thousand." --Kirkus Reviews
"One of the best long-running SF series in existence...Cherryh remains one of the most talented writers in the field." --Publishers Weekly
"This is one of the best science fiction series currently running....by this point, the series has turned into a complicated set of thrillers involving political and factional turmoil, as well as a close and detailed examination of the troubled interactions between human and alien cultures." --Strange Horizons
"Cherryh plays her strongest suit in this exploration of human/alien contact, producing an incisive study-in-contrast of what it means to be human in a world where trust is nonexistent." --Library Journal
"A large new novel from C.J. Cherryh is always welcome. When it marks her return to the anthropological SF in which she has made such a name, it is a double pleasure. The ensuing story is not short on action, but stronger (like much of Cherryh's work) on world-building, exotic aliens, and characterization. Well up to Cherryh's usual high standard." --The Chicago Sun-Times
"[Cherryh] avoids any kind of slump with a quick-moving and immediately engaging plotline, and by balancing satisfying resolutions with plenty of promises and ominous portents that are sure to keep readers' appetites whetted." --RT Reviews
"These are thinking man's reads with rich characters and worlds and fascinating interactions that stretch out over many generations." --SFFWorld
"Cherryh's forte is her handling of cross-cultural conflicts, which she does by tying her narrative to those things her point-of-view character would know, think, and feel."--SFRevu
