Freedom's Choice [Hardcover]

They had called the planet Botany, after the old penal colony on earth. For that is what they were - prisoners and dissidents from other worlds whom the hated Catteni had banished to an empty planet - or what they thought was an empty planet.

Kris Bjornsen and her fellow slaves had survived very well - and one reason was that amongst their number was Zainal, a high ranking Catteni who was as trapped on Botany as they were. Zainal knew the Catteni ways and the Catteni technology, and he had plans for fighting back. For, as he explained, the Catteni too were victims - subject to the mighty and terrifying Eosi race who used the Catteni as a galactic police force - and also used them in more grisly and horrifying ways.

And over Zainal's daring and secret plans, over the surveying expeditions and the exploration of the strange hidden valleys, hung a further mystery - to whom did Botany really belong? Who had created the giant grain sheds - the mammoth machinery that tilled the great fields? The new inhabitants of Botany called them the 'Farmers' - and waited for the day they would come to harvest their crops.

And when that happened, the refugees were awed into silence - for the Farmers were greater than anything the universe had ever seen.

They had called the planet Botany, after the old penal colony on Earth. For that is what they were - prisoners and dissidents from other worlds whom the hated Catteni had banished to an empty planet - or what they thought was an empty planet.

Kris Bjornsen and her fellow slaves had survived very well - and one reason was that amongst their number was Zainal, a high-ranking Catteni who was as trapped on Botany as they were. Zainal knew the ways and technology of his people, and he had plans for fighting back. For, as he explained, the Catteni too were victims - subject to the mighty and terrifying Eosi race, who used them as a galactic police force - and also used them in more grisly and horrifying ways.

And over Zainal's daring and secret plans hung a further mystery - to whom did Botany really belong? Who had created the giant grain sheds - the mammoth machinery that tilled the great fields? The new inhabitants of Botany called them the 'Farmers' - and waited for the day they would come to harvest their crops.

And when that happened, the refugees were awed into silence - for the Farmers were greater than anything the universe had ever seen.

Anne McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. A prolific bestselling author, she is best known for her handling of broad themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly in her tales of the Talents and the novels about the Dragonriders of Pern. Anne McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland.

Visit the author's website at www.annemccaffrey.net