Foreigner
It had been nearly five centuries since the starship Phoenix, lost in space and
desparately searching for the nearest G5 star, had encountered the planet of the atevi.
On this alien world, law was kept by the use of registered assassination, alliances were defined
by individual loyalties not geographical borders, and war became inevitable once humans and
one faction of atevi established a working relationship. It was a war that humans had
no chance of winning on this planet so many light-years from home.
Now, nearly two hundred years after the conflict, humanity has traded its advanced technology for peace and an
island refuge that no atevi will ever visit. Then the sole human the treaty allows intoatevi society is marked for an assassin's bullet. The work of an isolated lunatic?... The
interests of a particular faction?... Or the consequence of one human's fondness for a species which
has fourteen words for betrayal and not a single word for love?
C. J. Cherryh
C. J. Cherryh (born 1942) is the pen name of Carolyn Janice Cherry, a multiple-award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer. She currently resides in Spokane County, Washington.
Cherryh is pronounced ”Cherry”. The author appended a silent ”h” to her real name because her first editor felt that ”Cherry” sounded too much like a romance writer.
The asteroid 77185 Cherryh has been named in her honour.
The Foreigner Universe
Lost in a navigational mishap, humans from the spaceship Phoenix have made landfall onto a planet inhabited by the atevi, whose thought processes are utterly alien to humans. This leads to a war with devastating results.
Bren Cameron is the current paidhi, whose job it is to provide translation services and act as the sole liaison between the humans, now settled on the island of Mospheira, and the atevi. But interesting times are ahead...
The Foreigner Universe consists of twenty-one books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.