Foreigner Notes
Premise
A ship full of humans have to live with aliens that have different emotions than they do; namely they have no "love", but rather a hierarchical, team/herd/loyalty emotion called man'chi.
Qualities
If you like...
- TNG, but you wish the episodes were hella slow
- Sanderson's time spent in character thoughts, but you wish it was only one character and even slower
- Austin's social drama, but you wish there were more politics, more aliens, more tea, and sometimes guns
...you will love this series.
Arc 1: It's Called "Foreigner" For a Reason
| book | summary |
|---|---|
| 1 - Part 1 | Prequel novella: Phoenix, on a mission to build a new space station, becomes inexplicably lost in deep space. The crew struggles to survive and stops in orbit of the atevi homeworld |
| 1 - Part 2 | Prequel novella: First contact between humans and atevi |
| 1 - In Between | Humans and atevi live together, but due to misunderstandings about their fundamental emotional makeup the War of the Landing occurs. The atevi win and the office of the paidhi is established to handle 1) relations between the species and 2) the slow, non-disruptive handover of human technology |
| 1 - Main | Bren goes to the ancient estate of Malguri, Grandma tries to figure out Bren's loyalties, Bren learns about atevi, and spoileroh shit The Ship came back |
| 2 | spoilerTabini is romantically entangled with Damiri of the Atageini, a semi-rival clan to his. Opponents shoot up her apartments and destroy the antique porcelain lilies. Jase and Yolanda land from the ship, three paidhi now. |
| 3 | spoilerJase lies for the whole book to get Yolanda back from the island, also unknown aliens destroyed the second station so Phoenix ran back here |
Arc 2: Don't Worry, Bren's Going Wherever the Action Is
| book | summary |
|---|---|
| 4 | spoilerBren goes up to the partially restored space station unannounced, Captain Tamun sees the upheaval and stages a coup, dies, and Jase becomes Forth Captain. |
| 5 | spoilerCaptain Ramirez dies, Bren and Grandma leave on The Ship for the second station, Yolanda is the new paidhi, Grandma poisons Captain Sabin. Cajeiri, Tabini and Damiri's son, joins in the care of Grandma. |
| 6 | spoilerBren, Grandma, Captain Jase, and Captain Sabin arrive at the second station, aka Reunion. They meet the kyo, rescue a captive kyo the Pilot's guild was keeping, dethrone the pilot's guild, and evacuate the station. |
spoiler: motive notes
- Captain Ramirez motives: created Jase and Yolanda as intermediaries so he could seek out and contact unknown aliens and thus gain leverage against the Pilot's Guild- Captain Tamun motives: humans only, fuck aliens
- Pilots Guild motives: humans only, fuck aliens
- Captain Sabin motives in appointing Tamun: mitigate Ramirez, oh shit Tamun's nuts
Arc 3: Drama Back Home
| book | summary |
|---|---|
| 7 | "Where are my parents, nadi?"spoilerPhoenix returns to political upheaval. Tabini-aiji has been dethroned by Murini of the Kadagidi. Bren and Grandma go to Uncle Tatiseigi for help. Chapter 9, dinner with Uncle, rocks. Tabini and Damiri meet them there. In Bren's absence his mother died and Barb married Toby. |
| 8 | spoilerAllies to Tabini-aiji rally to him in Taiben (Uncle's estate) demonstrating their man'chi. Banichi and crew blow up would-be Assassins Guild usurpers. Tabini and allies storm the capitol via bus, train, car, and plane. Murini flees in advance. Bren is vindicated by report of his actions in space and his seeming evident man'chi to Tabini. |
| 9 | The first time (aside from the book 1 novellas) that we get a narrative perspective other than Bren's.spoilerCajeiri has stronger feelings for his ship-board human "friends" than for his Taibeni bodyguards. Amid the upheaval of the coup and anti-coup Cajeiri is abducted by a rival of Ilisidi's (Caiti), who intends to offer him to Murini. She and Bren return to the neighborhood of Malguri to pursue him. Cajeiri escapes and Caiti and Murini are both killed in the ensuing turmoil. |
Arc 4: At Home on the Coast?
| book | summary |
|---|---|
| 10 | spoilerBren visits his seaside estate of Najida, Cajeiri train hops to visit. Bren and Cajeiri visit the neighboring Lord Baiji (Lord Geigi's nephew) and barely escape an assassination by the The Marid in the south, who courted the neighbor as an ally during the coup. The neighbor was part of a plot by Machigi to kill Bren, overtake the region, and move against Tabini. Cajeiri gains two Guild guards. |
| 10 - epilogue | spoilerAt a meeting in Najida Village, Grandma tells the Edi and the Gan, the aboriginal peoples of Mospheira, that they should petition Tabini to create provinces / houses for them. |
| 11 | spoilerLord Geigi comes down from the station to fix the estate his nephew screwed up. Cajeiri's two new guild bodyguards don't display man'chi to him, but it turns out they felt they had failed in trying to earn his acceptance, which is backwards from how it normally works. Barb is kidnapped by Machigi. Some unknown force uses unsanctioned tactics (mining a road, kidnapping a child) in Machigi's name to try to outrage the guild against him. Learning this, Grandma changes Bren's mission from rescuing Barb into making an ally of Machigi. (preferring stability in the Marid to chaos) |
| 12 | spoilerIt turns out Bren & crew stumbled into the middle of an official Assassins Guild operation to route out the rebel guild members that felt to the Marid following Murini's fall. Murini decides to test how serious Ilisidi's allyship is sending his forces to enter a firefight between the Edi and the rebel guild. Cajeiri's guild bodyguards return to him, chastened and understanding each other better. |
Useful Quotes
...the old Momentum theory of leadership: start a war, keep everyone facing the enemy—and avoid discussing domestic problems for another decade. - book 12