Changelings (Twins of Petaybee Series #1) » (Reprint)

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. Visit the author’s website at www.annemccaffrey.net

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, winner of the Nebula Award for her novel The Healer’s War, is the author of numerous fantasy novels. She has co-authored eight other novels with Anne McCaffrey. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.


From the Hardcover edition.

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 ischanging–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 the Hardcover edition.

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.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.