9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Plague Zombies, October 10, 2006
Second Wave (2006) is the second SF novel in the Acorna's Children series, following First Warning. In the previous novel, Khorii succeeded in healing plague victims on various planets, moons and ships, but could not heal her parents. She and her friends frustrated and abandoned Marl Kidd, a wannabe pirate and pillager of dead planets. She also decided that the plague was not natural and determined to find and stop the beings who have used it.
In this novel, Khorii is part of the plague cleanup effort, but is resting between missions on Palodura, where the plague had started. Sesseli, the youngest member of the Mana crew, wakes her with a loud scream. She has just seen movement of a grave marker in the makeshift cemetery in the former city square. Convinced that Sesseli is imaging things, the rest of the crew reassures her and Alviiz goes down to check out the graveyard. Unfortunately, Jalonzo the gamer has more colorful ideas and Sesseli spends the rest of the night in bed with Khorii and Khiindi.
Subsequent events make Khorii and others reconsider their scoffing of Sesseli's fears. Several children in the building claim to have seen the ghosts of their relatives. Others start to see such ghosts, including Elviiz the android, who is unlikely to be hallucinating. Still, many comment that the behavior of these ghosts is not consistent with the persons that they resemble.
Marl Kidd breaks out of jail and uses the communications center to call some of his associates. Strange things start to happen while he is there and the child on duty is quite happy to leave him alone with the zooming couches. After contacting a pirate crew, Marl is startled to notice that something dead-looking occupies each of the misbehaving couches. He barely makes it out of the comm center before the couches can catch up with him, but the undead creatures are not stopped by the closed door.
As he hurries to the shuttle port, an unwholesome crew follows behind him. Even though the shuttle pilot comments on his companions, Marl notices nothing unusual until the vessel starts to fall apart around him. The pirates are rather irritated at him when they receive a chewed up shuttle with a dead pilot.
The pirates follow the Mana to Rushima and send Marl down with two of their men to overcome the crew. Marl tries to scare Khorii into cooperation, but people with guns keep interrupting his efforts. The final straw comes with the collapse of the pirate shuttle, which is apparently eaten by ghosts.
Meanwhile, Narhii -- a previously unknown twin of Khorii -- learns that she has family in her future and escapes from the Friends to reunite with her sister. When she appears among the sii-Linyaari, her statements are questioned at first, but everything proves out and she is welcomed into the family. She is given a new name -- Arrinye -- after her father and the nickname of Ariin.
Ariin lacks prior experience with Linyaari or humans, but does know the true identity of Khiindi: Grimalkin the Ancestral Friend. Khiindi is hampered by his inability to shapechange, but has been very protective of Khorii in his own way. At first he tends to avoid Ariin because of her belligerent attitude (he had stolen her egg from Acorna's womb), but finally decides that she would make a good ally.
In this story, Khorii finds herself restricted by her ability to see the plague. Nobody wants to risk her for ordinary duties. Even the pirates want her for this ability. She is really tired of being protected from everything; just being alive always involves some risks. She feels more like a public resource than a living person.
Of course, there are times that she is glad to have someone protective like Elviiz available. Then the roof falls down on Elviiz and he needs more protection than she does. Being the protector of someone else is different from, but no better than, being overprotected. Sometimes nothing works out right.
This young adult novel may not be as complicated as some others -- The Wheel of Time series comes to mind -- but it does portray the potential dangers that surround each of us. Moreover, it raises some good questions about responsibilities and independence.
Highly recommended for McCaffrey & Scarborough fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of adventure, misadventure and perseverance.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
exciting and past-paced, August 19, 2006
Khorii is a member of the Linyaari race created from the DNA material of a unicorn sentient species rescued from Old Terra by the Ancestral Friends, a shapeshifting, time traveling space voyaging race. She, like all Linyaari, has a horn that heals her people and humans. Khorii follows in the footsteps of her famous Mother Acorna by discovering a new way to heal an entire planet from a plague that killed billions (see FIRST WARNING).
Now the Linyaari are mopping up as the plague seems to have finally burned itself out; Khorii is in the thick of the operation as she is only one who can see the plague. On planets where the plague has been reported, strange phenomena occur. The ghosts of dead plague victims appear and inorganic objects abruptly implode. Khorii and her newfound twin, who traveled from far back in time to be reunited with her family who never knew she existed, must figure out what is going on before civilization comes to a halt in a very large inhabited sector of the galaxy.
What makes this series special is the reader is thoroughly immersed in the Linyaari culture. SECOND WAVE picks up where FIRST WAVE left off and proves exciting and past-paced though newcomers should start with the previous tale first as references are frequent to the events in that thriller. The heroine, though young, is a feisty fighter willing to do what it takes to save worlds and those who live on them though this time a sense of foreboding that Khorii and readers feel climaxes into a shocking final revelation.
Harriet Klausner
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