Customer Reviews

Acorna's Quest (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In Acorna The Unicorn girl, Acorna is a baby, found by her'uncles' Calum, Gill, and Rafik. They noticed the young foundling hadonly two jointed fingers and oddly shaped feet, along with a small horn in the middle of her head. She was able to heal people, and purify plants and water. In 'Acorna's Quest', Acorna is now an adult with her species, and Acorna and Calum, the mathemetician of the three miners, are setting off to find Acorna's home planet. Almost directly after Acorna and Calum leave, four of Acorna's people, one of them being her aunt, arrive at Maganos Moon base, Acorna's home! The Linyaari, as they call themselves, speak with Acorna's caretakers and tell them of a horrible enemy, the Kleevi, which are hurtling towards this sector of space. The Kleevi have captured and tortured so many Linyaari in the years preceding. The Linyaari are also searching for a young one of their race that they lost long ago. Will Acorna meet with her ancestors? Will the Kleevi reach Acorna and Calum before Rafik, Gill and the Linyaari can? Find out in 'Acorna's Quest'. This book has beautiful writing style, seamless plot, and although it is sci-fi/fantasy, it doesn't have so much scientific garbish that you can't understand. The charming Linyaari, and Acorna's tearful departure to come make waiting to read the next book as torturful as the Kleevi could ever be!

In the first book of the series, we meet Acorna and come to know both her and her situation, which began something like this...

When three asteroid miners were just beginning one of their long collection terms, they discovered an escape pod floating in space. Calum, Gill, and Rafik had no idea what lay inside, and were surprised to find a humanoid occupant. She wasn't human, though, the hooves, and single horn protruding from her forehead proved that. Acorna, as the miners took to calling their new ward, was a very special creature indeed.

The horn gave Acorna abilities that human mythology is fraught with. She could purify air, water, and even heal grievous wounds. She also grew from an infant to the equivalent of an adolescent girl in one year, with a maturity and intelligence that constantly surprised her guardians. These three gruff single men came to love Acorna as if she were their own, and together they saved the planet Kezdet from the mysterious "Piper," and set the enslaved children free.

In this second instalment, Acorna has been plagued with dreams of finding her own people, and quite understandably wants to know where she is from and what she was doing floating through space on her own as an infant.

Calum, Gill, and Rafik are torn between their desire to protect Acorna, and that of helping her to find her people. While Calum and Acorna plot out the most likely course and prepare themselves to journey off and find her people, everyone else is reluctant to allow them to leave. Delay after delay is keeping their space ship docked, and the pair have had enough - they leave as they are.

Naturally, as soon as the pair leave orbit a strange ship arrives. The occupants are the Linyaari, Acorna's people. They are traveling the galaxy warning other life forms of the deadly and violent Khleev who demolish everything they come across. Acorna cannot be reached, and the race to save humanity is joined by the need to find Acorna.

Acorna has her hands full trying to save a planet from a horrible wrongdoing, and a ship full of Starfarer's children who have been boarded and held hostage by some very devious criminals from another planet. Acorna has no idea that her dream of being reunited with her own kind could become a reality, and much sooner than she would have expected.

As in the first book of the series, this was a wonderful escape from reality, with enough fantasy elements blended with the science fiction to keep any reader content. The story is strong, the characters memorable and very appealing. I am looking forward to the next title in the series, and wondering what could possibly be facing Acorna this time.

Review Originally Posted at LinearReflections.com

Well, I read the first one long before this one came out. By the way, the first one's a wonderful story as well. When I heard there was another one I couldn't wait to get my hands on it! I've read them both over and over. Each time I still enjoyed the plots and characters just as much as the first time. Pretty soon I'll have them memorized. :0}

This Acorna story is not as good as the first, but it is entertaining and fun. I would certainly not recommend fans to avoid it (especially younger readers), but I found the subplot to be tedious. The story switches between Acorna's story and a secondary story, chapter by chapter.

(I actually didn't read much of the subplot - I found it so dull that I skipped those chapters and rather enjoyed the rest of the story! I'm giving this book 3 stars because I understood the Acorna story while only reading every other chapter.)

The sequel to Acorna! She is now a young adult. She and Calum are desperately searching for other's of Acorna's race. In their search, they come across a planet who had just been attacked by the Starfarers. The once beautiful planet is now half desert and half flooded. Of course they are sucked into the battle to help and then heal.

At the same time, Acorna's race, called the Linyaari, are spreading out to warn other races of a species whose soul purpose is to torture and destroy. That species is called the Khleev and they are headed toward humans! When the Linyaari find out Acorna, who was thought dead, is alive, the search is on!

***I've been searching for the sequel to Acorna and hoping it would be as good. IT IS! I highly recommend Acorna and Acorna's Quest.***

This book was very good, and please, please write a sequel!Acorna and Calum go in search of her race and they are confronted with an evil invader. It may sound boring but was actually pretty exciting. Make sure you read Acorna the Unicorn Girl before this otherwise it will make no sense at all.

Although "Acorna's Quest" began right in the thick of things as is McCaffrey's trademark, I feel that this book would have served better as a short story rather than a novel.

The plot led me to expect a grand clash with the Khleev, but when it finally happened, we were treated with a kind of bystander POV with little commentary. I expected more out of this sequel.

I will try not to give out spoilers.

The characterization of Acornia's Quest improves from the first installment of this series, yet the language and dialogue feels forced. Interactions between characters don't seem to flow normally but lurch from line to line. Spontaneous reactions to certain events feel predetermined and faked. I can feel the weight of the author throughout the story thus, preventing me from truly falling into the spell of the words. This weight can be felt in the odd dialogue turns, the odd reasoning, and in certain resolution scenes at the end of the book.

Acorna, a humanoid alien who bears a striking resemblance to Terra's legendary unicorn, has grown to womanhood in far fewer years than the three asteroid miners who found and adopted her expected. Who put her into that drifting life pod, and why? Where are her own people, the others of her species? In this middle book of a McCaffrey trilogy, the unicorn girl sets out on a quest to find those people. Her adopted human family, including the rich and powerful Delszaki Li, find themselves torn between wanting to help Acorna do what's clearly so important to her and wanting to keep their beloved child safe and close by. Acorna's ability to heal illness and injury has become public knowledge, and now far too many people want something from her. Which makes her family's desire to protect her even stronger, and - thanks to her innocent readiness to help anyone who asks - quite possibly necessary to her survival.

Calum, one of Acorna's trio of foster fathers, has a different attitude than the others. He offers to go with her, and helps her get their ship underway secretly when delay after delay frustrates them both into believing that's the only hope they have of ever beginning their journey. They discover too late that one vital preparation wasn't completed, and addressing the problem requires them to make an unplanned planetary stopover. That stopover lands them smack in the middle of a colony starship's mutiny, and of a planet-wide ecological disaster caused by weather control used as a weapon. While they're sorting all that out, Acorna's people show up at last. Not seeking their lost youngling, but instead bearing warning of a different, nightmare alien species that has driven them from their home-world and pursued them across the galaxy - and that's now heading rapidly toward human inhabited space.

For some reason Acorna didn't "work" for me as McCaffrey heroines usually do. Is she too good to be true, perhaps? Or is it something about the image of a beautiful young woman who looks, well, pretty much like a horse? Anyway, this is one of the few McCaffrey books I've had to slog through in places. Normally they're page turners for me. An OK read, but nothing that left me scrambling to get my hands on the trilogy's others volumes.

I may only be thirteen, but I know what I like...and I love this book. I've read a lot of books, a lot more than you know, and believe me, this is definately worthy of being the sequel to the already wonderful book, ACORNA.
I found this book incredibly well thought-out and imaginative, with a plot to kill. For all those people who state that this book could've been better-I don't know what you're talking about...But, I suppose everyone's entitled to their own opinions.
You want entertainment, you want this book!!!