Secure Convergence (Foreigner #18) Constructed By C.J. Cherryh Presented As File
love this series so much and reread it every year or two, I'm picking up from where I left off last year, Cherryh, C. J. Convergence. Foreigner No Daw,.
So, the strange aliens have signed a respectourborders treaty and are bugging out of the system, but now the trick is to get the human beings to sign on and the different groups of human beings to get along so amicably.
Bren, who now defines his role as mediator, rather than translator, has to prepare for the next generation to take over his job.
On the Atevi side, there are the usual number of dangerous complications, which we see more and more through the eyes of the young prince as he grows up and tries, at age nine, to adjust to his new responsibilities.
If Visitor was a tribute to linguistics, Convergence is a tribute to mediation,
It almost feels like Cherryh is coasting on the strength of characters developed over the course of twentythree ! years and eighteen !! novels.
It's disappointing that she couldn't find more for them to do: as much as it's fun to follow Bren, his lengthy testimony to the Linguistics Committee of the University of Mospheira does not really pack quite the same punch as alien feudal intrigue or looming interspecies space war.
It was enjoyable to see Cajeiri's character develop as the "young gentleman" grows into his role of heir, though his subplot suffers from overlong description of complex atevi clan relationships: one can understand that Cherryh is proud of all the work she put into worldbuilding, but one finds oneself wishing she would get on with the story! Very little actually happens in this novel, with the most compelling characters Ilisidi, Banichi, Jago relegated to very brief and inconsequential cameos.
It's not clear where, if anywhere, the series is headed, There are no immediate dangers threatening the Earth of the atevi, for once: the kyo have their own paidhi, and in any case their war is far away.
. . at least for now. The aishidi'tat is at peace and loose ends are being tied up, It's hard to imagine anyone not already heavily invested in the Foreigner universe caring much one way or the other whether there will be a novel.
This is a pretty good novel that doesn't advance the story arc much, In Mospheira, we see Bren negotiating with the human government for the immigration of the refugees from the derelict Reunion Station, starting with the heir Cajieri's three young friends.
And he spends a fair amount of time in an academic dispute with the University, I was hoping to learn more about Mospheira, but this half of the narrative was oddly bloodless, And none of the refugees are actually landed by the end of the book,
Across the strait on the mainland, we see Cajieri at his Uncle's estate on his mother's side helping to resolve a dispute in her ancestral clan, and perhaps pick a new clan leader.
This half of the book is more interesting, and it's fun to see the young gentleman maturing but there's still a lot of recycling of old background stuff.
Mind, the book moves right along, but I found myself getting impatient with the talk, talk, talk and endless repetition.
I expect I'll read the next one, but "Convergence" is one of the weaker books in the series especially by comparison the the past two which were firstrate.
This one gets a weakfrom me, and if you skip it you won't miss very much, Jamie Collins's review points out the weak points, though I liked it more than she did: sitelink goodreads. com/review/show Can't get enough of the Foreigner series!
I am just as drawn to this world that Cherryh's created as when I first started the series more thanyears ago with Bren Cameron taking up his role as Paidhi.
Watching Cajeiri mature and make sense of his world, Bren having to set up things to solve the problems and challenges faced by the inhabitants of the Atevi world.
And in the background the aliens, the Kyo,
As usual the way things relate for the atevi is complex and watching Cajeiri work that outfascinating, I was a little disappointed as this book just seemed to be a setup for another book, No real story this time, Book
The explosive discovery made at the end of the previous instalment is kept under wraps, with only a handful of people aware of it.
Knowing Cherryh, I guess were going to have to wait quite a while for that dish to be ready to be served.
In the meantime, I was pleasantly surprised when this narrative took Bren to Mospheira, Id been wanting to see that perspective for quite a while, Now how did I miss that all previous paidhi did not speak with the atevi but communicated through written messages!!!! I can well see the huge change Bren would be, and yes, I had fun at seeing him deal with the universitys obtuse members.
Cajeiris side of the story was good but paled a little in comparison,
I must admit I do wonder where Cherryh is going to take this, I dont mind getting atevi politics, but I dont want just that, A mixture with Mospheira and the station mess would be nice, and what would be really nice is more Kyo and their war :One can wish.
. .
I love this series, I love all of CJs books, I've met CJ and enjoy reading her blog, I love her writing style, and the atevi, and the individual characters, and the tense situations resolved by cleverness and guile.
But this book is clearly the weakest in the series, This is a pivot point in the series, and had so much potential for intrigue and synergy, But it was one simple passage, with the same topic discussed over and over, with the same words, The same people from book!!! return to the stage, and they haven't changed much at all, It's like an Expendables movie,
Even the costory with Cajeiri advanced slowly, even though it set the stage for future growth,
I'm sure that this is just a pause in the sequence, and the next entry will be as strong as the previous ones.
But this one was disappointing, made worse by my own high hopes,
And the cover is awful! It's bookof the Foreigner series, and C, J. Cherryh hasn't yet lost momentum, For those who are reading the series, "Convergence" is more of what you'd expect and of course those who aren't must, absolutely must, start with the first book, "Foreigner.
"
Note, however, there is the possibility of addiction, One friend of mine read allbooks published so far in just over a year, OK, I've now readof thebooks in this series, and I've continuously and consistently not been able to dish outstars.
Why Sour grapes Actually, it's not, I have one single gripe with this entire series, but it's one that's growing by the book, because this issue is present in ALL the books, and it stops what is otherwise an outstanding series from, well, being outstanding.
That gripe It's a simple little thing, and it's called consistency, From a small thing like keeping the names of major secondary characters consistent Yolanda to Yolande, anyone to a MAJOR thing like the fact that the requirements of atevi society and their psychology changes from book to book.
. . that's inexcusable for me.
This is not an indie author running her series on a shoestring budget off the side of a desk.
And even most of those understand that consistency is important, This is CJ Cherryh, people, She has the whole team at DAW behind her, One of the key jobs of a copyeditor is to find and kill this type of screwup, Failing that, most authors just take a few notes,
Takes a deep breath Replaces soapbox in storage Good book, Not as complex as some her books, Focused quite a bit on the islanders, Will read the next in the series, It is one of my favorites, I really hate it when a book just ends in without having a proper ending, This one does just that, Bren is wishing he was home and nothing that has been set up is solved, Bookis Bren letting the humans know what the atevi expect and Cajeiri, the atevi heir, learning more about what was expected of him and seeing the power he had even as a child.
Convergence does set up a whole new set of problems for all of the humans and the atevi with Bren again at the heart of the problems and the solutions.
Do not start this series here, It is long running and complex, A must read for fans of the series even with the ending that is really not an ending at all.
I kept trying to find the next page but there just was not one, I admit I had a bit of a panic partway through the book, I was worried that this one might be the last of the series, This book covers the fallout on the planet after the encounter with the Kyo and begins to find a solution to some of the problems found during Murino's rebellion.
The level of detail in this series is wonderful A better addition to the series than some other ones, And this book isminutes of committee meetings Bren attends, so there's that,
This time we go to the island of Mosphera where the humans settlement is, It was a fresh and interesting take on the series, But I could have done without all the talking,
And why has everyone's backstory changed Since when was the president single, he had a wife and kids.
And Toby had an ex wife and kids, But there's no mention of meeting nephews or nieces, or any other extended family, And nothing about how atevi adapt to living in cramped human sized conditions,
The action mostly happens on the Atevi mainland, And it's sparse, meagre action, I found the jump in Cajeiri's character to be unnecessary, Suddenly he's doing and saying all the right things, It's made him kind of boring,
Can't put my finger on any plot that came full circle in the book, but it does seem to set up something interesting for the storyline of Cajeiri's mother and her clan.
One for the fans of the series really,
After the explosive revelations of Visitor, Convergence is a much quieter book, On Cajeiri's side, we see the boy's first real foray into atevi politics as a major player in his own right.
I'm fascinated to see Cajeiri's viewpoint shifting as he grows up he's still clearly not an adult, but he seems to be in the atevi equivalent of adolescence, old enough to finally understand a lot of what's going on around him and be motivated by the kind of world he wants to inherit and rule instead of simply reacting to boredom or fear.
I'm looking forward to getting even more of this older Cajeiri in future books, And the political situation set up here could have very interesting repercussions as well,
On Bren's side, though, we get Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a lot of conversations going over the same ground with different people as he works to lay the ground for a mass of Reunioner refugees descending on Mospheira.
It feels like what we get could have taken much less space in the narrative, and at the same time, the book ends so abruptly that it feels like a chapter break rather than the capstone on a trilogy.
I'm eager to know what's next, but this is not one of my favorites in the series, To read more of my reviews, check out my blog at sitelinkkeikii Eats Books!
Quote:
“Mani says if we site a space industry in their district they will become great supporters of the ship.
Perhaps we should give them a contract, ”
“Change, son of mine, should be applied like salt to a dishbest taste it, understand it, and then decide.
”
:
Hmm Convergence was, . different somehow. A lot of hows, to be honest, I think if I weren't so biasedly in love with this series I might have rated this much more poorly than I have.
While both Bren and Cajeiri have been sharing the perspective for the book since I believe book eight or nine, it is different this time around.
They are much more equal characters, Cajeiri has been acting more like an adult, having more and more agency with each successive book, Acting less like chaos incarnate, This was like a test for him, and he passed with flying colours,
Bren's story was much of the same as it has been the entire series, Politics, politics, and more politics, The difference being that it was entirely human politics, and it didn't even have to deal with the space station or space ship.
It was all Mospheiran. Tabini has sent Bren to Mospheira to make them deal with the rapidly deteriorating situation on the space station, and get Cajeiri's friends down to the planet safe, and in a program to someday replace him as paidhi.
There is a lot of time spent trying to get the Mospheirans to see reason, Which good luck with that. Jeez humans in this series are absolutely impossible to get along with, It is no wonder that Bren prefers to deal with the Atevi, It is a lot of what we have seen to date, A lot of meetings, mostly without tea because they were large meetings with different cabinets, Nothing special, but still damn fine to read,
Cajeiri on the other hand, . . has had his first solo outing, He has gone, on his own, to his great uncle Tatiseigi's house, With permission this time! Tabini wants to show that Tatiseigi isn't out of favour with him, and this gives a chance for Cajeiri to just be a kid and get to ride his macheiti which he has only been allowed to ride once before.
Cajeiri is learning how to do things on his own, how to direct the going ons around him on his own.
It's all politics, but of the sort a child can handle, He has to deal with keeping his family from getting even more of a mess than it already is, He is a child of politics, tying together way too many lines,
But he is only a kid, And I found myself crying a bit for Cajeiri, He is never allowed to just be a kid, Everything has an ulterior motive, Nothing is safe for him, Everything he ever has tried to do to just be a kid has been interrupted by gunfire or assassins or kidnapping, or some combination.
And now he is being saddled with even more responsibility while not being in charge of anything in his life.
He is always at the whims of the adults while not ever being allowed to be a kid, It sucks and he isn't even allowed to complain, Poor kid. .