Customer Reviews

Damia's Children (Rowan/Damia)

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

 

 

Although I have read many of Anne's novels, Damia's Children truly captured my imagination and interest. The book opens leasurely, some years after its predecessor, the book Damia. The beautifully written openings describe in great detail the individual characters of Damia's Talented children, but it foreshadows the menace the reader expects. And true to its promises, the book plunges into an exciting expedition where the combined fleets of both the Human and Mrdini species track down the home world of their decades-old enemies, the Hive. But this book is not just about space-battles and "star wars". The reader witnesses the growing-up and maturing of Damia's four eldest children, and we even see glimpses of characters that one would expect to be obsolete: the Rowan, Isthia Raven, and the rest of Damia's children's predecessors who played such a large part in previous books. The book is definitely, without a doubt, a must-read, especially if you have read the previous two books, The Rowan and Damia..

I WAS VERY HAPPY WITH THE SERVICE. THE BOOK WAS IN GREAT CONDITION AND RECEIVED THE BOOK BEFORE THE EXPECTED DATE.. GREAT.

Great book from a great series by a great author. She writes in a clear style that draws you in with intriguing story lines and appealing characters.

This third novel in the chronicles of the Rowan and her descendants takes us into the 24th Century and a third generation of the Talented, the "parapsychic" Primes and T's whose telepathic and telekinetic powers make possible interstellar communication, supply, and the unity of the Nine-Star League. At the heart of the book are the Raven-Lyon family, the eight children (Laria, Thian, Rojer, Zara, Kaltia, Morag, Ewain, and Petra, ages fourteen to eight months at the start of the story) of Damia Raven and Afra Lyon, particularly the two oldest boys and, later, Zara. Growing up on Iota Aurigae, where their mother is Prime of the local FT&T station, the siblings are also at the forefront of an important and unique experiment in interspecies co-operation, raised with pairs of Mrdini, members of the intelligent, spacefaring species that has been allied with humanity since before they were born. The 'Dinis, as they're generally called, have a long history of battling the mysterious Hivers, who have also threatened the human colonies but been beaten back by the Talents. Now it's the turn of the new generation to take up the battle. At 16 Thian (accompanied by his 'Dinis) is assigned to the military spaceship "Vadim," part of a human-'Dini fleet attempting to backtrace the course of the last Hiver incursion; here he must serve as a combination liaison officer with the 'Dini ships and "catcher" of supplies 'ported on by the Talents--while coping with the hostility of an unknown crewmember and his first experience with love. Then the fleet encounters a Hiver wreck, a vast craft the size of a small asteroid that appears to have been caught in the blast of a supernova. Has the Hiver homeworld been destroyed? What will this mean to the nascent war between the human-'Dini alliance and the Hiver colonizer-ships? When Thian discovers living Hiver larvae in a protected area of the ship, everything comes to a head. Then Thian's brother Rojer is assigned to the "Beijing" to help observe a Hiver queen whose lifepod has been captured by the Alliance--and softhearted sister Zara proves unexpectedly crucial in the effort to keep her alive.

McCaffrey's picture of a large, close-knit family of psychically gifted parents and children is so well-drawn that as you read it you think that this is definitely the way such a unit would operate. Her 'Dinis are an intriguing alien culture that definitely *is* alien, with just enough points of similarity to humanity to allow a sympathetic unity to be established between them. Her colonies are an intriguing mix of high and low tech (Damia's children go hunting on horseback with bows and darts), and her Navy and its ships seem a natural future outgrowth of what we have today. The book ends on a note at once upbeat and incomplete, as Damia's father, Earth Prime Jeff Raven, admits that the allies now have "a waiting game to play." But both humanity and the 'Dinis seem to be better prepared for the final confrontation than they were even 20 years earlier.

I expected more after reading The Rowan and Damia. I think the novel could have been much improved if it had again focused on the viewpoint of one main character, as was done in The Rowan and in most of Damia. This would have alleviated the problem of too many jumps in plotline with too little elaboration. The characters seemed flat as well. I found it boring, and very disappointing.

Damia's Children is a wonderful follow up to The Rowan and Damia. This is a wonderful series. Anne McCaffrey is a gifted writer and I love reading about telekentics and the things they do. The hive creatures are very strange and the way Zara reacts to the captured queen is awesome. I thought for sure the queen was going to eat Zara, but instead she seemed to not even really know she was there. The Rowan and all the others in this series are definately page turners from page 1 to the end. One just can't wait to get to the next page or the next book in the series. I am starting Lyon's Pride now and can't wait to see how that turns out. THanks to Anne for wonderful reading. Joy Jenkins

I had a hard time listening to this book. The narrater's voice is not one that keeps my attention nor does she have much excitement in her tone while reading. This not one I would recommend.

Disappointing story about Damia's children and their "great" exploits. The story tries to cover as much time and action as possible in as few a words as possible creating a disjointed and thin plot. It's even a bit hard to follow there are so many gaps; not one of McCaffrey's better works. And the anti-racial discrimination theme was tired and trite, a pale facsimile to Orson Scott Card's Ender series which is much better written and a bit more provocative. Too bad. It had potential.

This books along with the latter talent books are so unrealistic as to be boring. The first talent books, Pegasus in Flight and Pegasus in Space were interesting and fun because we were reading about real characters.They had Talent, but they were still real people.The characters in the latter talent books are nothing less than gods, with an almost all-powerful Talent, and seemingly little or no personal problems or limitations (which makes th books dull). Also, what the books really portray, without actually saying it is basically a Talent autocracy. Non talented are inferior and unimportant, and the talented rule over everyone else with their powers. This reminds me of Star Trek, where everyone is law abiding, and the authority of the Federation is unquestioned.So what happens to those who question the authority of the Federation? They are automatically outlaws. Its really quite totalitarian.
Anyway, this book is boring and not worth the money.

I have read- and loved- several Anne McCaffrey books, but this was not one of them. I was repulsed when I came to the part where Mrs. McCaffrey attempts to set up a mystery-Talent who has a secret enmity for the aliens aboard. However, she repeatedly gave away who it was- from the looks on the character's face, to a near-outright confession. These seemed to me to be an insult to the reader's intelligence and made this book one of a very few books which I was too disgusted to finish. Still, part of my disappointment stems from the knowledge that she can write much better than this, and has.