Acorna's People

Acorna #3

by Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth A. Scarborough

Filled with adventure and wonder, Acorna's Peoplecontinues the enthralling saga of Acorna, the beautiful, brave, and kindhearted creature known as the Unicorn Girl.



"Welcome Home, Linyaari Child!"With the help of her "uncles" and the thousands of humans who love and admire her, Acorna has found her true people, the peaceful, telepathic Linyaari. But Acorna still has much to do before she can enjoy her new home. The legendary resting place of the lost Linyaari ancestors has yet to be found. And with the help of a rogue spacetrader and his feline sidekick, Acorna must strive to right an unspeakable wrong and defeat an enemy even crueler than the Khleevi. Along the way, she will at last uncover the Universe's most carefully guarded secret--the true nature of the ancient link between the Linyaari and the space-faring humans she has also come to think of as her "people."

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Space, Adult

403 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (Best Novella, Weyr Search, 1968) and the first to win a Nebula Award (Best Novella, Dragonrider, 1969). Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.
In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction. She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on 17 June 2006. She also received the Robert A. Heinlein Award for her work in 2007.

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the way back in 1996, my mom adopted a cat. That feline was essentially my first cat; we had one when I was a baby, but I don't even remember him, and the cat we got when I was in kindergarten ended up being my sister's pet, as she took it with her when she moved out. At first, I wasn't too keen on the idea of a new pet, but, I immediately warmed up to that feline we got in '96; we named her Roberta, after a character from the old-school Disney Channel telefilm Not Quite Human II, which was about robots. To this day, she is the only pet I've met or even heard of who was named after an android; I've met and/or heard of dogs named Jedi or Chewie, and even a cat named Yoda, but never any 'droids, whether from Star Wars or elsewhere.

Though Roberta has been gone for just over four years--yes, she lived for two decades! I know: That's a long time for a cat--ever since we got her, I've had a special place in my heart for felines. As long as they're not trying to claw me, I always enjoy seeing other people's cats, as well as the various felines on television and in movies, ranging from the infamous Garfield, to Morris ("What's for din-din?"), to Data's pet, Spot. Unless they're the villains, like they were in the Cats & Dogs films, it's fun to see cats in entertainment.

What does that have to do with this book? Simple: This third Acorna novel introduces starship captain Jonas Becker, and his feline companion, Roadkill, aka RK. The interactions between RK, the Linyaari, and the humans were fun; you can tell that the authors were cat people. The story and writing were as good as usual; Acorna continues to be a likable heroine, and it was fun to read about her meeting her fellow Linyaari.

However, as I mentioned in my previous review of this book, this was a bit edgier than I remembered. Some of the references were a bit shocking; I would be disturbed if one of my friends from church opened up to the page where one rather unmentionable object was crudely referenced. Still, overall, I enjoyed it; let's hope the writers skipped the obscene moments in the next book.

[Kay Iscah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can anyone convince me to continue with this series? I'm ready to give up on it.

I can understand when you bring a new author into a multi-novel franchise, it can be difficult to keep all the details of the world straight. But there were only two previous Acorna novels, only two, and really no excuse for all the factual inconsistencies.

It was weirder because it seemed like 10-20% of this book was recap, trying to summarize material from the previous book, often where it was least needed.

The truly frustrating thing about this novel is that it had all the elements poised to be the best Acorna book yet...culture clash, galactic conflict, psychotic villain, new alien races to explore, etc. But somehow the authors managed to find the least interesting PoV one could conceive of to tell what ought to be an interesting story.

The great climatic battle at the end was covered in a paragraph, while we get chapters dedicated to Uncle Hafiz lusting after his not overly bright new bride. Hafiz is fine in small doses, but he's really a rather squicky character. I think we're supposed to forgive the fact he kidnapped his first wife because she turned out to be nastier than he is, but her stupidity does not excuse his morally reprehensible behavior. The woman seemed to feel it necessary to fake her own death to escape him and return to the sex trade...

The child torture seemed sort of randomly tossed in to show us how evilly evil the villains were. I'm not sure I want to continue a series where awful things are done to imaginary children for what's supposed to be an entertaining fantasy. At least in the first book, some of the kids were allowed personalities, but here they were simply plot devices.

Acorna is certainly not hard science fiction, but the lack of any sense of time and distance pushed way past the bounds of probability. In the first book, the human race had never met an alien before... and now they're able to easily locate dozens of different aliens homeworlds, figure out how to communicate with them, and yet still be unable to find the one world they're actually looking for (though they easily scoop up everyone who has traveled from it)...

There was no logical flow of events. The villains would have had to start on their mission months before receiving the news that inspired them to go in the first place.

And poor Pal is never going to get any character development at all, is he?

Frankly, I get tired of people overusing and misusing the "Show Don't Tell" mantra in writing groups, but I was ready to scream it at the book during several points. Telling can be a great tool for summarizing the boring bits and confirming story points that are difficult to demonstrate. However, stuff that's easily demonstrated through action doesn't need to be told and retold and then discussed in dialogue.

This was quite bad enough to put me off the rest of the series, unless someone can convince me it's an unfortunately low point and the rest takes a brilliant turn.

[Searska GreyRaven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this series, but this was easily one of the weakest books in it. Still, it had strong points, and the introduction of Aari was the best part.

[Tien · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this third instalment of the series, Acorna the Unicorn girl finally visited her people, the Linyaari, to learn of her nation's history and culture. While she's struggling at being seen at an outsider, other things are at play in the world at large that threatened the peaceful way of the Linyaari.

The first 2 books were kinda interesting due to the novelty factor of an alien unicorn-like girl but this book was just meh. The greedy was still greedy. The psychotic was even more evil. The good always fight for justice. Evil vs. Good and Good prevails. A pretty average read even if I did like a couple of new characters introduced here.

[Gillian Murrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acorns finds what is left of her people in this book. Although her parents are dead her aunt is still alive and they eventually meet up. But life on the new home planet is not quiet what Arona was expecting. Some of the one in charge still see her as a child and do not allow her to be involved in missions she is quiet capable of doing. It has also been discovered that the horn does not need to be attached to its owner to be able to perform, all though not as well its good enough for some unscrupulous people to want to exploit.

[Charles Harrison · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was terrible on many levels. I will now discuss those levels.
1. The science fiction. I am forgiving when it comes to sci fi, I acknowledge that sometimes liberties are taken, it is what makes the genre so fun however some thought needs to go into it and for crying out loud be consistent! All of a sudden they are talking about populated galaxies, the sheer shift in scales makes me think that the author does not understand how large a galaxy is essentially if you found and replaced galaxies with systems the book would make an awful lot more sense. The technology takes huge unexplained leaps, suddenly ships can be cloaked undetected (apart from when its convenient) ships which could not land can do so now. A mysterious jammer is developed which only works on the aliens the inventor of the jammer has never met. Humanity goes from never having contacted an alien race to finding/ intimidating/ imprisoning several in a matter of weeks. I accept in a book about a unicorn girl there to be a little hand wavy magic around the horn however the clumsy attempts to apply science and them mysterious but inconsistently working when unattached just doesn't make sense. Suddenly there are androids for no good reason. The interplanetary government (or should it be intergalactic) seem to be non existent. Just because they had it in star trek does not mean it has to be in the book.
2. The internal inconsistencies. A character who left with a certain group appears elsewhere. If it is a huge galaxy why do the same people keep running into each other. Unicorns sure are mean for a bunch of empaths.
3. The needless inclusion of every character mentioned before in the franchise. The new ones were actually ok but were drowned out by the endless meetings between all these other people who seem to be the only people who live in this end of the galaxy.
4. The repetition of plot devices from earlier books. Seriously hiding in service ducts again?
5. Not enough detail in the bits which actually made the previous books good. There was some serious deus ex machina involved with several times entire armies suddenly deciding to leave for no good reason leaving the way clear for the minor protagonists. What made Acorna really stand out for me was how loathsome the baddies were, this was done but thrown in almost as an afterthought around two thirds of the way in. All of the separate (seriously they barely even crossed let alone tangled) plot lines were resolved in rapid succession towards the end. No cliffhangers no loose end nothing.
6. An all powerful merciless race of killers which was sweeping across the galaxy crushing all before it has seemingly completely disappeared and barely gets a mention.
7. The ancestors suddenly appear to clumsily tie the aliens with the human unicorn myth. The first and only folk tale Acorna gets told happens to be the exact one which is about how bad humans are and that unicorns are originally from earth.
In conclusion don't read this book even if you enjoyed the first two, actually especially if you enjoyed the first two.

[Indigo Crow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before I get into the review, I want to say this, since I saw some 1-star reviews given because of adult content. THIS IS NOT A CHILDREN'S BOOK! This isn't even really "young adult" because such a thing was not really a *thing* at the time these books were written. If you are offended by adult content, including swearing, drugs and drug trafficking, sex slavery, child slavery, blood and violence, and other similar themes, put this book down and go back over to the kids section and get yourself a baby book, because giving the book a 1-star because of THAT is disrespectful.

Now why did *I* give it a 1-star? Because it sucks.

I started casually reading the Acorna series over a decade ago. I love unicorns, and the concept of a "unicorn girl" was appealing, though admittedly childish. In fact, the writing itself is somewhat childish in nature, and so I could see how it might throw some people off into thinking it was meant for kids when it wasn't. At any rate, I enjoyed the first books in the series and happened across this one, so I decided to continue.

If I didn't also have some of the next books in this series, this book would have put me off of the series entirely and I wouldn't bother to go on. It's BAD.

The plot seems to be all over the place and is not in any way solid. There are too many character points-of-view that are honestly unnecessary. While touching on those characters for a short period would have helped keep things together when the ending started to get wrapped up, focusing so heavily on them was just not needed and made the book slow down to a crawl in some places. I was so utterly BORED that it took me literally months to force myself to muddle on through it. I was determined to get it finished, and so I did, but gods was it ever a headache.

There are several characters whose point-of-view could have been MORE focused on so some character building could have taken place, but nope. They get some time, but not enough. I think that some of the time spent on Uncle Hafiz could have been used for Becker instead, for example. He's an important character, but I just didn't feel like he got enough "screen time".

The whole book feels like a re-cap of the other books, again being unnecessary. I understand that it's advisable to have a little of the previous events re-capped, but this was so extreme that it destroyed the readability of this book. WHY did they feel they needed an entire book of what amounts to little more than filler?

There's practically no climax to this, either. I'm not going to give away anything about the ending other than it's so short that if you blink you'll miss it.

I have no idea what the publishers were thinking with this one. I don't even really know if Anne had much of a role as author or if it was the other one that did most of the writing here. Whatever the reasoning was for publishing this mess, it was a bad one, and they shouldn't have done it.

[Adrian Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third book in the series about the unicorn girl, Acorna. Found by a trio of miners as a young child, Acorna has grown up believing that she may be the only one of her race alive. At the end of the last book, she discovered that, not only did her people still exist, but they were intelligent space travelers called the Linyaari, who have come to warn the humans about the advance of a hostile race of insectoid invaders they name the Khleevi. Now, in this book, Acorna has accompanied the crew of the visiting ship back to her race's adopted home world, their original planet having been wiped out by the Khleevi. On her arrival, Acorna, who has grown into a brave and resourceful young woman, finds herself suddenly thrust back into the role of a child who knows little to nothing about how to act in polite society, and becoming the unwitting victim of jealousy between two rival families. In the meantime, a spacefaring junk dealer has landed on the original Linyaari home world and found some horns of those of Acorna's people who were slaughtered during the Khleevi attack. When their healing and purifying powers come to the attention of some old enemies, it makes the entire Linyaari race the target for those who would enslave them for their horns' qualities.
Again McCaffrey and Scarborough have created a story that will keep you turning pages long past your bedtime. This novel includes a familiar supporting cast, introduces some new characters, and provides a look at a world of beings who, though being innate telepaths and pacifists, possess all the faults and shortcomings of any human civilization. The heroine is resplendent in her patient but determined efforts to learn about a new culture, while at the same time maintaining her own identity, a situation that any teenager can relate to. There are some pretty intense scenes having to do with the mistreatment of the Linyaari at the hands of their captors, so this may not be for very young readers. But, for everyone else who enjoys a good, space-hopping, rollicking adventure with a heroine that can hold her own with the best of them, this is definitely worth the read.

[Carolyn Tragasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have become quite fond of Acorna the unicorn girl and intend to finish the series.

I appreciate the author’s frankness in dealing with evil so far; first book dealt with child sex trafficking, and this one dealt with torture.

Part of why I enjoy sci fi is for the ethical what ifs it can create, and this series has delivered enough of those to keep me engaged, while still being lighthearted in the overall feel of the story, and at times quite silly (holographic camels taking out bad guys for the win!)

While some characters are just evil for evil’s sake (Ganoush) most of them have some depth. Hafiz has gone from a bad guy to an ally and I appreciate that character development. Even Kisla and Iksewan had a chance at redemption, and so did the soldiers who were serving under the bad guys.

I Loved that finding her home world didn’t give Acorna the happy ending and belonging one might expect. The not tying a neat bow on that plot point and allowing it to be messy added lots of depth to the story. Some stories should end after book 1 but this was not one of them, in this case the sequels actually add to the original story.


Ari was my favorite character in this one; the portrayal of someone who has gone thru extreme suffering trying to reintegrate with both themselves and society was executed with sensitivity and depth. So often heroes who have been thru hell don’t get that kind of space for healing portrayed in a believable way as part of the story. They just jump straight onto next adventure as if nothing has happened.

My main criticism is that at this point plot is starting to get complicated; there are ships of people she meets on every new adventure and keeping them all straight is a lot.And there is less time you are able to spend developing each individual character; I like my casts smaller and more intimate.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. This one was better. My faith in humanity has been restored. :-)

WARNING: As with the other books in this series, children will be in danger and hurt badly. Unicorns will be tortured. If this is going to bother you, skip this book.

I won't go over the whole story. The publisher's description overdoes it a little, but captures the essence of it. Acorna tries to fit in with her people and she finds it difficult because she has not yet learned to control her telepathy. She is often accused of "shouting", and sharing every little odd thought that crosses her mind. It gets embarrassing after a while. The bad guys have learned that a unicorn horn can be used for healing and thus be used in battle to repair battle wounds. So unicorns become a commodity to be captured and used.

Any problems with this story? Well... aliens are aliens, so it is hard to complain about them. I could not relate to them and apparently neither could Acorna so it's unanimous. I thought the insanity of one of the characters was unbelievable. In book 1 she seemed like a spoiled but intelligent young woman. In this book she seemed stupid and unhinged. Maybe I'm being too critical.

Any modesty issues? It is the same issue with all of the books in the series so far. It is just shoved more in the background.

In the end it was Acorna to the rescue. Her people had been treating her like a child, which she was, relative to them, but she seemed more mature in terms of dealing with reality. The ending was a little too deus ex machina, but it all worked out.

[Darlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

About a decade ago I was lucky to get first editions of a lot of Anne McCaffrey books. I think I've read all the dragon books. Now I am trying to get through the Acorna series.

As much as I love McCaffrey's writing and imagination, I find I am not as excited about this series. I feel let down as the title seems to be that the story should center around the Unicorn Girl. But it seems to be about the bad guys and some of her people. I felt nothing of her or for her. I did like the salvage guy and his cat but that's all.

Okay, maybe it was because it took me so long to read. My eyes have a hard time with printed material. I can do a little at a time. A page or two. And so it has taken me more than a year and a half to get through it. Still, because I own it and I love the author I kept at it until I actually finished.

I see that other fans loved this series so I blame my eyes. And I have ordered the next in the series so I can collect the whole series.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the latest adventures of the Unicorn Girl, Acorna is finally home amongst her own people, but is finding life hard. Brought up amongst humans, she continually makes social faux-pas with the conservative, planet bound Linyaari. When her friends and family, along with all the other space-going people, are pulled away to investigate the loss of communications, Acorna feels lost and alone. But its her past that is the key to understanding where all the other Linyaari have disappeared too, as the daughter of her enemy seeks revenge and dastardly humans seek to exploit the power of their magical horns.

I did enjoy this - it was a good, fast-paced story with some really nasty villans and plenty of good guys to root for. I kind of liked the fact that Acorna didn't find it all that easy to assimilate into her new role, and it was a nice twist adding the Linyaari history so interwoven with our own myths and legends.

[Dexter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly I'd give it more of a 2.5, but I'll round up to 3.

Almost nothing happens. It acts like it's building up for something painfully slowly, but then it's all explained and resolved in like, twenty pages or less, and then suddenly it's over. The Linyaari are painfully dull, at least through Acorna's eyes. We learn basically nothing about them because Acorna doesn't get to do much with any of them - the most interesting part was when she got dyed zebra stripes and then they wore off on the next page.

Becker, RK, and Aari are easily the best part, but they only get a fraction of the book. I'd be happy following them around space as they salvage and get into trouble.

I'm really hoping the lackluster of this book isn't a reflection of Ann Scarborough, because she co-wrote the rest of the series too, and I don't want to be struggling through four more books.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great continuation of Acorna's journey to find her people and, in this story, she at last arrives in the new Linyaari home, where she finds family she hadn't known existed.

Even though she finds love and acceptance with her Aunt, and Grandmother, she also finds that those of her people who have never travelled in space, or those whose only journey had been to flee the Khlevii, were so set in their ways that any change brought distrust.

When her Aunt has to leave almost immediately after her arrival, to look for some of their ships who suddenly go silent, Acorna finds it very hard to make friends, but it will take another journey, and meeting someone very special, to make begin a journey that will change not only her own life, but the lives of every Linyaari alive.

[Kate Millin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acorna goes back with her aunt to visit the new home world of her people the Linyaari. Having been brought up in a human world she finds it strange and difficult to fit in. This isn’t helped by her aunt and other space going Linyaari being sent off world again for an emergency before they have helped her settle in. Thank goodness for the sense and support of Grandam. This story has its enemies in it - greedy people who want to see what they can use the Linyaari and their magical horns for with no thought for the effect they have. I like the new space junk man Becker and his cat Roadkill who add a level of humour to the book.

[Shyla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acorna’s People

Now finally with her people again Acorna is waiting to see what happens with the fleet sent out to find out what happened to the other part of the fleet that is not responding to hails from home. Why is no one hearing from any of the fleet roaming around their home territory?
What happens when another person accidentally finds some unicorn horns but doesn’t realize it and unfortunately the wrong people become too interested in the horns? Can no one stop them? Aari who was left behind on the old planet took it in hand to hind the bones but was it enough? Did he do enough?

[MasterSal · Rating 3 out of 5]

A silly series in some respect that makes me smile.

The pacing in the book continues to be slightly off - we spend a lot of detailed time with our characters doing pretty mundane things. There is a last minute burst of action and the book ends. The authors don’t seem interested in the battle or war or grander events. Which is fine for me.

This book is a small scale character journey with some burst of grander drama. Pleasant reading for the most part. This book though has an uneven focus on Ubcle Hafiz which became a little grating.

Ah well - I think we will move on in the next book with Acorna’s new crew and characters. Looking forward to that.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say, if I start something I finish it. Of the Anne McCaffery books I have read so far the Unicorn series is my least favorite.

In this book Acorna has made it back to her home world . . . but of course things are not going smoothly. Her aunt, the only member of her family still living, is sent on a secret mission. Acorna is left to cope with a culture that she doesn't completely understand and which doesn't understand her.

Meanwhile, out in space the Linyaari are being kidnapped and tortured in the name of science.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acorna is a great character, and this novel made for good reading...even if it was a little edgier than I would have liked.

Content Concerns: A character is violently attacked; occasional suggestive details, including some involving an interstellar polygamist; profanity ranging from d-words and h-words to even s-words throughout.

[Kimberly Karalius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't believe that the authors actually mixed up Acorna's uncles. Since when does Calum have red hair and bushy eyebrows (that's Gil) and why is Mercy dating Rafik (when she was in a serious relationship with Calum?)

Despite that, I hate to rate this book high because Aari appears in this book for the first time, and he's the best.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally we get to a book with dynamic characters and enemies! The pace picks up as well. I imagine if you've suck it out this far you don't need me to really give you much more info, but i was so glad for the inclusion of more non-perfect characters and obstacles that were harder to overcome. This book feels better written in general than the previous ones.

[Artemis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason this doesn't get 5* is because of the "outdated language" that is used at times.
There are also a couple times where peoples statements don't quite make sense in the role the person is in and that was jarring......

That being said - I did cry at the end.
It was a great story, started out slow but was entirely worth it by the end.

[Val]

Well this was terrible.
Is it too much to ask for a book titled ACORNA THE UNICORN GIRL to actually focus on the unicorn girl and not the really problematic stereotypical Arab guy?
The cat and his junk trader had a Han Solo and Chewbacca vibe going there for a few chapters, and the potential love interest sounded interesting, but neither were enough for me to finish the book.

[Echo · Rating 3 out of 5]

ehhhh, it was slower than I remembered. We jumped which character we were following often enough for me to feel confused and have a hard time remembering what was going on with each one. I think I'm done with this series, though I do want to know more about Acorna's people.

[Savannah Zambrano · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading this series I was in high school and never got to finish it. As an adult I picked it up again and felt transported back to that time. I really enjoyed the series and think people of all ages would enjoy it.

[Wyktor Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another installment in the adventures of Acorna the unicorn girl. These stories clearly shown the best and worst sides of humanity, and how being different can lead to prejudice, hatred, abuse, and serious exploitation. A seriously good read.

[Joanne Spence · Rating 5 out of 5]

It might be prejudicial of me because Anne McCaffrey is one of my all time favourite authors, but I loved this segment of the Acorna series 🤗. Looking forward to getting time to read the next instalment.

[Devonte Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

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He change good k not no more but not novel tubing job Jose job has ba got a complete yg

[Jacki Rawlinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the Acorna Series, transports you to another world

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one has some very dark sections with torture. While things end well, it should probably come with a trigger warning