Acorna's Quest

Overview

Acorna, now a young adult desperately needing questions answered about her heritage, embarks on a search for her ancestry. Accompanied by one of the miners who raised her, she begins a journey across the universe. Her trek temporarily aborts when her ship malfunctions, forcing her to land on Rushima. There she finds the populace starving. Even as Acorna is caught up in their plight, a strange people with telepathic powers appear in the sector who are seeking the whereabouts of a missing person lost as an infant several years ago.

Editorial Reviews

Introduced in McCaffrey and Ball's Acorna: The Unicorn Girl (1997), the eponymous unicorn-horned girl of mysterious origins was found in a jettisoned spaceship's escape pod by kindly asteroid miners, and raised to young adulthood in secret in order to keep unsavory space businessmen from exploiting her superior intelligence and psychic abilities. This second book in the series finds Acorna determined to escape the protective bubble her friends have built around her and to set off across space in search of her people. Her trip stalls early on, however, when trouble with her ship forces her and her space-pilot partner, Calum, to land on Rushima. There they find starving colonists, victims of a nefarious band of Starfarers who used stolen meteorological technology to wreck Rushima's weather when the colonists wouldn't submit to their extortion plot. Acorna and Calum are captured by these Starfarers, then rescued by rebel Starfarers and caught up in a small-scale civil war. Meanwhile, Acorna's people, the Linyaari, are seeking allies in their war against the evil, insectiod Khlevii who just happen to be headed toward Rushima. Despite brief moments of mild humor, the novel struggles under the weight of stereotypical characters, a predictable plot and an excess of backstory. Only faithful McCaffrey (the Dragonriders of Pern series) fans are likely to enjoy this weak series entry. (July) -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Margaret Ball

Margaret Ball lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, two children, three cats, two ferrets, a hedgehog, and a large black dog. She has a B.A. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Texas. After graduation, she taught at UCLA, then spent several years honing her science fiction and fantasy skills by designing computer software and making inflated promises about its capabilities. Her most recent book publications are Lost in Translation and Mathemagics. When not writing, she plays the flute, makes quilts, and feeds the pets.

Bio of Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey, the Hugo Award--winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern novels, is one of science fiction's most popular authors. She lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland.

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Additional Info

Imprint

HarperCollins

Filesize

1005.58 KB

Number of Pages

416

eBook ISBN

9780061160721