Acorna's Quest (Acorna Series #2)

Found as an infant drifting in space, Acorna, the Unicorn Girl, has become a young woman. She still has her tiny, translucent horn, and her "funny" feet and hands. And, she still has her miraculous ability to make plants grow and heal human sickness.

But Acorna has strange dreams of a gentle folk who mind-speak by touching horns. With her "Uncle" Calum, one of the three grizzled asteroid prospectors who rescued, protected, and raised her, she sets off to find her people. No sooner does she leave than a mysterious craft appears, piloted by the Linyaari, a gentle race with telepathic powers.

The Linyaari are roaming the galaxy, spreading the alarm about the deadly Khleev—And searching for a beloved little girl they had given up for lost, long ago...

Found as an infant drifting in space, Acorna, the Unicorn Girl, has become a young woman. She still has her tiny, translucent horn, and her "funny" feet and hands. And, she still has her miraculous ability to make plants grow and heal human sickness.

But Acorna has strange dreams of a gentle folk who mind-speak by touching horns. With her "Uncle" Calum, one of the three grizzled asteroid prospectors who rescued, protected, and raised her, she sets off to find her people. No sooner does she leave than a mysterious craft appears, piloted by the Linyaari, a gentle race with telepathic powers.

The Linyaari are roaming the galaxy, spreading the alarm about the deadly Khleev—And searching for a beloved little girl they had given up for lost, long ago...

Publishers Weekly

Introduced in McCaffrey and Ball's Acorna: The Unicorn Girl (1997), the eponymous unicorn-horned girl of mysterious origins was found in a jettisoned spaceship's escape pod by kindly asteroid miners, and raised to young adulthood in secret in order to keep unsavory space businessmen from exploiting her superior intelligence and psychic abilities. This second book in the series finds Acorna determined to escape the protective bubble her friends have built around her and to set off across space in search of her people. Her trip stalls early on, however, when trouble with her ship forces her and her space-pilot partner, Calum, to land on Rushima. There they find starving colonists, victims of a nefarious band of Starfarers who used stolen meteorological technology to wreck Rushima's weather when the colonists wouldn't submit to their extortion plot. Acorna and Calum are captured by these Starfarers, then rescued by rebel Starfarers and caught up in a small-scale civil war. Meanwhile, Acorna's people, the Linyaari, are seeking allies in their war against the evil, insectiod Khlevii--who just happen to be headed toward Rushima. Despite brief moments of mild humor, the novel struggles under the weight of stereotypical characters, a predictable plot and an excess of backstory. Only faithful McCaffrey (the Dragonriders of Pern series) fans are likely to enjoy this weak series entry. (July)

Anne McCaffrey, a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner, is one of the world's most beloved and bestselling science fiction and fantasy writers. She is the author of the hugely successful Dragonriders of Pern series and makes her home in a castle in Ireland.