October 17, 2005
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.
December 1, 2005
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. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)