Foreigner by CJ Cherryh

This is January's scifi book group selection. We've been bringing this one to the table for a while now and I'm glad it was finally selected.

From Amazon.com: Set on an alien world where the descendants of humans marooned in a long-ago starship accident live segregated from the indigenous atevi on a remote island, this polished and sophisticated tale from the popular author of Hestia addresses the complicated issue of how humans might have to compromise to survive on a planet where they are barely tolerated by the original, humanoid inhabitants. When Bren Cameron, given the name paidhi because he is the only human allowed to mingle with the atevi, survives an assault by an atevi assassin, the shaky detente between the human enclave and the alien society is threatened. Subjected to kidnapping, imprisonment and psychological torture, Cameron finds himself caught between rival factions of atevi as he must grapple with both human and alien xenophobia and with the insidious influence of human technology and culture on an extraterrestrial society.

Cherryh can sometimes be difficult to read; her sentence structure or wording is different enough to give a person serious brain skids. However, thankfully, this book wasn't like that. My complaint with this book is similar to that of Sunshine - we spend way too much time in Bran's head. Get over the fact that you have been kidnapped, are stuck in a secluded mountain castle, and grow some balls. Bran Cameron is supposedly an elite politician/interpreter/liaison between the atevi and the humans. A position represented as being difficult to achieve. Yet, when he is kidnapped, he spends the majority of his time wringing his hands and demanding to know where his security guards are.

Still, it was a very interesting book, a unique look at how an alien culture might view humans who have provided them with a bit of singularity, but who don't want them on the planet. I enjoyed this enough to want to read book two. We'll see about books three through ten later...