Guest Post with C.J. Cherryh ~ JeanBookNerd

Photo Credit: Patti Perret

C. J. Cherryh planned to write since the age of ten. When she was older, she learned to use a typewriter while triple-majoring in Classics, Latin, and Greek. With more than seventy books to her credit, and the winner of three Hugo Awards, she is one of the most prolific and highly respected authors in the science fiction field. Cherryh was recently named a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. She lives in Washington state. She can be found at cherryh.com.

GREATEST THING YOU LEARNED IN SCHOOL BY C.J. CHERRYH

"The greatest thing I learned at school was that education was not an exercise in scoring points but a trip through a doorway, beyond which I could access anything I ever heard of. My parents gave me a set of encyclopedias. When I was sick—not infrequent with allergies—I started with A and just started reading. Every article suggested other things I could look up—like a tree with infinite branches. There was no one to talk about age level: if I wanted to know, I just kept looking.

I was often bored in class, but boredom didn’t paralyze my curiosity—I knew the basics, and I’d just set my imagination to wondering about the things I knew were connected, but that were beyond the scope of the lesson. I learned that if you knew the name of the thing, and could spell it, you could find it, and if you found it, you would find other things.

I had a globe. I loved to read about other countries, though I had never traveled, in those days, more than 60 miles from home. I read things that quoted other languages, and became interested in that.

Later on, I studied the Classics, and found one of my favorite sayings, from Terence: “I am a human being: nothing human is foreign to me.” It’s one of those doorways. I take it as a matter of expanded thinking; and as a matter of personal responsibility.

I’m not through finding doorways. I look for things that amaze me:

astronomy, and biology. Learning something new still excites me, and keeps my sense of perspective in the universe. There is so much out there still to find."

The nineteenth book in C.J. Cherryh's beloved Foreigner space opera series begins a new era for diplomat Bren Cameron, as he navigates the tenuous peace he has struck between human refugees and the alien atevi.

Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, has taken aboard five thousand human refugees from a destroyed station in a distant sector of space. With supplies and housing stretched to the breaking point, it is clear that the refugees must be relocated down to the planet, and soon. But not to the atevi mainland: rather to the territory reserved for human, the island of Mospheira.

Tabini-aiji, the powerful political head of the atevi, tasks his brilliant human diplomat, Bren Cameron, to negotiate with the Mospheiran government. For the Alpha Station refugees represent a political faction that the people of Mospheira broke from two centuries ago, and these Mospheirans are not enthusiastic about welcoming these immigrants from space.

Praise for the FOREIGNER Series

“C.J. Cherryh’s splendid Foreigner series remains at the top of my must-keep-up reading list after two decades.” —Locus

“This is the kind of anthropological SF of which [Cherryh] is an acknowledged master.” —Booklist

“A seriously probing, thoughtful, intelligent piece of work, with more insight in half a dozen pages than most authors manage in half a thousand.” —Kirkus Reviews

“One of the best long-running SF series in existence…Cherryh remains one of the most talented writers in the field.” —Publishers Weekly

“This is one of the best science fiction series currently running….by this point, the series has turned into a complicated set of thrillers involving political and factional turmoil, as well as a close and detailed examination of the troubled interactions between human and alien cultures.” —Strange Horizons

“My favorite science fiction series is C. J. Cherryh’s Foreigner Universe. Cherryh deftly balances alien psychology and human vanities in a character caught between being human and part of an alien race.” —Denver Post

“Cherryh plays her strongest suit in this exploration of human/alien contact, producing an incisive study-in-contrast of what it means to be human in a world where trust is nonexistent.” —Library Journal

“A large new novel from C.J. Cherryh is always welcome. When it marks her return to the anthropological SF in which she has made such a name, it is a double pleasure. The ensuing story is not short on action, but stronger (like much of Cherryh’s work) on world-building, exotic aliens, and characterization. Well up to Cherryh’s usual high standard.” —The Chicago Sun-Times

“[Cherryh] avoids any kind of slump with a quick-moving and immediately engaging plotline, and by balancing satisfying resolutions with plenty of promises and ominous portents that are sure to keep readers’ appetites whetted.” —RT Reviews

“These are thinking man’s reads with rich characters and worlds and fascinating interactions that stretch out over many generations.” —SFFWorld

“Cherryh’s forte is her handling of cross-cultural conflicts, which she does by tying her narrative to those things her point-of-view character would know, think, and feel.”—SFRevu

“The Foreigner series is about as good as it gets…so finely and densely wrought that you may end up dreaming of sable-skinned giants with gold eyes, and the silver spun delicacy of interstellar politics.” —SF Site

You can purchase Emergence (Foreigner #19), at the following Retailers: