About the Author

Anne McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. A prolific bestselling author, she is best known for her handling of broad themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly in her tales of the Talents and the novels about the Dragonriders of Pern. Anne McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland. Visit the author's website at www.annemccaffrey.net

Reviews

YA-- This book is set shortly after To Ride Pegasus (Ballantine, 1986) and centuries before The Rowan (Putnam, 1990). Rhyssa Owen, telepathic granddaughter of Daffyd op Owen, is now director of the Center for Parapsychic Talents, a nonprofit organization that works for the betterment of humanity by predicting disasters, controlling crime, locating missing persons or things , and manipulating material , from heavy equipment to the microscopic. The Center becomes involved with a ruthless head of construction who uses and abuses these talents in the dangerous task of building the first space platform. Tirla, 12, and adolescent Peter become involved in the growing crisis. McCaffrey continues her fascinating parapsychic chronicle in this fast-paced, easy read, and readers are sure to care about her multidimensional, believable characters.--John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

McCaffrey continues to develop her future world in which psionic Talents, once feared and despised, are by now necessary to the comfort and conduct of society. Following the events in To Ride, Pegasus and set a generation or so before The Rowan , this era finds mankind not yet having settled planets outside the solar system. Even with officially mandated birth control, the world teems with too many people. Essential to the construction of a space station being built to serve as springboard to the stars are the services of the Talents--particularly the telekinetics, who can move objects by mental power. Telepath Rhyssa Owen, a top official of the Center for Parapsychic Talents, must contend with the station's construction manager, who treats Talents brutally and otherwise discourages them from working for her. Meanwhile two youngsters are found to be unusually Talented: Peter Reidinger overcomes paralysis to develop the first gestalt with electrical generators (this becomes the basis for future space travel), while Tirlap, an illegal child from the vertical slums, facilitates communication among a wide variety of cultures. Meanwhile, kidnappers prey on children for pederastic pursuits and for spare parts. McCaffrey's world of the Talented is as vivid as that of Pern and its dragons. Major ad/promo. (Dec.)

As director of the Jerhatten Center for Parapsychic Talents, telepath Rhyssa Owen struggles to protect her psychically gifted people--called ``Talents''--from a world that both fears and wants to exploit their abilities. McCaffrey's sequel to To Ride Pegasus (Ballantine, 1981) depicts a near-future in which a few ``Talented'' individuals hold the key to humanity's freedom, as Earth's inhabitants face overcrowding at home while dreaming of escape to the stars. Recommended.