Bookreview: Acorna - the unicorn girl

High quality science fiction

Written by Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball
Written in English
ISBN 978-0061057892

Don't be fooled by the cover of this book. The title and the cover easily creates associations to cheap pulp fiction of the type filled with sappy romance, unicorns and fantasy worlds. Like the posters everybody had on their walls in the eighties. But it just ain't so. This is science fiction at it's best.

The series about Acorna is some of McCaffreys best writing, and she has written a lot. This book is one of her later works and she has started a wonderful cooperation with Margret Ball, creating a near to perfect book. The book is quite similar to early science fiction written by McCaffrey. The big difference is that this is pure science fiction as supposed to her earlier work that was more of a science fiction - fantasy crossover.

The excitement lasts from start to finish and one soon learns to love the characters. It's very easy to identify oneself with the main characters, most of them quite sympathetic and one can almost imagine that one knows the people personally - one cares about them.

The story is rather original (if one can call any new science fiction original). This isn't a used up story like so much modern science fiction presents. The descriptions in the book are fantastic and one almost wishes one could be present oneself.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who likes a good science fiction.