50 Book Challenge #16: Foreigner

One of the reasons SF gets a bad rap is that the aliens are all too often of the Star Trek mold: basically humans with funny eyes or green skin. In Foreigner, the aliens are sufficiently humanoid in appearance to make the reader fear that this familiar dynamic is about to replay itself, but the psychology of the alien society is, well, profoundly alien. The closest comparison is perhaps to The Left Hand of Darkness, in terms of the challenge posed by alien society to human understanding. The end is rather unsatisfying, but I understand more books in the same setting follow. Recommended for genre readers.