Customer Reviews

Rowan, the

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When my grandmother gave "The Rowan" to me (I love books), I turned it over and read the back. I was skeptical and not sure about it. I am not in to sci-fi but more into fantasy. I took it with me to my highschool testing and when I was done with it I took it out and started reading. When it was time to go on testing I couldn't put it down. I found the inter-space world Anne McCaffrey created had intwined me and caught me in its wondrous atmosphere. The story of a young powerful teleknetic orphan held me on the edge of my seat. The emotions and experiences of the young girl soon known as the Rowan wow'd me and made me see sci-fi in a new light. I keep it among my other favorites such as: Dragonlance series, the Chronicles of Narnia, and the Myst series. Amazing like no other book I couldn't believe how it still held my attention months later as I wondered about some of the events. The advanced world of earth and outer colonies was the future and AM had brought it to life with the powerful teleknetic minds of the FT&T it made me wish for more. The colorful worlds and wonders of the Rowan and her story is a true work of art. If you want to start a great series start reading the "Rowan" series. Truly excellents books probably Anne's best works ever.

Years ago, I read a story by Anne McCaffrey that she later expanded into this novel. From there she went on to write a series of books about the dynasty of telepathic/telekinetic "Talents" founded by Altair's Angharad Gwyn (a/k/a "the Rowan") and Deneb's Jeff Raven. I've somehow managed to read Book One of the series last, but the story on which McCaffrey based it was so memorable that I almost thought I'd read it already. Until I noticed its copyright date, and realized that couldn't be true!

Orphaned at age three, little Angharad Gwyn has her memories of those first years of her life blocked by rescuers who desperately need to silence the child's telephathic cries for her dead parents. Since she therefore can't even remember her name, she comes to be called "the Rowan child" - for the mining company whose remote work site has fallen victim to a landslide, of which this little girl is the sole survivor. Hers is the strongest Talent that the Human colony-world Altair has yet bred, and she's immediately marked for training as a tower-dwelling Prime. She'll spend her adult life shifting cargo containers and passenger vessels, and military units as well, from one star system to another. Instantly, across light years of space. The Rowan's future looks bright, but lonely; because when Primes travel between worlds, they suffer horribly. Everyone knows that's true. Everyone, that is, except Jeff Raven - a "wild" Talent on far-off Deneb, who calls out to the Rowan for help when an alien invasion force bears down on his colony.

This is classic McCaffrey. Science fiction romance, published before anyone identified the sub-genre as such, with an intriguing "villian" in the alien invaders whose nature the rest of the series continues to explore. While I'm not generally fond of SF that accepts traditional gender roles as necessary to the point of being inevitable, I always wind up enjoying McCaffrey's books anyway. They're fun reads. The Rowan is no exception. I'm glad I finally caught up with it.

Although there are actually about 3 "prequels" to this book including "To Ride Pegasus", "Pegasus in Flight" and "Pegasus in Space", the prequels are several generations before "The Rowan" but do give a nice background/foundation. I highly recommend reading the prequels as they are a nice series in and of themselves.

The Rowan is orphaned at 3 years old on Altair during a horrible mudslide which wipes out her family and an entire mining camp except her. She is heard and rescued because she is a very strong "Talent" -- a person with strong psi skills and in this case, telepathing (as well as telekinesis and teleport as shown later in the book). Her mental crying and shouting is heard throughout the planet by even minor Talents. The Prime, Siglen, on Altair has an inner ear condition which makes her violently ill when trying to travel in space. Siglen has inhibited all of the Primes (a T-1 or strongest of the Talents) she has trained so far and when they propose to send the Rowan to Earth for training she scares her as does the Rowan's past experiences. Thus Siglen and a host of other nurse/psychologists/engineers train the Rowan until she is ready for a Tower of her own.

She lands a post on Callisto, a moon of Jupiter, where there is a domed environment. The Rowan being very temperamental takes a few years to get her staff together finally setting on Afra of Capella for her T-3 assistant. She is contacted by a untrained Prime on the far out colony world of Deneb which is being invaded first by bio-warfare and then missiles by ruthless aliens. Even though she hasn't met this new Prime, she is drawn to him by his sense of humor and voice and charm. Jeff Raven, the new Prime, is not inhibited and can easily 'port himself to Callisto so they finally meet. The Rowan finally overcomes her fears when Jeff is very critically wounded by shrapnel from a leftover missile that landed on Deneb.

I like the love story and actually found it believable -- but maybe I am naive. As a mom of 6, I also loved the feelings expressed by the Rowan for her impending motherhood and the beginning of her maturity and her nurturing nature and love of family.

I recommend reading this and the books that follow!!

The Rowan is my favorite science fiction book of all time. I can't tell you how many times I've read it. I own three copies, a new paperback, a paperback that's falling apart and a hardcover that took me forever to find. There is something about this book(indeed, about all Anne McCaffrey books)that reaches out and grabs you and makes you think, Oh, why can't I just leap into this book and meet those people!

The book is set sometime in the future and humankind has spread out into space with the aid of the Talented, people with incredible mental abilities, like telepathy, telekinesis, and clairvoyance. The Rowan was the victim of a terrible accident as a child and a whole planet heard her telepathic cries for help. She has the potential to be the most powerful Prime Talent ever. As she grows into her amazing abilities, she grows away from others. She discovers that her powers isolate her from everyone around her. One evening, a telepathic distress call from an unknown Talent of Prime ability shakes her whole universe. And that's how she meets Jeff Raven, a charismatic young man from distant Deneb. The Rowan stands beside him against a mysterious alien threat to his planet and realizes she never wants to leave him, that she loves him, and he will move solar systems to have her in his arms.

These characters are wonderful! The romance between the Rowan and Jeff Raven is so touching, yet it is written in such a way that it's not too sweet. It's practical and forthright, a wonderful narrative. And let's not forget gruff Reidinger and gentle Afra and Rascal, supporting characters that make the book what it is.

I've read the entire series and not one measures up to this one. If I could, I would beg Anne McCaffrey not to end it with The Tower and the Hive, which I think is the last. The Rowan is the book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer. Read it. Read it many times and find in it what I've found. It's a wonderful story.

The first book in the second half of McCaffrey's Talents series, The Rowan gives us all something to look forward to. With a rather cliched orphan-telepath storyline to work with, McCaffrey produces a surprisingly good tale taking us through her life, as she struggles to come to terms not only with who she is, but what she must do - namely, fight off a terrifying alien force with the help of a quixotic Talent called Jeff Raven. With McCaffrey's trademark descriptive prose mixed with her easy divisions of good and evil, it makes for interesting reading as well as a precursor for the better novels in the series.

For the most part, I liked this book. This book first follows the life of the child known only as the Rowan as she grows into adulthood. The Rowan is a powerful telepath and telekinetic and she is trained accordingly. Unfortunately, her abilities tend to set her apart from others, and she's often lonely.

I enjoyed the book, at least until the point where the Rowan is telepathically contacted by Jeff. It's a love at first sight situation, only the Rowan doesn't even have to see Jeff before she falls in love with him. The suddeness of her attatchment to him bothered me, especially since I didn't always like Jeff. Also, Anne McCaffrey dealt with the threat of alien invasion almost too quickly and neatly. For those reasons, I'm giving this book a four instead of a five. However, in spite of the fact that I didn't always like the second half of the book, I thought the first half was wonderful. Anne McCaffrey handles mental abilites and the impact they would have on society very well, and I enjoy reading about her telepaths more than I do anyone else's. This is definitely a worthwhile read and reread.

I first read this book sometime in middle school, and my memory from then was that this book was awesome, while the later installments in the series started to go downhill. I recently saw a copy of this in a used bookstore, and decided to have a little fun and reread it. Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed. I am drawn to books that have protagonists who can do really cool awesome things, but they also need to have commensurate obstacles to face, and in this book, for the most part they don't. Really, the overall plot is just kinda boring.

It starts well. The Rowan is a poor orphan girl with awesome mental powers who is somewhat oppressed by the woman in charge of things, but has people who care about her helping make sure she reaches her full potential. The problem is, that full potential consists mainly of psychically slinging large objects through outer space. Although this is undoubtedly quite difficult, it is not particularly exciting.

Then we meet Jeff, who is even more awesome than the Rowan. This is where the book really starts to get ridiculous, as it devolves into basically a love story between these two characters, with some evil aliens they have to defeat thrown in for conflict. The problem is that there is absolutely no explanation for/demonstration of them falling in love. It's just sort of assumed that they must fall in love because they are the awesome co-protagonists-of-the-opposite-gender in a book. Really, I think this is possibly the worst treatment of romance I have ever read.

So why did I give it three stars? Well, I did really like the concept, and the characters are all pretty good too until Jeff shows up. And I think my childhood nostalgia also contributed toward my overall satisfaction upon finishing the book. But don't read the sequels. This book is pretty self-contained, and even as a kid I thought the sequels were terrible.

Anne McCaffrey is simply this generation's best author and this is the beginning of her best series. The Rowan is a fiery and unique heroine with amazing abilities. She goes on to mother a dynasty of unique Talents in this series. But the Rowan is the start of it all and by far Anne McCaffrey's best book. Strong charachters, fascinating plot line and most of all Anne's amazing imagination! Highly recommended.

I loved the whole book. There wasn't a part I didn't enjoy! I've read and reread The Rowan so many times I've lost count! My favorite part is when Rowan falls in love with Jeff Raven. For us regular folk, falling in love is a long and often painful experience. We learn who they are and what they stand for, over a very long time period. And more often than not, we are fooled. But with the Rowans and Jeffs mind merge, they know every thought and feeling each has ever had. They know instantly what kind of person each is and what they stand for. There are no secrets. It takes time for us to fall in love because it takes time to learn what kind of person each is. But to know in an instant...Wouldn't that make falling in love a whole lot safer? I think Anne did a wonderful job with the romance part of the book. (she did great on the other too, but Ijust loved this part the best) She took all the months and sometimes years it takes to really know someone and showed us what it would be like if we knew everything in an instant.

The Rowan begins a series of five books. It is an excellent series and "The Rowan" is the perfect beginning. I have purchased all five books and so love them that I am furbishing my library with the hardbound editions. My 15 year old daughter loves this book also. It bridges the often times hard-to-bridge gap from teen to adult. It was one of my favorites as a teen reader and is still on my list of favorites!