This short story is (literally) Bren’s first few days on the job. It wanted to be written. Amazing how late in the series I had to be to know how those days would have gone.
NOW I need to get to that next Bren book, and get it done, while I still have all the pieces in my head. THen…I think I am starting to have a non-Bren book nudging me, but I have to think about this, and I won’t let myself think until I have this book really rolling…
Plus—I think your letters have shaken some things loose. Both my editor and my agent are working on the e-book problem.
Will the story be available on Closed Circle soon? If you already noted that you’ll post it there, my apologies for not remembering.
I’m just quite eager to read the story until the next book is available!
Many thanks!
Sometimes blogs need LIKE buttons!
LIKE!
I think we need a button that gets dancing cats cavorting about!
I’m just so excited over Bren’s starting out AND those early books getting closer and closer to my Kindle! WOOT!
The story we’ve all been dying to hear! Thank you! (My daughter has just pointed out to me that the atevi would never settle for two short stories – they would insist on a felicitous three.) As to a non-Bren book, well, we Foreigner-addicts would be happy to go on reading nothing but Foreigner forever. Our favorite Author, however, has every right to listen to her Muse and, indeed, must do so. (I trust the series is not coming to an end?) As I have yet to read any science fiction written by C. J. Cherryh that I did not love, I shall sit back and happily wait for whatever wonderful stories you choose to share with us.
Yippee! Wonderful news!
I’m having a “duh” moment here. . .”Working on the ebook problem” — is that like making ebooks of those of your catalog that have not been “ebooked” yet? If so, Huzzah! — I live for the day when your entire catalog is in ebooks, especially the Morgaine books, the Chanur books and the Faded Sun books.
Oh, and where/when can we get our little eyeballs on the short story?
This story will be on Closed Circle, an exclusive. We have to ‘convert’ it and get it a cover. I’ll be looking for that.
Yaaaayyyyy!!! Because it’s going to be MONTHS before we can get our hands on “Protector”. We need something while we’re waiting; this story is just the thing! (And I think we’ve all been eager to see something about Bren’s early days on the job.)
Can’t wait!!!
For a felicitous third short story, you could write about Algini and how he resolved his many manchi? manchiin? It would give more insight into the workings of the guild.
looking forward to it !
I wonder. Do aetevi have the urge to complete an incomplete numerical phrase, (se), in the same way that humans have the urge to finish an incomplete musical phrase? When I was at college, a music major confided that it was almost impossible to finish a conversation with me because I never ended a sentence on the tone which would complete the phrase.
I also wonder how a human child reared with Ragi as a first language would manage…
That’s an interesting question. It gets into how much of (human) language is inherent to our thinking below the learned language level. In other words, would a human child, teen, or adult raised without a *human* language be able to learn a human language (and figure out the thinking or connotations/associations behind it) more easily on an instinctual level?
Humans learn other languages besides their native language at least partly by compare/contrast with their native language. It *is* learned, not instinctual. The ability to speak (or sign) is learned. How much can be learned without that initial association with a first language isn’t certain. There’ve been isolated cases where children grew up in the wild, or were deprived of language learning, and the results were inconclusive.
But if a young person grew up with an alien language, and then had to learn a human language, would he or she have an easier time picking up concepts that have innate human thinking and instincts behind them on some subconscious level? Very good question!
Probably not fun for the kid or adult who’s suddenly thrown in with humans, his or her own kind, when all he or she has known were aliens. The human would’ve absorbed the alien cultural patterns, except for whatever is instinctually not possible for a human. And even then, the human child would’ve tried to be alien to fit in with those around him or her. Or probably. It could depend on how contrary or assertive (or not) the child is and what the alien behavior is that clashes with human instinctive responses or thinking.
Neat question! — I like the musical phrase question too. I’d guess there’s a deep relation between how we understand music and language.
I’d say humans have a “talent” for language, when we are young, but anything inherently human about it that “fits a special place in the human brain” is highly dubious. Compare pictographic writing with syllabic, for instance. There were some institutionalized and neglected deaf kids in Nicaragua that invented their own sign language. And then there are the Koi-San languages that use three sounds nobody else does.
As to music and language, I think not. They’re processed in different hemispheres.
Wasn’t that basically the plot of Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”? A human raised by Martians.
Cuckoo’s Egg–by our own CJ Cherryh. That is actually one of my favorites! I haven’t read it for a while, but if I remember correctly, the aliens raise a clone of a human, and play him tapes of human speech recorded during their first (disastrous) contact.
That’s kinda what I was getting at with the idea of Toby’s grand kids being reared in Najida…
All sorts of good news in this post! Looking forward to the short story and the April release of Peacemaker. Things also sound hopeful on the ebook front – can’t wait to have all the Foreigner books on my Nook.
I agree with Cherryhfan – if you write it, I’ll read it.
Psst, Teegan, Protector is the one due out in April, Peacemaker is farther off. Hopefully not TOO far off!
Is it April YET????
Oops! Never can keep the titles in this series straight – and I thought I had checked the scribometer so I got the right one.
I think Ragi is “human” enough that a human infant could pick it up. What I think would be more telling is the “love/man’chi” thing. It would warp a human baby in odd and possibly irreparable ways to be raised by beings to whom affection is an alien concept.
Yay – short story!
Yay – non-bren books!
Yay – UK ebooks?!
Lots of joy.
YAY! and a LIKE button with dancing cats AND horses. just horses would do 😉
“And Horses!” reminds me of a fan version of the Firefly theme song, where their little child added a very solemn, “And Horses!” right at the end. Very, very cute. It was used on The Signal Podcast for a couple of years.
Hah, dancing cats and/or horses, that’d suit just fine. Hmm…racing chuck wagon and horses on Closed Circle, maybe?
Odd how this is turning into a “thing” with us fans….
On language: There are all sorts of ins and outs on language theory about how we learn and process language. There has to be some innate ability for it, since every human in any regular social contact learns and uses some form of language. But that’s the deeper, low-level, built-in ability. We have some inventive, symbol-substitution thing with it that has a *lot* of wiggle room for some features of grammar / classification and what sounds or images or signs / gestures can be used. So yes, there’s language invention, evolving change, and a profusion of differences instead of a single language only.
My thought question there wasn’t, would there be an inherent “native language” sort of “programmed in” so that a human would automatically develop it, or learn it spontaneously when among humans again. No one does that. What I was trying to get at is, on some level, there are human feelings and thoughts, concepts and associations and grammatical structures, which are built-in human psychology. These connect with, are expressed in, whatever humans use as languages. In other words, I’m postulating that all human languages ever have some built-in level of human psychology, how we think and feel and connect ideas, expressed in languages. That’s, of course, not an original theory. And yes, there are all sorts of problems with the generalizations there. But…it’s fascinating to think what we might find is inside and underneath the interface between our human languages and psych and instincts. — Our language lets us process the very real world, but it also lets us imagine and plan and dream up new things that are not, or were not previously, “real.” Somewhere in that are keys to what makes us all human.
Presumably, (sapient) aliens would have their alien ways mirrored in their language abilities.
How humans and aliens would bridge the gaps, the different, ragged (Ragi?) edges of that interface between mindsets, world-views, is a real challenge, both in theory and practice.
So not only would people like Bren or Uhura 🙂 have to function within that zone, but anyone like Cajeiri or human kids (or the young man from Cuckoo’s Egg) (or any other alien contact situations) would have to have a “working hypothesis” constantly being revised in their heads, to speak/hear/write/sign in a human and an alien language, whichever their species. Huh, also should’ve mentioned mer Pyanfar and mer Hilfy and na Tully, learning each other’s languages.
Does that maybe make better sense in explaining what I’m trying to get across?
Music versus language — yes, about different processing areas, but there also must be overlaps in how we understand and generate the two. We sing lyrics, for example. Spoken language has certain “musical” qualities of intonation and rhythm, noted in poetry and lyrics, and in some languages’ formalized training. E.g. Chinese, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek.
I’m not saying anything’s absolutely right. People have been trying to understand what gives us language and music for thousands of years, but it’s still mostly just theories…probably with many of them being right to a degree and slightly off to a degree too. 🙂
Oh, yes, there is absolutely evidence for some of that sort of thing that’s “instinctive” (hard wired?) in our brain. Altruism and the concept of fairness has been observed in other species, especially our near relatives. Some things have been attributed to very much more distant life forms, from ants to birds, but “The Selfish Gene” is sufficient to explain those. On Earth one would have to say it’s a mammalian possession, not just human. That’s how deep it is.
But music and language having the same sort of origin developed differently on opposite hemispheres, that’s a much longer leap. People aphasic from strokes can still carry a tune as a result of a functioning right hemisphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
p.s. “ker” Pyanfar! 😉
Eagerly awaiting…
Thanks CJ!