From Publishers Weekly
In this solid if slow-moving addition to Cherryh's much-praised Foreigner series (Invader, etc.), Bren Cameron and his atevi allies finally return to their home world, where atevi natives and human colonists live in an uneasy truce. Their desperate, two-year mission has been a success; they've evacuated the humans stranded on distant Reunion Station and made tentative peace with the kyo, an enigmatic and heretofore hostile alien race. Bren soon discovers, however, that his troubles are far from over. His employer, Tabini, the most powerful atevi ruler on the planet, has been deposed and may well be dead. Along with Tabini's bumptious young heir, Cajeiri, and the ruler's highly competent but aging grandmother, Ilisidi, Bren must make a dangerous shuttle landing and then travel cross-country through hostile territory in search of his employer, who is the only leader on the planet, human or atevi, with the foresight and presence of mind to deal with the impending arrival of the kyo. Cherryh's Foreigner books make up one of the finest on-going series in the genre. This volume, the first in a new trilogy, is hampered by the need to clarify what is now a considerable back story, but it features a healthy dose of the author's trademark well-developed characters, fine style and intense psychological realism. Cherryh's many readers should snap this one up. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Human diplomat Bren Cameron is about to arrive at Mospheira, the homeworld of the atevi, after a two-year voyage that has nearly exhausted his ship's supplies and almost exhausted the patience of the atevi traveling with him. The most important of those is eight-year-old Cajeiri, heir to one of the major political units (so called for want of a more precise term), who is now sufficiently acculturated to human standards of behavior that he wants a birthday party. This is only the first conundrum pitched at Bren; upon arrival, he finds that Mospheira is on the brink of war due to breakdowns in the complex system of rivalries and affiliations among what can loosely be called clans. Bren is probably the only human who adequately understands the intricacies of atevi culture, but he is a long way from human support, which wouldn't be expedient, anyway, though the consequences of atevi social breakdown would be grisly for humans, too. It doesn't happen, but expect further crises in the trilogy Destroyer launches. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
The first book in the new Foreigner trilogy from the Hugo Award-winning author

C.J. Cherryh, one of the most prolific and acclaimed science fiction writers in the world, now delivers the seventh book in her Foreigner series and the first book in the new Foreigner trilogy-the epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Destroyer, the seventh novel in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner saga (Foreigner, Invader, Inheritor, et al.), not only heralds the inception of a new trilogy but also the beginning of a turbulent new era between the human descendants of a lost colonial starship and the sentient race of aliens inhabiting the planet they were forced to land on.

Bren Cameron is humanity's adviser to the atevi -- a race of giant, black-skinned, golden-eyed warriors -- a position that demands intelligence, finesse, patience, and no little courage. After decades of cultivating a strong relationship with the complex and volatile aliens, Bren leads a mission to rescue a colony of humans trapped on a faraway space station. Some very influential atevi -- namely the young heir and his great-grandmother -- accompany Bren on the two-year trip into deep space. The mission is ultimately successful; but when the ship returns, they find the atevi homeworld in total chaos. The atevi leader is missing and presumed dead. Political factions are jockeying for control. With rumors of war between atevi and humankind spreading, can Bren find and restore the missing ruler to power and avert more bloodshed?

With every new Foreigner novel, Cherryh strengthens the saga's already imposing reputation as one of the foremost series exploring the complex and delicate relationships between human and alien cultures. Comparable to Harry Turtledove's Colonization novels and Alan Dean Foster's Commonwealth sequence, Cherryh's Foreigner saga is cerebral science fiction at its very best -- as entertaining as it is contemplative. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The first book in the new Foreigner trilogy from the Hugo Award-winning author

C.J. Cherryh, one of the most prolific and acclaimed science fiction writers in the world, now delivers the seventh book in her Foreigner series and the first book in the new Foreigner trilogy-the epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly