Customer Reviews

Catalyst: A Tale of the Barque Cats (Barque Cats Series)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I really enjoyed this book. It has strong, original characters in the cats. As a cat person myself, I found the cats' thoughts very believable. I think that my own cats have thought some of the same unflattering things about this particular human plenty of times, and they are definitely manipulators when it comes to food.

The only thing that disappointed me about this book was that I thought it was going to be set in the same "universe" as the T&T novels by McCaffrey, which also has Barque Cats that are unusually intelligent as ships' cats, and which also have COB on their ships so that if there's trouble the cat will be rescued, too. I didn't expect a T&T novel per se, but I did expect mentions. Instead, the human galactic history in this book is completely different from the one in the T&T novels, with the sole exception of the Barque Cats!

Still, it was good. I just wish that they had made it more obvious that the universe was going to be completely different. I guess I'll just think of it as an alternate universe and go from there.

The Barque Cats are extremely valuable because they keep vermin off space ships and are adept at finding oxygen leaks or other hazardous gases as well as just keeping people on board the vessel safe. Thomas's Duchess, known as Chessie and her human companion Janina, whose title on the ship is Cat Person, dock on Head Station, where a pregnant Chessie goes for a check-up. Janina and Dr. Jared Vlest fly down to the planet Sherwood to look at the animals that need care.

A con artist Carlton Pontius aka Ponty steals Chessie and brings her to his farm on Sherwood as she is worth a fortune especially with a coming litter of Barque kittens. He gives Chessie to his son Jubal who takes care of her and her litter. Chessie loves all of her offspring, but the kitten Chester bonds with Jubal. Chessie needs to reunite with her Cat Person Janina. Unfortunately, they cannot, as a "supposed" plague has arrived leading to the impounding of all animals and those exposed (even the Barque cats). They will be executed. Janina and her allies try to free their companions, but an alien feline Pshaw-Ra with psionic power wants to take the cats to his planet so they can begin the universal domination of the known universe.

This is the first tale of a duology that contains the usual strong outer space world building, a trademark of the authors who make a whole galaxy seem real. The Sparkles plague is caused by a harmless beetle but the GG scientists refused to accept a simple explanation. The point of view is told mostly by various feline characters, but it comes across as believable and as important not simplistic cute as the cats understand their troubles. The humans are for the most part empathetic especially Janina and cranky Ponty who has his own pet cat. Although the audience will need to wait for the second entry to see whether Chessie and Chester have more than one life each, fans will enjoy the opening Barque Cat caper.

Harriet Klausner

As a longtime fan of Anne McCaffrey I will frequently buy her books based on her name alone; that happened to be the case here. I am, as well, one of the staff members of a beloved cat that honors us by living at our house. I mention that so you may better understand my following comments.

This is a book in which cats are the stars; humans serve in various supporting roles as faithful sidekicks, flunkies, and dangerous villains. Where our cat is concerned, I like to think of myself as a faithful sidekick but fear I'm no more than a flunky except at mealtimes when I seem to take on a more important role.

The cats also have most of the lines and are the focus of most of the action; I don't really have a problem with that as the writers obviously love cats and have written that love into this book.

Other reviewers have outlined the plot so I won't go there again except to say this is more of a cat science fantasy than science fiction. If you are comfortable with cats talking and doing wondrous things you will probably enjoy this book. I'll agree that it got off to a rather slow start as cats and humans were introduced to the reader but then picked up speed as one unprincipled human decides to steal one of the cat stars; things start getting complicated then.

The next in the series, "Catacombs," will be released December 7, 2010 and is now available for pre-order on Amazon; as soon as I finish this review I'll be pre-ordering that one so that should tell you something about what I thought of the book.

What a shame - I've always been interested in the idea of Barque cats, and particularly in the young Afra Lyon's link to them. This book wasn't bad, but it certainly didn't live up to my expectations.

The book ends in such a way that it's clearly a set-up for a sequel, but I didn't feel there was enough plot in this for one book - let alone a series - maybe the authors were just being careful so they don't play all their cards too early.

The sections which mentioned cat behaviour were well thought through, and I can see that a 'cat person' would find these interesting and insightful, but I didn't feel they were enough to get the book over the line.

Don't get me wrong, most of what McCaffrey and Scarborough have written (together and separately) is brilliant, and I love their stuff, I just didn't love this.

Well, as a long lasting fan of McCaffrey books this was a dissappointment.

As to the reason, it has been said by other readers: simplistic, naive, without depth and illogical event of happenings.

But it REALLy annoys me that the price of the follow-up is so sky high. $ 23,71 !!!???

This to me is ridiculous. There is no way I buy any ebook for that price and especially this one.

There are now more ebooks to be found, especially new releases with that exorbitant price tag.

This is my first review I am writing. I own more than 260 ebooks from amazon and am usually far too lazy to write reviews

or any comments. But this time I have felt the need to express my annoyance.

I discovered Anne McCaffrey's 'Dragonriders' books decades ago and loved them until they became collaborative efforts with her son, after which (sorry to say) IMHO the overall quality of the series went down steadily. I never did get into her other series with Ms Scarborough but as a cat lover I could not resist checking these books out. I borrowed Catalyst from my library but after only reading the first 5 pages knew that this was a book I wanted to own, and ordered this plus Catacombs from Amazon. They are now among my favorites and I anxiously await future editions! :-)

You KNOW your cats are thinking these things about you....

The plot of this short fantasy novel (the first in a series) is almost beside the point. But if you must: McCaffrey and Scarborough create a universe in which cats are a necessary part of space travel. With the assistance of a designated Cat Person, the cats keep spaceships rodent-free, can identify pinhole fractures and other hardware issues, and otherwise keep the ship, well, ship-shape. The adventure begins when one of our heroines, Chessie -- pregnant with a litter of kittens -- is stolen from her Cat Person. And then there's a mystery about where those tasty bugs come from and what effect they have...

The storyline in this book is strictly 3-star "it's okay," and I should mention that it's perfectly suitable for young adults or even bright children. (I would easily have read this at age 9 or 10, had it been around way back when.) It's an enjoyable read for a lightweight "entertain me but don't make me think too hard" weekend.

However, the book is lifted by the characterization of the cats, which is excellent. If you're owned by any cat (and really, I can't imagine you'd want to read this book unless you are), you will recognize the cats' thoughts and perceptions. For example, one cat says to another, "Foolish catling, how do you think you can stand against me? You can achieve nothing without my gracious acquiescence..." to which the kitten replies, "Stop waggling your rear and hunt if you're going to. ... They're probably murdering cats while you sit here grooming your bung hole." I'm certain that my cats say such things to one another. You will smile; you might even laugh aloud.

It's a light, fun read, and a decent fantasy story. When it comes to telepathic cats and cat's-eye-view of the world, I still prefer Gayle Greeno's Ghatti's Tale series (starting with Finders Seekers), but I'm glad I picked up this book.

Catalyst is a fun, enjoyable book that becomes even more so if you love cats. However, long-time fans will note that it is not up to the usual McCaffrey standards... though that should not really be a surprise, since it was a collaboration. The character and plot development are a bit thin, not layered like in most of her work. The storyline seems like vintage Anne, and there are some portions of the book that seem to have been written exclusively by her - her style is unmistakable - but for the most part, my impression is that she was involved primarily behind the scenes. At only 256 pages, it could be the length was the reason for some of the issues this book has - the storyline seems abrupt and jumpy at times, and the characters are done primarily in broad strokes. Still, they are likable enough and the story is engaging enough to make this a fun book, one worth reading... and one anyone who has had their heart stolen by a cat will definitely understand.

This book seems to be aimed at a younger audience than is typical of this 2-author team, although with some materials that would fit better for a teen/young adult audience. The human political and love interests are suitably vague for an 8-12 age, but the story depends on them to make sense. The ending solution to all the problems is improbable, which is fine for children's/teen's literature, but, despite elements that are explained by the ending, it does not develop from the first 3/4 of the book. I don't wish to be more specific and spoil the plot, and I will read the sequel if/when I can find it 2nd-hand or in a library, but I was disappointed both in the pleasure I was anticipating for myself and in my hope to find a good new young adult novel for the college course I teach in children's literature.

This should be rated as a book for children/teens. Have reading almost all of McCaffrey's SciFi books and was extremely disappointed. Have had cats for years, but after many attempts to finish the book, finally donated it to the local animal rescue resale shop.