weird

One of the strangest books I have heard or read after James Joyce's Ulysses. I feel myself very brave that I managed this to the end. I got constantly tangled with the names, they were much too similar. Phew!

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My favourite C J Cherryh series

I haven’t listened/ read this series for a while and had forgotten how good the audio books are. A story which takes its time to develop a wide range of characters, a complex universe, and a gripping story line. What’s not to like? Excellent narrator who has a distinct voice for each character.
Moving immediately to the next book!

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Aliens that are truly alien

Remember all the aliens in films, TV, and novels who have exotic looks, some distinctive piquant social custom, and sprinkle their communication with some interesting characteristic word? This story leaves the quintessential Star Trek aliens in the dust.

In this tale the human population is in the minority, totally dependent on the humanoid indigenous population, and after an optimistic beginning, come to realise that even if the Atevi aren’t dissimilar the differences aren’t skin deep.

An exiting and engaging story, with believable world building.

The performance is decent, Atevi words reasonably well pronounced, but different voices aren’t really well done.

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Tedious... Repetitive... Stilted

I wanted to like this story, I really did. It's a first contact story exploring an accidental human colony on an alien planet, mixed with a kind of Woman in Black stately English home/hunting lodge scenario.

Unfortunately, I read a review where someone complained that C.J. Cherryh tells you everything over, and over again - this is not an exaggeration. There is an incident early on with a gun under a mattress. Is there a gun under the mattress? There's a gun under a mattress. Will anyone find the gun under the mattress? Remember the gun under the mattress? There was a gun under the mattress. The mattress, with a gun under it.

Even as a sci-fi/fantasy lover, I find too many far-out made-up names tedious. Foreigner is an unending tedium of made up names and titles. It's just an endless stream of monotonous characters... Munchichi, Bunnichie, Paidie, Mydie, Schmidie, Punchichi - Ok, I am being unkind here and making some names up for dramatic review purposes.

The reader seems to be from the William Shatner school of voice acting. With. Pauses. Punctuating in between. Sentences.

Nope, sorry, didn't like this one!

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