Showing results by author "Anne McCaffrey" in All Categories

Because he is too young, Lord Jaxom is not allowed to fight the dreaded Thread, so he and his white dragon—Ruth—train themselves in secret. Their delightful, illicit flight leads them into danger—and the chance to prevent unimaginable disaster.

Carialle was born so physically disadvantaged that her only chance for life was as a shellperson. As the brain, Carialle, is a bodiless human wired into a spaceship, while her human partner, Keff, is the brawn. Their mission: to search the galaxy for intelligent beings. Intelligent life is thin on the galactic ground, so when Carialle and Keff arrive on a very nice little world with very nice little aliens—fuzzy, polite, and eager to please—they are overjoyed.

Strange things are happening on the icy planet of Petaybee. Unauthorized, genetically engineered species have been spotted, and the locals may be deliberately hiding something—perhaps even plotting rebellion. As a combat veteran and a medical retiree, Yana is the ideal person to get close to the natives. She is quickly adopted by the people of Petaybee, who feed her a home remedy that soothes her ragged lungs. Her strength and health return, and she becomes determined to protect her new home and her people from a greedy and increasingly ruthless corporation.

Botany is free now, and so is the devastated Earth. Earth needs food, and the resources to rebuild. Botany needs technology - from solar satellite panels to simple batteries - and, some say, the will to protect itself from being overrun by refugees who may or may not have strength and skills. As alien influence fades, the people of Botany must decide what kind of world they will become.

Anne McCaffrey, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, co-writes this sequel to the popular first Twins of Petaybee book, Changelings, with fellow Nebula Award winner Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. As the series continues, Maelstrom follows Murel and Ronan Shongili, telepathic 10-year-old twins who have the special ability to turn into river seals.

Sassinak was 12 when the raiders came. That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped. But that was only the beginning for Sassinak.

Leadership of these dragons and riders falls to Xhinna, female rider of a blue dragon, who must earn the respect of all who follow her and solve the problem of how to get sufficient numbers of dragon eggs, all while protecting her people and baby dragons from the predators, and worse, traitors!

Killashandra Ree has spent ten grueling years in musical training, anticipating interstellar celebrity as a vocal soloist. She is young, beautiful—and still without prospects. After learning that a flaw in her voice will prevent her from singing lead, she hears of the mysterious Heptite Guild on the planet Ballybran, where the fabled Black Crystal is found. Mining this strange form of crystal is a dangerous occupation but to Killa, the risks are acceptable. Remarkably, her adaptation to crystal mining is unusually easy. The problem is—few people who land on Ballybran ever leave.

Between them, frequent collaborators Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough have landed both the Hugo and Nebula Awards while winning innumerable fans in the sci-fi and fantasy realms. In Deluge, a crisis point has been reached on the sentient planet of Petaybee. Marmion de Revers Algemeine has been arrested on bogus charges, and the shape-shifting twins have traveled off-planet.

Now that Pern can look forward to a future without the threat of Threadfall, the people are free to leave their protective stone holds and spread across more of the planet, as well as improve their lives with the newly discovered ancient technology. Not everyone is happy, though. Some resist the change, and consider anything new to be an "abomination".

Thread: deadly silver strands that fall from the sky like rain, devouring every organic thing in their path - animals, plants, and people alike. Who could believe that such a horrible thing could exist? After all, it's been 200 years since Thread supposedly fell on Pern. No one alive remembers that first onslaught. There's no sign of it anywhere in the world.

The kinetically gifted, trained in mind/machine gestalt, are the most valued citizens of the Nine Star League. Using mental powers alone, these few Prime Talents transport ships, cargo, and people between Earth's Moon, Mars' Demos and Jupiter's Callisto.

Like every other citizen of the Federation of Sentient Planets, Lunzie Mespil believed that no harm would come to her, but when the planet pirates attack the space liner on which she is a passenger, she might have to suffer more than just inconvenience.

An air of pleasant anticipation hung so thickly over the Halls, Holds, and Weyrs of Pern that it had affected even the businesslike ways of Moreta, the Weyrwoman of Fort Weyr. Her dragon, Queen Orlith, would soon clutch; spring had made a glorious debut; the Gather at Ruatha Hold was extremely merry; and Moreta was enjoying the attentions of Alessan, the new Lord Holder of Ruatha Hold. Then, without warning, a runnerbeast fell ill.

The Dragons of Pern are the world's only defence against an ancient threat - Thread, an evil rain that devours everything it touches. Paired with their riders from the moment they hatch, they risk their lives burning the scourge of the Red Star from the sky. But the dragons are in decline. Only one Weyr remains, and the only dragon queen is dying. F'lar knows that the Red Star is rising again and that the ancient threat will return. His only hope is the last queen egg and finding a woman strong enough to be the new queen's rider. But the villainous Lord Fax has other plans.

As director of a parapsychic center, telepath Rhyssa Owen coordinates the job assignments for the psychically gifted Talents in her group. She is always ready to welcome new Talents. When an extraordinary man with no measurable Talents appears, however, Rhyssa realizes that she will need to reassess the potential of all Talentkind.

The beautiful planet Pern seemed a paradise to its new colonists—a return to an agrarian way of life—until unimaginable terror turned it into hell. Lethal spores began to fall like silvery thread-like rain from the sky, vaporizing everything—and everyone—in their path. The colony, cut off from Earth and lacking the resources to combat the menace, was doomed.

Kris Bjornsen has come a long way since alien slave ships scooped her up in Denver with thousands of others. Dropped off on an apparently uninhabited world with the rest, she has fallen in love with Zainal, a renegade Catteni, and has made a comfortable life for herself and her new family. But she feels a soldier's duty to escape Botany and rejoin the struggle for freedom.

It's the dawning of a new age for mankind when the Catteni descend to Earth and easily overcome the Earth's population. Thousands are herded onto slave ships headed for the intergalactic auction block. Kris Bjornsen is captured in Denver on her way to her college classes and wakes up on the primitive planet Barevi.

Molly, Charity, Barbara, Dorotea, and Amalda are members of an elite cadre of beings who have stepped out of the ordinary human race to enter their own! “Talents” are extraordinary people who read minds, heal bodies, divert disasters, and foretell the future. Despite this, they have become pariahs in their own land.