on the second read I think this is another of my favourites in the series, It starts off with Bren having had at least a week's worth of break with Jase, Cajeiri and the kids, right after the last book ended, and then when everything looks as if the biggest upheaval in the offing would be Cajeiri being sad that the kids go back to the station and the details of that train line to be laid into the east, the shit hits the fan up on the station because some visitors no one really expected to show up are on approach.
I loved the balance of Bren, Cajeiri and Ilisidi here and especially the little vignette between Cajeiri and his mum.
The next book can go soooo many ways can't wait, At least they've got a great team up there, Another winner
In reading some other reviews, there were complaints about repetitive plotting and the boring 'same old thing' so I started to read with this in the back of my mind.
The next time it crossed my mind was just now, about two hours after finishing the book, I flew through it, though I kept trying to read slowly to make it last longer, but that just wasn't going to happen.
Any time I have read any of the books in this series, I have been transported to this other Earth, the Earth of the Atevi, and I am sadly disappointed each time when I finish the book and have to return to this world, where there are no delightfully interesting beings such as Ilisidi, or Banichi, or the various Kyo.
I recommend a trip to this other world to any reader, any time, Ever since book, Explorer, I've been waiting, . . WAITING for this to happen! Book, Tracker, is everything I ever wanted to see in this series: SPACE! We're finally back on the station and things aren't as peachy as Bren thought they would be.
An alien ship is approaching the planet is it friendly Is it an enemy Speaking of enemies: the Mospheiran space station master is a complete disaster, the psychopaths from Reunion are as suspicious as ever, Cajeiri's associates are missing and, possibly, in grave danger, the assassin's guild wants to open office in space and we all know how bad this can go.
Basically, there's a lot of amp happening and Bren has to fix it all again and believe it or not, his fellow humans tend to be far more difficult to deal with than the alien Atevi.
Cajeiri and his cute pet!
I don't want to spoil anything, this book is filled with plot twists and dubious situations, so I'll be as general as possible translation: I'll fangirl like an obnoxious little brat
WHAT I LOVED
.
We're back in space! Or more specifically, to the space station, the only place where humans and atevi are working together their language skills are rather bad so they communicate between eachother using simple words, images and occasionally exchange photos of their families.
. . SO CUTE! I wish we could see more of these every day scenes,
. Situation on the station is a complete mess let's just say the Mospheiran humans aren't very happy to have the Reunion humans as flatmates and it's up to Bren to poor some sense into their leaders' heads.
Armed atevi assassins as bodyguards should do the trick,
. The Assassin's Guild is opening an office on the space station, . . WOW! Seriously I can't wait to see how this goes, . . They should watch some human tv soap opera for educational purposes, just to get an idea of what an emotional mess our race is.
. Irene she's quickly becoming one of my favorite characters! Not to mention she's a female human belowwho isn't stupid, weak, ignorant or evil! That's rare.
. . She's actually the only one so far, In this book, Irene is one hell of a kickass character! A Paidhi material without a doubt! Bren and interracial diplomacy. Dealing with Atevi is a piece of pie compared to dealing with emotional humans with mental breakdowns! The human children I adore them! I adore their presence in the books, and it's been a great joy to read about their journey in the pastbooks.
WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE
I'll be honest, ever since bookmy interest in the series was dwindling I'm actually a minority here, as usual, I still enjoyed them especially booksand, but at one point it was a struggle to continue considering Foreigner as one of my topfavorite series.
Bookwas definitely worth the long wait, but I do feel a little bit tired from the overall plot dragging in the previousbooks.
. Stupid evil humans are just, . . stupid and evil. Ok, so random bad guy wants power, wants control, wants to cause others to suffer, because, Why is he doing all this, he can't be a complete psychopath without real human reasoning, Some of the most horrible actions in our history were done because of good intentions, People are never truly evil, something made them prone to make wrong choices in life, Branding a person as evil is not enough for me, Maybe his goals are detrimental for some, but beneficial for others, If he wasselfish then he wouldn't have so many followers to begin with,
CONCLUSION
LOVED IT! Sad because I've almost caught up with the series now, but overall, Tracker made me fall in love with Foreigner all over again!
Fanarts are done by me, as usual.
:
Kan inte sluta läsa denna bokserie, Alltid välskrivet. Irene the brave!! I'm extremely happy to be returning to space again, Not that I didn't love the politics and the deadly action and the assassination attempts down below, but it's been a long time since we went back to space.
Objectively, it's only been a year, but in that time there's been a civil war and the space station has been dealing with troublesome refugees from another space station that had gotten itself into some deep trouble with some very strange aliens.
And guess who's come to the Atevi homeworld, knockknockknocking on the door
Ah, well, just imagine a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off and you're describing mostly the humans, including those in control of the space station.
Enter DIPLOMACY. Yes, diplomacy as a superpower, It's a thing.
It's a very geeky thing that I absolutely love, Add a bit of math, a lot of politics coming from so many sides, names and situations that have been developing for a truly wonderful run ofbooks, and the start of a new storyarc minitrilogy, and I'm superhappy.
It's always like coming home, Like coming home to a million old dysfunctional friends with ebony skin, who think in math and believe all humans are little tiny children.
But best of all, we're getting back to space! And Cajeri's human friends have just been gifted percieved powers among the rabble on the space station Holy crap.
And aliens are coming Holy crap,
And we've got conspiracy, diplomacy, hacking, spacebattle, and tea Oh, yeah, Cherryh's on my wavelength, :
I can't wait to see where this new trilogy takes us! :,stars. So glad to visit with these characters again! Especially since they get to go back to the space station and theres the beginning of a really interesting plot where the Kyo show up for their promised visit while the humans are in the middle of a political crisis.
Its their turn the atevi political crisis having been neatly wrapped up at the end of the previous novel,
I assume this is the first third of another story arc, since it feels like the first third of a novel, if it were written by someone else.
As usual the plotting is incredibly slow and the writing is repetitive in particular Bren explains circumstances to people over and over again.
Still, Im utterly absorbed by this series, and theres the usual exciting action scene at the end, So I sit back and wait a year for the next book, Yeah, yeah, I know, I said I was going to take a break, Whatever. I lied.
This one had several heartbreaking moments and really exciting ones, First, I love the mechanics of space travel and living onboard ship in this world she's created, It's difficult for them to get to space, It takes time. It's exhausting. They need naps when they finally arrive, It is still a dangerous trip for everyone to get up into the heavens, and Cherryh does make it come alive.
Cajeiri and Damiri's honest discussion about the loss of man'chi between them and how they want to get it back.
I know that "love" isn't the same feeling, but I could image a child and his mother trying to have this discussion.
"Mom, I know you don't love me anymore, " And mom saying, yes, that's true, I don't, But they all got to finally air the dirty laundry, Why Damiri and Tabini nearly broke up, Why Damiri had such a hard time seeing Cajeiri again, And everyone got to be honest: if Cajeiri had stayed, they would have all died, So Damiri's sacrifice of her son's man'chi was the ultimate show of man'chi, for it saved his life,
The arrival onboard with the Kyo showing up, and the near riot happening was so well done, Ilisidi loves those kids. I know, I know, she can't feel love, but what she feels for them is as close as Atevi can feel love.
She is a softie when it comes to children, it's clear, and she isn't even trying to put on a good show anymore.
books in, and frankly this series has held my attention completely, I absolutely love this series,
A continuationof an enjoyable scifi series, Poor Bren, he never gets a break, Jumping from one emergency to the next with very little down time in between, This time ship/station troubles which have been put off for too long and the return of the kyo at the very worst time.
TRACKER features all of Cherryh's strengths and weaknesses, In particular, the slow pace and constant repetitions get old but I just skim the slow parts, I've been away from the Foreigner universe for quite awhile, and it's a pleasure to be back, First of a new story arc, and the next is on its way from the library, The spacestation diplomacy etc is cool, the Young Lord is growing up and his pal Irene, from the visit to the Atevi homeworld by three refugee kids that opens the book, is wonderful.
She kicked it up tostars, for me, That whole episode, really, and it wouldn't be fair to reveal more, You'll know it when you see it!
The whole series is a remarkable piece of imaginative work, She's been publishing books in the Foreigner universe since! That's impressive, This is book. Four more to go! sitelink wikipedia. org/wiki/Foreign nice catchup or memoryaid,
The review to read
is Jo Walton's, sitelink goodreads. com/review/show
And here's a good review by another longterm reader of the series: sitelink com/rev
Excerpt:
"once the story starts to move forward, it really moves, In the space of a hundred pages Bren is on the planet deciding to visit his brother, and then hes whisked up to the space station to deal with a threat, and goes toe to toe with a stationmaster who has clearly lost his mind, and hopes his very loyal and extremely frightening bodyguard doesnt decide to kill someone, all while trying to figure out how to talk to a dangerous new alien race when the only thing theyve translated in their language is a handful of nouns.
It was fun, exciting, satisfying, and absolutely makes me want to read more, ".