2022 book 223

 C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner

I had tried to read this book once before, and bogged down in a chapter where space-traveling humans decided to settle a planet that already has an advanced civilization, and I was so annoyed at those COLONISTS and it went on FOREVER. But then I found out that’s not actually what the book is about—there are two sections at the beginning kind of explaining the history of the current conflict, and that’s one of them. So the main story is set a couple hundred years later and focuses on the sort-of-ambassador from the humans to the pre-existing people being a political pawn. But like he spends 90 percent of the book just being confused about everything, which is not really fun for a reader. There are some interesting moments and characters, and normally I am down for diplomacy in my books, but this guy was SUPER frustrating. I wanted to get into a big ol' series, but it seems like he’s the protagonist of the next few books and I just can’t do it. B.