Invader

After finishing Foreigner I really wanted to continue the story, and I had gotten both this and book 3 at the same time as book 1. So I jumped right in. This does pick up almost immediately after the first book ended. It continues the court and political intrigue that was very much part of the first book. It also stayed within the POV of the one lead character. While not quite having a midlife crisis, we do go deep into his insecurities, many of them brought on by the stressful situations he finds himself in. While I think this aspect is well told, it does get a bit old over time, as I waited for the story to progress. C.J. Cherryh describes his emotional landscape the way other genre writers describe the physical landscapes of the worlds they are building. This is done with great skill in language, but I felt I wanted the story to move on more then be stuck in just one characters mind.

I've very much enjoyed that the lead character is a “good guy” in almost every sense of the phrase. While he is not perfect, he is striving to do his best for the world and the inhabitants of it. He is the type of character you would see on the “West Wing” tv show, and I very much liked that.

This is also the middle book of what is described as a sub-trillogy of the series. And it feels like it, while it doesn't end on a cliff hanger, there is much more unresolved at the end of this book than there was at the end of the first book. I will read book 3 soon, but for now I think I'm going to take a bit of a break from the series.

I was inspired to write this review in memory of Jenny (Reading Envy) Colvin.