Power Play (Petaybee Series #3) by Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (With)

From the Publisher

Petaybee was growing up. Day by day, the sentient planet—like any child—was learning to recognize and understand the meaning of outside stimuli, to respond to those stimuli, to communicate its own needs and desires...even to use human speech.
Yanaba Maddock had appointed herself defender of her adopted planet, and she had even succeeded in proving its sentience to all the nonbelievers. But despite all her efforts, few outsiders truly cared for the feelings and intelligence of what they perceived to be a giant hunk of rock—or a mere oddity to be gawked at.
Then Yana was kidnapped. The price of her freedom—the planet itself.
But the only one who could speak for Petaybee was Petaybee—and no one knew what a living planet could do once it found its voice...

Publishers Weekly

This final volume of the trilogy that began with Powers That Be opens with the marriage of Yanaba Maddock, administrator of the sentient planet Petaybee, to geneticist and selkie Sean Shongili. The pregnant Yana soon has to travel off-world to defend Petaybee's interests before a skeptical galaxy, leaving the planet open to devious exploitation by such predators as old enemy Torkel Fiske. The narrative shifts focus between the primitive but honest planet and the glittering space city of Gal Three as travails mount at both locations. Yana and two young friends are kidnapped by pirate Onidi Louchard; pilgrims and treasure seekers flood Petaybe. Throughout, the story oozes with the same sentimentality and one-dimensional characterization that afflicted the previous volumes. McCaffrey and Scarborough are capable of better, jointly as well as individually. (July)

BookList

The third novel in McCaffrey and Scarborough's series about life on the sentient planet Petaybee follows "The Powers That Be" (1993) and "Power Lines" with what may be the riveting saga's most exciting episode yet. Petaybee plays an even bigger role in events this time, for it develops not only a direct means of communicating with humans, but also a sense of humor as it continues to mature (a planet awake barely 200 years is still a baby). This volume begins with the marriage of Yanaba Maddock and the selkie (man-seal) Sean Shongili and concludes with the births of their selkie twins, but the conflict between those who would protect the planet and those who would exploit it continues to be at the heart of the plot. The writing and characterization as well as the infusions of Celtic and Inuit lore remain of high quality. There are also resolutions here that wrap up the series, but readers sad to see it end will note that Yanaba wonders at the conclusion what Petaybee had in mind for her children, thereby making an opening, perhaps, for more to come.

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