his novel is the sixth in the ongoing saga that began with Foreigner in 1994. In that volume, a starship full of humans became lost among the stars, and was forced to establish a colony on the world of the atevi. The atevi are humanoids, considerably larger than Earthlings, jet-black in skin tone and golden-eyed. Their culture is radically different from the human norm, reliant on the concept of "man'chi," a kind of fealty to leaders, and features an Assassin's Guild, numerological superstitions and much Machiavellian plotting. After an initial war, the humans and atevi have reached an understanding of sorts. Our viewpoint character in this tense milieu is Bren Cameron, an ambassador who is the one man permitted to mingle with the atevi. (The rest of mankind lives in flourishing isolation on a large island.) This first volume concerns itself mainly with shifting alliances and power balances between atevi and humans.
The next installment, Invader (1995), finds the status quo roiled by the return of the Phoenix, the ship that planted the colony then took off for parts unknown. In Inheritor (1996), accommodations have been reached with the Phoenix and a tentative reintegration of planet-bound and interstellar humans begins, with the atevi playing a large part. Precursor (1999) leaps ahead three years, as Bren shifts his duties to a space station being rehabbed. Finally, in Defender (2001), sundered from his planetary responsibilities, Bren and his entourage prepare to head out of the solar system.
Explorer finds Bren and company back in the last solar system that the Phoenix visited. There, the ship had built another orbiting facility known as Reunion. Unfortunately, they did not realize they were trespassing. Reunion was attacked by unknown aliens, the real reason the Phoenix cut and ran back to the atevi world, leaving the large crew of Reunion—some 4,000 people—to fend for themselves. Bren's atevi lord, Tabini, has sent along his powerful dowager grandmother, Ilisidi, along with his heir, the child Cajeiri, to represent atevi interests. Bren must contend with a host of issues, one being that the Phoenix has two captains—Graham and Sabin—only one of whom is friendly to him. Making contact with both the unknown aliens and the humans on Reunion, Bren finds that all his diplomatic skills are necessary to effect peace among all the parties.
Space opera or soap opera?
I much enjoyed C.J. Cherryh's earliest work, and was looking forward to tackling this series after being away from her books for too long. That's why my disappointment was great when I discovered this six-volume saga (with more installments plainly on the way, given the open-ended nature of Explorer) to be a torpid, static, bloated mega-narrative which drains the suspense and interest out of every scene. Frankly, there's no explanation for the massively protracted, senses-dulling nature of this tale, save for the demands of the marketplace for series of thick books. But the fact is that the real plot-matter of these six books—several of them 400 pages long—could have been condensed to a single novel. Then we would have had a fine tale.
What are the exact nature of my gripes? Well, it's not with the characters per se. They're all credible enough. The relationship between Bren and his female atevi bodyguard, Jago, is fairly well done, as we watch them move from standoffishness to intimacy. The dowager Ilisidi is amusingly imperious, and the scion Cajeiri offers some juvenile comic relief. The bad guys—mainly Capt. Braddock of Reunion—provide sufficient opposition. The atevi culture, while shallow as a puddle, compared to some of Cherryh's other work, is intriguing enough. And the first-contact scenario with the aliens at Reunion is standard stuff, but tolerable. No, all the elements of a decent tale in a Poul-Anderson mode are here. But it's in the telling that the problem arises.
Let us forget innumerable instances from the first five books—such as how a generally meaningless assassination attempt from book one is still being mulled over in book three—and focus on Explorer, for its sins are shared with the other volumes. Most egregiously, Cherryh repeats all the action over and over. In Chapter 1, Bren and Captain Graham rehash everything from the previous volume. Then, in Chapter 2, Bren visits Capt. Sabin and goes over all the same material with her. Finally, in Chapter 3, Bren pays a call on Ilisidi and communicates the exact same information to her! By now we're at page 74, and the reader is waiting for something new to happen.
The voyage out is no different. Whenever a minor event transpires, Capt. Sabin gets on the ship intercom and recounts at great length what's just happened for the benefit of the crew, regardless of the fact that we the readers have already seen it happen. Also, Bren is given to writing letters home that rehash events as well. When you figure in the fact that neither Bren nor anyone else can take a single step without endlessly thinking about it and sharing their thoughts with everyone else they know, and re-relating for the hundredth time all the past steps that have led to the current one, then the result is a space opera that moves along at the glacial pace of Days of our Lives, where instead it should be zipping and crackling.
I'm not against leisurely explorations of alien cultures, full of what is famously called "thick description," in the manner of, say Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). But what we've got here is telling—and retelling, and retelling—instead of showing.
