The Catteni Sequence - Anne McCaffrey

                      Reviewed by Sue

                     Freedom's Landing
                      Freedom's Choice
                    Freedom's Challenge
Hardback - Bantam Press œ15.99
Paperback - Corgi Books œ5.99

The Catteni arrived on Earth much as the space ships did in
Independence Day, except that the Catteni subjugated the human
race by taking away the populations of complete cities, turning
the inhabitants into slaves. This then was the fate of many, but
rebellion continued and the Catteni developed new ways of dealing
with these unruly troublemakers.

One was to check out the potential of new planets for
colonisation.  The Catteni did this by dropping hundreds of slaves
- human and alien - onto the planet surface with only the bare
essentials necessary for immediate survival (knives, blankets,
survival rations etc). If the people survived, the Catteni
reasoned, then the planet could be colonised by the Catteni, for
their own use, the slaves being expendible.

One of these planets was named Botany by the people dropped on it.
These included Kris Bjornsen, who had been captured on Earth and a
high ranking Catteni called Zainal who had also been 'dropped'
after a dispute. It's clear from their first meeting that these
two are going to end up as more than just friends! The planet
seems ideal too for the group's survival, until it is discovered
that someone - or something - else has already colonised it and is
farming it, for meat ... of any type! ... as well as vegetable
matter.

The first book deals mostly with the exploration of the planet and
the interaction between the different people and aliens on it. How
many old prejudices against other races will remain? As the
planet's secondary purpose of food production is discovered, and
also the group learn that the Catteni are not in fact their own
masters, the group's plans start to change. Is escape possible?
And can the 'Farmers' help both slaves and Catteni revolt against
the true enemy, the Eosi, who use the bodies of selected Catteni
for their own purposes?

The second book helps the tale progress as the group find out more
about the true natures of both the Eosi and Farmers and the third
develops the storyline to its conclusion. The ending was good but
quite abrupt and, to me, left several questions unanswered -
scope for a fourth book, certainly.

The series originated from a short story in the anthology Get Off
the Unicorn (Corgi paperbacks) which was first published in the
late 70s.  It cast a quite different slant on the relationship
between the two main characters when they first met (Zainal wasn't
such a 'nice guy') but laid the groundwork for the final series.
All in all, an excellent set of books, the first and third being
better paced than the second which dragged occasionally. But all
three are highly recommended none the less.
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