a mostly spoiler free summary of Foreigner
because i NEED people to know about my blorbos
humans have yeeted themselves into far distant space on a generation ship type thing. it lands in the wrong place, shit is super fucked up, they* have to make an emergency settlement on a nearby habitable planet which turns out to have sentient, intelligent, civilized life who are pretty cool actually. (the atevi. they are basically eight foot tall dark elves who are super hot. i decided about that last part but it's true.) after a little while of totally okay coexistence, there's suddenly an unexpected big fuckoff war, and after that war they realize it's due to surprise linguistic/biological/cultural differences. as a result, the humans all live separate from atevi on an island, and with the atevi they organize an interface, via one single human translator who learns the atevi language and lives with the atevi as an ambassador and facilitates any human-atevi political or economic affairs.
*some of them. not all of them. this becomes relevant later.
the story follows Bren Cameron, the sole human translator in the atevi world. there are fifteen books of it, and currently i am on book 5, and from what i can tell it's just one long string of "Bren Cameron's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day", in which So Many Extremely Stressful Political and Cultural and Personal and [Redacted] Events Occur and it's Paidhi Bren (Translator Bren)'s job to deal with it all.
he has two loyal atevi bodyguards called Banichi and Jago whomst i love and whomst love him. actually pretty much all atevi love him or at least think he is INCREDIBLY darling, including some of the ones that for political reasons may also want him dead, which he absolutely does not comprehend and refuses to acknowledge. most notable of this latter category are ilisidi (GRANDMA!) and her bodyguard cenedi.
things this series has:
- a LOT of general peril but very little actual dying (relatively, especially when you consider that an assassin's guild is central to the plot)
- deadly tea
- less deadly tea
- moderate amount of conlang
- a lot of manners
- political intrigue!
- bren cameron being confused, stressed, and overwhelmed but always, always, extremely competent and polite and a nice boy
- overbearing but also absent mothers
- overbearing but also absent yet doting monarch-bosses who are usually right about everything
- did i mention ASSASSIN'S GUILD
- a horse named "lethal