Peacemaker
By C. J. Cherryh
Possibly the penultimate Foreigner volume
Review by Lawrence I. Charters, May 11, 2014
It is hard to know when you are approaching the end of a series in fiction; creativity can still spring forth with prequels, parallel tracks, and other branches, but this appears to be the penultimate volume in Cherryh’s genuinely epic Foreigner series. Taking place on a planet far away, with a native population that is definitely not human, the human translator Bren Cameron has steered the human illegal immigrants and native atevi through fifteen volumes of court intrigue, politics, international and domestic misunderstandings, loyalty, betrayal, and a whole range of human and non-human feelings and communication.
In Peacemaker, Bren and his associates attempt to tie up several atevi political and social crises and bring stability to the world. The volume is filled with the trademark complications of a rich and nuanced society, struggling to adopt to rapidly changing social, economic, political, and even linguistic challenges, and does a superb job. There is an excerpt at the end, written by an atevi and human scholar, that briefly recounts the history of human-atevi history.
You need not have read the earlier volumes, but if you haven’t, you will be be missing out on one of the most impressive and consistent creative feats in science fiction.