Typhon's Children [Mass Market Paperback]

Toni Anzetti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

To the new colonists, the teeming, ocean-dominated planet of Typhon seems a wondrous and exotic paradise--until the land erupts with incomprehensible violence, consuming the colony in a fiery hell. Their supplies lost, the survivors find themselves struggling against a world where death wears many guises. But the deadliest menace strikes from within--for every child born on Typhon suffers strange, degenerative mutations. Unless the situation can be reversed, the Typhon colony is doomed.

Per Langstaff is a scientist obsessed with the life-and-death mystery, certain that the answer to the colony's survival lies with the virulent planet itself. His staunchest ally, Dilani, is a rebellious young girl born deaf to sound and convention, an orphan as unruly as the oceans themselves. Together these two outcasts, bound by a shared love of the depths, embark on an unforgettable journey that will take them to the utmost reaches of humanity . . . and beyond.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

To the new colonists, the teeming, ocean-dominated planet of Typhon seems a wondrous and exotic paradise--until the land erupts with incomprehensible violence, consuming the colony in a fiery hell. Their supplies lost, the survivors find themselves struggling against a world where death wears many guises. But the deadliest menace strikes from within--for every child born on Typhon suffers strange, degenerative mutations. Unless the situation can be reversed, the Typhon colony is doomed.

Per Langstaff is a scientist obsessed with the life-and-death mystery, certain that the answer to the colony's survival lies with the virulent planet itself. His staunchest ally, Dilani, is a rebellious young girl born deaf to sound and convention, an orphan as unruly as the oceans themselves. Together these two outcasts, bound by a shared love of the depths, embark on an unforgettable journey that will take them to the utmost reaches of humanity . . . and beyond.

About the Author

Toni Anzetti's interest in biology began at age three, when she collected a large bucket of assorted amphibians and turned them loose in the tent where she was living with her parents and younger brother. In a later experiment, she and her brother tried to raise tadpoles but instead created a jar filled with methane-producing bacteria. While her brother subsequently became a professional biologist, Toni followed the less orthodox path of the science fiction writer.

She's camped in the Badlands, ridden the trails of Huron National Forest, and swum in all of the Great Lakes. Her interest in the Deep has taken her snorkeling in Saipan, between the Mariana Trench and the volcanic island of Pagan.  With her husband and the youngest of their four children, she currently lives in Texas, where she studies xericulture and the region's native plants.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345418719
• ISBN-13: 978-0345418715
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,573,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dazzling start to a great new series!, November 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Typhon's Children (Mass Market Paperback)

I would echo the comments of the reviewer who likened this book to the Pern adventures of Anne McCaffery, and propose another comparison. While reading Typhon's Children, I was reminded of the early novels of Andre Norton and their tantalizing evocations of ancient alien civilizations. Add in scrupulously researched scientific details, fast-paced adventure, and an otherworldly environment so convincingly portrayed that you can taste the salt on the breeze, and you come close to describing a visit to the planet Typhon. The characters are complex, living and breathing (whether out of the water or in it) beings whose triumphs and setbacks the reader comes to care about deeply. The humans who inhabit this world are by turns noble, stubborn, amusing and heartbreaking, while the non-humans they encounter over the course of the novel are delineated with equal depth and compassion.

If one definition of a good book is that it leaves the reader wanting more, then I'd vote Typhon's Children a place on that honored shelf. This is one of the few books I've read in more years than I'd care to admit where I found myself consciously slowing down as I neared the ending, wanting to draw out my visit to this wonderful world for as long as I possibly could!

P.S. According to the latest Del Rey newsletter, Toni Anzetti has just handed in Riders of Leviathan, the second book in the Typhon series.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hugo, Nebula, Campbell award - or all 3?, December 12, 1999

By 

Walter Tingle (danvers, ma USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Typhon's Children (Mass Market Paperback)

Wow! How about a contender for the Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell awards? "Typhon's Children" impressed me... a lot. The science fiction books and stories that make such a large favorable impresson on me are few and far between. "Lord of Light", "The Stars My Destination", "No Woman Born", "There Will Be Time", and "Tau Zero" all come to mind.

Toni Anzetti's (apparent) debut is not about anything in any of those books, but her story of the failed colony from cold, dark, dry Skandia and their fate on the warm, wet, world of Typhon is comparable to them in impact and quality. It ranks as good, hard, science fiction without any expository digressions (thank you, Toni), a real plot, and characters and character development that most authors would kill for. She throws you in the deep end, hands you a skinsuit and a dive-mask, attacks you with tangleweed, a pod of ketos and a school of boogers and leaves you gasping (literally) and near death. And that's just the first scene. The colonists are near the end of their rope: disaster-struck, impoverished, apparently abandoned, dejected, gene-damaged, dying-out, combative, and neurotic. Then things get worse.

READ THIS BOOK!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Beginning, April 28, 2000

By 

Kevin Wohler (Lawrence, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Typhon's Children (Mass Market Paperback)

I read Typhon's Children at the encouragement of my SF book club, but certainly without regret. The story of genetic change on a strange (and unhospitable) world is both interesting and thought provoking.

The story centers on a deaf girl (Dilani) who lost her parents on the oceanic world of Typhon. A volcano unexpectedly became active and destroyed the one existing island where the colony had settled. Life even before the "big disaster" was less than idyllic. Something, either on Typhon or within the colonists, is causing each of the new generation to be born with mutations. Some are slight (Dilani's deafness and webbed toes), while others are nearly monsterous.

The bulk of the book is a combination quest story combined with a different twist on the "first contact" theme. I enjoyed Anzetti's descriptive underwater passages, although some of the varied names of animal life became confusing.

This book ended too slowly, but still left plenty of possibility for a sequel. Plenty of good issues to provoke discussion. It was a great selection for our book club.