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Kris and Zainal continue their efforts to make Botany a successful colony, raise a family, and free the galaxy from Eosi domination. Derivative aliens. The spacefaring cat-people from Wing Commander (a huge hit videogame when McCaffery was writing this) and the Not-Sandworms. Hmm, sandworms are attracted to vibration and hate water. The underground species in this book are repelled by vibration and love water. How original. Even the faceless overlords are a cliche. Kris spends more than six months minding her business, learning how to survive in the jungles and drinking fresh water from the jungle streams that split the valley into the half. All this time she’s alone, free until when a spacecraft chased by Catteni crashes into her jungle and blows her solitary life into bits. I bumped into this by accident in the library, and since McCaffrey died I’d been meaning to read something by her, and the blurb looked to be promising SF with a dash of romance I decided to take the entire series with me on Christmas break. I’m so glad I did, because I really liked this first book. Furthermore, as someone who 99% of the time can't stand romantic subplots, McCaffrey has written one that I was absolutely giddy about. It's slow and real hot and respectful and it makes SENSE. Genuinely- I mean, I have never been able to sit through Rom Coms and I can't stand the shallow, adolescent, codependence that most fantasy and sci-fi novels include in their romantic subplots. This book though? I was basically whooping and hollering as the romance developed. Somehow Anne has written my dream boyfriend and he's a six and a half foot tall gray alien. No wonder I'm not dating anyone right now. Who could measure up?
The original short story, "The Thorns of Barevi" (1970), had a rape-fantasy component that was removed when it was reworked into the first novel, Freedom's Landing. McCaffrey wrote:It dives right in when Kris an escaped human slave on a strange planet, encounters Zainal, a Catteni (the aliens who invaded Earth and took a bunch of humans off-planet as slaves), who is on the run himself. Figuring that a common enemy makes them some sort of allies, she saves his hide, which gets her captured again and dropped on Botany, a planet version of penitary colony. Thus commences a tale of settling a new planet, organizing the humans and various kinds of other aliens, and figuring out who the original owners of the planet were. Anyway, that's not what this book is about. This book is about getting snatched (again?) and dumped on a "vacant" planet that the master race has somehow failed to notice is covered in perfectly symmetrical farms. (There's even a scene toward the end where this is pointed out to Zainal the Catteni and "everyone needs to use their breath for climbing" so no real answer. LOL.)
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 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. The Catteni Series (also called the Freedom Series) is a tetralogy of science fiction novels by American writer Anne McCaffrey. In this universe, humans are slaves of aliens, the humanoid Catteni. Woven through all four of the books are details of the relationship between Kristin Bjornsen, a former slave, and Zainal, a renegade Catteni. Let Anne McCaffrey, storyteller extraordinare and New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author, open your mind to new worlds and new concepts. Worlds where humans are the slaves of aliens and love can flourish in the most unlikely of places... Perfect for fans of David Eddings, Brandon Sanderson and Douglas Adams. Now standard in the middle of a corrective planet, dumped along with hundreds of other aliens and human prisoners, Kris decides she’d better keep an eye for the Catteni named Zainal for he’s likely to get killed by the human and alien alike who disliked his Catteni guts. Her working career included Liberty Music Shops and Helena Rubinstein (1947-1952). She married in 1950 and had three children: Alec Anthony, b. 1952, Todd, b.1956, and Georgeanne, b.1959.However, since he’s refused to return to his duties, his brother is forced to take his place. The raging hatred that Lenvec feels for Zainal interest an Eosi named Ix and soon IX curiosity make him want to know more about planet Botany and find Zanal. I love it when writers do that, though, become their own inspiration and teacher, evolving a story that doesn't work so well into something better. The short story morphed into a series of novels that I am finding unputdownable. But, safe though they were behind the protective device, Kris Bjornsen, Zainal and all of the Council knew they had to go out and destroy the Eosi on their own ground. It fell to Zainal to risk his life in a desperate and daring mission to vanquish the monster life forms forever... Read more Details Q: HOW is it possible for the late great Anne McCaffery's early foray into furry rape porn be translated into a book salable to her mostly YA-friendly, dragon-loving audience, familiar with her collection of female coming-of-age stories in fantasy settings with low-heat romance sub-plots? So many things, big and little, bothered me about this book. The main thing being that, while on a mission, Kris once again gets drunk and sleeps with a human man who is a friend to her and Zainel. Again, they were both drunk and, you know, these things just happen. La di da. Really? Once was bad enough. I can't believe McCaffrey wrote this set-up twice. And, yep, Kris gets pregnant and hides it from both Zainel and the father. Everything about how this situation was handled was so distasteful. I can't even.
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