With three acclaimed novels–Powers That Be, Power Lines, and Power Play–bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough launched a vibrant new science-fiction saga that told the story of a sentient planet, Petaybee, and the humans who fought to protect it from the rapacious designs of an all-powerful interstellar corporation determined to exploit the icy world’s natural resources. Led by Yana Maddock and Sean Shongili, Petaybee’s protectors prevailed. But now Petaybee is changing in mysterious, unprecedented ways, and the return of off-world scientists threatens the amazing planet and its equally amazing inhabitants with new dangers.
CHANGELINGS
They are Ronan Born for Water Shongili and Murel Monster Slayer Shongili. Twin brother and sister. Children of Yana and Sean. Children of Petaybee. As such, theirs is a destiny deeply intertwined with the sentient planet that is their home. For Ronan and Murel are more than human. Like their father, each can transform into a seal and converse telepathically with the planet’s creatures–such as the friendly otter whose life they save one day from a pack of ravenous wolves.
But the twins’ bravery has unforeseen results when a visiting scientist witnesses their startling metamorphosis and becomes obsessed with their capture. To protect their children, Sean and Yana send them to stay with a powerful family friend on an orbiting space station. But no one realizes that Ronan and Murel hunger to discover the origins of their shape-shifting talent–and that their search for knowledge will place them squarely in the path of peril.
Meanwhile, Petaybee is changing–and much faster than an ordinary planet’s natural evolution. It appears that portions of the sea are heating up and a landmass is suddenly rising from the depths. To investigate the startling occurrence, Sean heads out to the open water in his seal form. But the newly unstable region holds untold mysteries–and the potential for disaster.
Description:
With three acclaimed novels–Powers That Be, Power Lines, and Power Play–bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough launched a vibrant new science-fiction saga that told the story of a sentient planet, Petaybee, and the humans who fought to protect it from the rapacious designs of an all-powerful interstellar corporation determined to exploit the icy world’s natural resources. Led by Yana Maddock and Sean Shongili, Petaybee’s protectors prevailed. But now Petaybee is changing in mysterious, unprecedented ways, and the return of off-world scientists threatens the amazing planet and its equally amazing inhabitants with new dangers.
CHANGELINGS
They are Ronan Born for Water Shongili and Murel Monster Slayer Shongili. Twin brother and sister. Children of Yana and Sean. Children of Petaybee. As such, theirs is a destiny deeply intertwined with the sentient planet that is their home. For Ronan and Murel are more than human. Like their father, each can transform into a seal and converse telepathically with the planet’s creatures–such as the friendly otter whose life they save one day from a pack of ravenous wolves.
But the twins’ bravery has unforeseen results when a visiting scientist witnesses their startling metamorphosis and becomes obsessed with their capture. To protect their children, Sean and Yana send them to stay with a powerful family friend on an orbiting space station. But no one realizes that Ronan and Murel hunger to discover the origins of their shape-shifting talent–and that their search for knowledge will place them squarely in the path of peril.
Meanwhile, Petaybee is changing–and much faster than an ordinary planet’s natural evolution. It appears that portions of the sea are heating up and a landmass is suddenly rising from the depths. To investigate the startling occurrence, Sean heads out to the open water in his seal form. But the newly unstable region holds untold mysteries–and the potential for disaster.
From Publishers Weekly
Those familiar with McCaffrey and Scarborough's first SF trilogy about life on the sentient planet Petaybee will best appreciate this solid start of a new series, which picks up where Power Play (1995) left off. Murel and Ronan, the precocious twins born to Maj. Yanaba Maddock-Shongili, administrator of Petaybee, and geneticist/selkie Dr. Sean Shongili, lead an idyllic, if frigid, life on the icy planet for their first eight years. Protected by their snow leopard and track-cat nannies, they change into seals, play with otters and telepathically communicate with each other and the fauna. When it appears their abilities have aroused the sinister interest of off-world scientists, they're sent to live on a space station with a family friend. Fast-paced adventure follows as the twins thwart their enemies and further deal with their selkie natures. Flat characterization, anthropomorphic animals, sentimentality and simplistic takes on various cultures (including Inuit, Irish and Hawaiian) make this novel best suited for those with a taste for less-sophisticated SF. (Dec.)
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From Booklist
The Twins of Petaybee trilogy continues to chronicle the awakening sentient planet Petaybee and its settlers, who are trying to keep its natural resources from being exploited. It features the twins born at the end of the first Petaybee trilogy (The Powers That Be, 1993; Power Lines, 1994; Power Play, 1995), who, like their father, are selkies--seals in water, humans on land. That shape-shifting gets them in trouble when a scientist from off-planet determines to capture them for study. It is decided that they must leave Petaybee for their own safety just when the planet is rearranging its interior to create more land. The story is exciting and generously laced with humor, but besides those qualities, the characters--planet, humans, and animals, including the playful river and sea otters who befriend the twins--and their interactions are so well realized as to utterly charm readers. Furthermore, to the Celtic and Inuit lore that informed the first trilogy, McCaffrey and Scarborough now add elements of the mythology and lore of Earth's South Sea Islanders. Sally Estes
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