CATSEYE

Rating:
Summary: Short but good
Review: Catseye is set in a plausible post stardrive civilization, with a good portrayal of society's darker side. A young man is forced into the role of hero through his psyonic ability to "talk" to gengineared animal. Around this main theme is woven darker plots: exploitation of the poor, war crimes, debauchery, and government's abusing rights. It is short, sweet, and worth writing about!

Rating:
Summary: Short but good
Review: Catseye is set in a plausible post stardrive civilization, with a good portrayal of society's darker side. A young man is forced into the role of hero through his psyonic ability to "talk" to gengineared animal. Around this main theme is woven darker plots: exploitation of the poor, war crimes, debauchery, and government's abusing rights. It is short, sweet, and worth writing about!

Rating:
Summary: Young Adult SF Classic
Review: I won't go too much into the plot, as another reviewer here has done so quite excellently. However, I want to point out that Catseye was published for the Young Adult market and so can be read by both children, young adults and adults. I originally read this novel as a child and it still remains one of my favourite Andre Norton books.

Far, far into mankind's future, when humankind has spread out into the stars from the original planet of Terra and encountered other races...Young Troy Horan is a refugee/displaced person due to war, living the shadow life of an unwanted, non-citizen in the Dipple camp. His world and past life has gone forever and he has no future. The elite and powerbrokers of the galaxy, gathered on the pleasure planet of Korwar, prefer to ignore the unpleasant truth of the Dipple under their noses.

One day, Troy has the unbelievable luck to secure some temporary day work in a luxury pet shop. While there, he stumbles on a mystery that could cost him his life, and he goes on the run with the special sentient luxury pets he has discovered he can communicate with in the petshop.

Who can Troy trust? He and his Terran animal friends hold a dangerous secret, and various interested and powerful parties now set off in pursuit of Troy and his friends as they escape into the highly protected nature wilderness that comprises most of Korwar, and finally into the mysterious, forbidden and sealed ruins of a previous race which existed on Korwar. The ruins are officially sealed for a reason - can the escapees survive their pursuers and what lurks within?

Language and content are appropriate for children/young adults. In addition, the writing and plot is at an extremely high level, appealing to adult readers as well. Some themes are environmentalism, power, war, refugees and animal rights. One of my favourite SF books still, as an adult reader. Also one for cat lovers.

Rating:
Summary: A cats-eye view of Korwar
Review: The action of several of Norton's science fiction novels have begun on Korwar, whose people deliberately chose to make the planet a playground for the rich and powerful of the galaxy. Ironically, this is the best possible protection for Korwar from the interstellar corporations represented by those same people - while they often plunder worlds for natural resources, they won't foul their own nest.

Despite their protection, however, Korwar isn't untouched. During the great war between the Council and Confederation governments (its aftermath appears in several books, such as _Dark Piper_), the capital city of Tikil became the site of a refugee camp. After the war, those whose worlds were gone, whether destroyed or traded away at the peace table, had nowhere else to go, so the refugee camp became the Dipple, an unofficial 3rd face of Tikil making an ugly contrast to the expensive haunts of tourists or even the working city of the spaceport and warehouse district. The Dipple is a perennial problem, and _Catseye_ follows Troy Horan, brought to this sterile warren as a youngster from the plains of Norden. There are only three options open to a Dipple-dweller: attempting to join the Thieves' Guild (as Ziantha of _Forerunner Foray_ escaped), signing on as indentured labor for a frontier world (as Niall of _Judgement on Janus_ did), or scraping by without sub-citizenship by competing in the very tight casual labor market, as Horan does. Consequently, while the protagonists of _Forerunner Foray_ and _Judgement on Janus_ also came from the Dipple, Troy Horan's story is the first to concentrate on Tikil and Korwar - the other tales leave the planet early in the story.

On the morning the story opens, Troy has incredible luck - the assigner has a job for someone with "knowledge of animals", and Troy's reply that he has that of a Norden herd rider lands him indefinite employment at Kyger's pet shop, which provides exotic pets as status symbols for the rich. Troy's initial worries about the decade separating him from any contact with animals aren't a problem - his initial work assignment to help retrieve some new acquisitions from the port lengthens when an attempted hijack en route puts a full-time Kyger employee temporarily out of action.

But why would anyone try to hijack a shipment of exotic animals bound for a life as pets - even as pets of the Gentle Fem San duk Var, rich and influential though she is? Delivering a fussel hawk and accompanying its first hunting expedition with a Ranger of Korwar (and giving us our first glimpse not only of Korwar's huge unspoiled nature preserves, but of the mysterious Forerunner ruins of Ruhkarv) leaves him with an impression that Korwar's guardians are taking an unusual interest in what is, after all, only a pet shop. After all, it's not *illegal* to convince credulous rich people that their little darlings can't survive without special diets, available from Kyger's. :)

Then the routine of delivering special pet food to a Sattor Commander's beloved kinkajou is disrupted by murder - and Troy covers the kinkajou's odd behavior with a plausible story for the police. He finds himself wondering just how intelligent these animals are - and whether he should ally himself with Kyger, who may provide a permanent escape from the Dipple, or with a certain cats-eye view of the world.

(Ruhkarv, and the disastrous fate of the last archeological team ever allowed in the place, are mentioned in some of Norton's other works - _Dread Companion_ mentions it in passing, while a Zacathan scholar in _Brother to Shadows_ attempts an experiment with a revised version of the device that brought final disaster to the Ruhkarv team - but _Catseye_ provides more information about Ruhkarv than any other story to date.)

Rating:
Summary: A man sees through the eyes of another species.
Review: The story of a man who discovers he can contact the minds of some very special animals who are no longer just pets. They escape into a wilderness only to find themselves in trouble in the ruins of an alien city.

Rating:
Summary: A great SciFi adventure for all ages.
Review: This book is a great adventure for any one who likes tales similar to Indiana Jones, but with the addition of different planets and beliefs.