The Books
THE PETAYBEE SERIES
Powers That Be ​
ISBN-13: 9780345387790 Random House
Strange things were happening on the icy planet called Petaybee. Unauthorized genetically engineered species had been spotted, while some people were simply disappearing. None of the locals were talking to the company, so the company sent disabled combat veteran Yanaba Maddock to spy. But a strange thing happened. With her relocation to the arctic planet came a return of Yana's health and strength. And the more she got to know the people of Petaybee, the more determined she became to protect her new home....
A dazzling collaboration by two award-winning SF talents. Sent to the icy planet of Petaybee, Major Yanaba Maddock has a mission to spy for the Company--a corporation eager to exploit the planet's resources. But something strange and wonderful is happening on Petaybee--something Yanaba is willing to battle her superiors--at all costs--to protect.
REVIEWS
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
A frontier society outwits a big, uncaring parent company in this appealing joint venture by McCaffrey ( Damia's Children ) and Scarborough ( The Healer's War ), the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning representatives of two generations of science fiction writers. Major Yanaba Maddock, medically retired with severely damaged lungs after military action aboard a space station, is pressured into acting as a spy by her employer, the sinister Intergal corporation. Colonel Giancarlo, local head of psychological operations, seeks evidence that colonists on the bitterly cold and inhospitable planet Petaybee are abducting company geological survey teams, engaging in illegal genetic engineering and plotting rebellion. Yana finds the locals charming, helpful and uncannily effective as healers; their home remedies salvage her ruined lungs. As the company and its forces move in to quell what they perceive as rebellion, Yana casts her lot with the Petaybeans and geneticist Sean Shongili, the man she has come to love. Perceptive characterizations and a vivid depiction of a nurturing culture integrated with nature make up for the somewhat hackneyed plot. (July)
Library Journal
Forced by her ruined lungs to resign from active service with the Company, Major Yanaba Maddock ``retires'' to the ice-bound planet of Petaybee with an order to mingle with the colonists and discover the source of certain anomalies on the planet. What she finds is both a new way of life and a challenge to all the loyalties she has ever known. Award-winning author McCaffrey (the ``Dragonriders of Pern'' series) and Scarborough ( The Healer's War , Bantam, 1989) combine their talents to produce an exciting tale of survival and moral courage featuring an engaging female protagonist. This fast-paced adventure belongs in most collections.
School Library Journal
YA-A well-written, entertaining novel. Ex-soldier Major Yanaba Maddock has retired to the ``company'' planet of Petaybee due to major lung damage from poison gas. Strange things are going on there. Survey teams are disappearing, and the locals are acting suspiciously. As it turns out, the planet is alive and the natives have formed a beneficial symbiotic relationship with it, and it is threatened by the exploitive company that is mining precious gems. While not a completely original idea, the story will be enjoyed by McCaffrey and Scarborough fans alike.-John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Sally Estes
Two popular sf/fantasy writers have joined forces to create a singular world, the icy planet Petaybee, which has been terraformed and stocked not only with genetically engineered flora and fauna that can withstand temperatures that range as low as minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit, but also with cold-weather natives displaced from their homelands by the company. For 200 years the planet has been used as a replacement depot for the company's troops. Now Major Yanaba Maddock, whose lungs have been severely damaged by poison gas, has been retired to Petaybee, where she is assigned to spy on the civilian populace, which the company suspects has caused the disappearance or death of company geologists searching for mineral deposits. What Yana finds, however, is a friendly, welcoming group of people whose lives are so attuned to the planet that they seem a part of it. As she acclimates and heals and learns more about her new home, Yana determines to protect her new friends from the company's machinations. Infused with an overriding sense of Inuit and Celtic lore, the story is an engrossing one in which characterizations are well defined and suspense is sustained till the planet's secret is revealed.

Available in mass-market paperback, e-book, and audio book format
Power Lines​
ISBN-13: 9780345387806 Random House
"A felicitous combination of authors."
--Kirkus Reviews Yanaba Maddock's short-lived career as a company spy had ended the moment the planet Petaybee and its people had adopted her as one of their own. Now she was dedicated to keeping Intergal from exploiting and wounding--or even killing--the world she had come to love. For Intergal persisted in denying that Petaybee was sentient, and nothing would stop it from stripping the ore-rich planet--sentient or not.
Only solid evidence would convince the company to leave the planet alone, and for all its sentience, Petaybee's communications were highly subjective; indeed, some outsiders seemed entirely immune to its voice. So Yana and her friends would have to find some other way to prove that the planet was worth more to the company alive than dead...
"POWER LINES is a strong, highly entertaining sequel...Nicely paced, with a tricky twist or two to keep it from getting too predictable, and some delightful characters."
--Locus FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK
Refusing to believe the fantastic reality that Petaybee is alive, the officials of Intergal plan to ravage the planet's resources. Yanaba Maddock and her new Petaybean comrades must find a way to prove the truth and save their world. This is the sequel to Powers That Be.
More Reviews
Library Journal
Former Intergal officer Yanaba Maddock allies herself with the residents of her adopted planet Petaybee against her one-time employers to prevent the mineral rape of a sentient world. Shortsighted opportunists clash head on with stubborn defenders of a world and a way of life in this sequel to Powers That Be (LJ 5/15/93). McCaffrey and Scarborough collaborate seamlessly to tell a first-rate sf adventure with strong male and female protagonists and a life-affirming theme. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/94.]
Sally Estes
In the riveting sequel to "The Powers That Be" , the sentient planet Petaybee becomes an active force in its inhabitants' battle to prevent the ruling Intergal Company's rape of the planet in search of minerals. When a Petaybean delegation tries to inform Intergal's board of directors of the planet's sentience, the group is accused of being under "some sort of massively induced hypnotic illusion," and an official inquiry is set in motion. One of the two investigators, an unsavory and manipulative board member, sets out at once to turn events to his advantage; the other gets to know and works with the people, eventually siding with them. Key players on the Petaybean side are intelligent, mind-speaking felines, who serve as the lines of communication between the isolated human settlements. The main thrust of the story involves the maneuverings of the opposing sides; however, there's a strong, lyrical thread, steeped in Inuit and Celtic lore, that fleshes out the characters, including Petaybee itself, and fills in details of how life has evolved since the planet was first terraformed and stocked with genetically engineered flora and fauna. This is a suspenseful page-turner, well laced with humor, which readers of the first book will welcome.

Available in mass-market paperback, e-book and audio book format
Power Play
ISBN-13: 9780345387813 Random House
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...
Like a child, the sentient planet Petaybee is growing--learning to respond and communicate. Yanaba Maddock has appointed herself defender of her adopted planet, protecting it against outsiders who seek to plunder its resources. Then Yanaba is kidnapped and the price of freedom is Petaybee itself. The rousing conclusion to Powers That Be and Power Lines.
Sally Estes
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.

Available in mass-market paperback, e-book and audio book format
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