About the Author

Anne McCaffrey was the multi-award winning bestselling author of more than fifty books, including the Dragonriders of Pern series, the Freedom series, and the Tower and the Hive series.

Reviews

This sequel to The Rowan (Ace, 1990) and Damia ( LJ 4/15/92) follows another generation of powerful telepaths in their struggle to master their unique Talents and use them wisely. Expect patron demand. Doubleday Book Club alternate.

YA-A sequel to The Rowan (1990) and Damia (1992, both Ace), this is the third book in the Raven-Lyons family saga. In The Rowan, McCaffrey developed FT&T, Federal Telepath and Teleport. This organization, through the use of psi talents, is responsible for interstellar communication via telepathy, and for cargo/passenger transportation by means of teleportation. While the first book tells Rowan's story, and the second centers around the daughter of Rowan and Jeff Raven, Damia's Children concerns the eight children of Damia and Afra, especially Laria, Thian, and Rojer who, working with their alien allies the Mrdinis, again confront the Hive culture. The author has created memorable, strong characters who are believable and well fleshed out. This is McCaffrey at her best.-John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Here McCaffrey introduces another generation in her saga of a family of powerful psionic Talents ( The Rowan and Damia ) raised to serve the Nine Star League. The eight children of Damia and Afra Raven-Lyon approach the threshold of maturity on Iota Aurogae, where they have been raised with young Mrdinis, the only other intelligent life that humankind has encountered--save for the pernicious Hive Culture, which has sought to destroy all other species in its drive to expand through the universe. The eldest teenager, Laria, is sent to the homeworld of the Mrdinis to improve relations between the two species. Thian, the oldest boy, encounters residual human prejudice and almost loses his life when he serves as liaison with a mixed human-Mrdini fleet. The other children contribute their own Talents and insight during stressful periods of human-nonhuman interaction. Certain to be a success with McCaffrey's fans, this initial entry in a promising series offers winning, carefully developed young characters, an attractive alien society and an enemy drawn with more than a touch of mystery and ambiguity. Science Fiction Book Club main selection; Doubleday Book Club alternate. (Jan.)