This gracefully written sequel to Golden Witchbreed powerfully depicts the impact of a high-technology civilization on a decaying planet. Ten years after having served as Earth's first envoy to Orthe, which is struggling to survive after a planetwide holocaust millennia ago, Lynne de Lisle Christie returns there as an advisor to PanOceania, one of Earth's giant multinational companies, which is seeking to discover the technological secrets of the Goldens, the ruling race that had destroyed itself while almost obliterating Orthe. Christie seeks to help the native people, some of whom have been her friends, some her enemies, but all closely bound in her memories and loyalties. Instigated by the last of the Golden, a madwoman seeking domination, war between the poor and starving hiyeks of the Desert Coast and the land-loving telestres of the north is aggravated by smuggled high-tech weapons. Christie, while holding a dreadful secret from the Orthe's past, attempts to mediate. Gentle creates moving, different, yet recognizable societies and people that catch the reader's emotions as they struggle to save themselves.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-- This sequel to Golden Witchbreed (NAL, 1985) is well written and spellbinding. The planet Orthe is a post-technological society which has survived a holocaust; this plot revolves around the native Ortheans who resist the use of Earth technology to improve their lives. There is internal dissension as some Ortheans want the weaponry, if nothing else, to change the balance of power on this pacifist planet; and there is pressure from a multi-planetary corporation that wants to trade the technology for relics of Orthe's preholocaust technology. There is romance between Earthwoman Lynne Christie and Orthean Blaize Meduenin. The alien world comes to life as the planet Dune did, and readers will wish the book were longer.
- Dorcas Hand, Episcopal High School, Bellaire, TX
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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