Freedom's Choice (Catteni Series #2) »

Anne McCaffrey, the Hugo Award-winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern® novels, is one of science fiction’s most popular authors. With Elizabeth Ann Scarborough she co-authored Changelings and Maelstrom, Books One and Two of The Twins of Petaybee. McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland.

Beloved science-fiction and fantasy writer Anne McCaffrey returns to the world of Freedom's Landing in this compelling sequel, Freedom's Choice, which finds the unwilling colonists truly beginning to make that world a home.

When Kris Bjornson and her fellow slaves were left by the Catteni on an uninhabited planet in Freedom's Landing, their survival seemed unlikely. Zainal, a Catteni outcast, helped them learn to fight the terrifying predators of the new world.

The colonists have learned to survive, and have begun to create a new civilization on the planet they call Botany. But as the colony grows, differences begin to divide the colonists. One faction believes that they should settle here, bearing children and populating their new home. But the other insists that they should return to Earth to help their compatriots fight off the Catteni oppressors.

For Kris Bjornson, who is in love with Zainal, the choice is particularly difficult. She wants more than anything to see Earth again. But this life -- building a new home with Zainal, exploring a new world of their very own -- is the best she has ever known.

Publishers Weekly

In Freedom's Landing (1995), a group of plucky slaves, both human and alien, were abandoned by their Catteni masters on the planet Botany. With the help of the Catteni rebel Zainal, the colonists survived their early days, and now they're making plans to get even with the Catteni as well as to learn the truth about the mysterious Farmers, or Mech Makers, who seem to be cultivating Botany by means of robots. Told mostly from the point of view of Zainal's human lover, Kris Bjornsen, the plot focuses on the colonists' struggle to survive independent of their Catteni overlords. Though a few settlers want to return to Earth to fight the Catteni, most of the women seem bent on having children and making a real go of the colony. While this wholesale enthusiasm to procreate stretches credulity, McCaffrey's characters are otherwise her usual well-tempered mix of heroes, rogues and out-and-out villains. The setting is crisp and expertly detailed and the plot spins out smoothly, with more than enough hints of future developments to keep readers eager for the next installment in the series. (June)