A nice and uncomplicated SF novel. Typical Anne McCaffrey with a captivating story about the only unicorn girl among humans who helps fight child labor on the planet Kezdet. ( )

"Something's Alive In There!"
She was just a little girl, with a tiny horn in the center of her forehead, funny-looking feet, beautiful silver hair, and several curious powers: the ability to purify air and water, make plants grow, and heal scars and broken bones. A trio of grizzled prospectors found her drifting in an escape pod amid the asteroids, adopted her, and took her to the bandit planet Kezdet, a place where no questions are asked and the girl might grow up free.

But Kezdet has its own dark secret. The prosperity of the planet is based on a hideous trade in child slave labor, administered by "The Piper" -- a mystery man with special plans for Acorna and her powers. But free little girls have a way of growing into freedom-loving young women, and Acorna has special plans all her own. . . ( )

Three miners find a pod carrying an alien baby and decide to raise her. The girl has a horn growing out of her forehead that has special abilities to heal and purify. As the girl grows at a rate much faster than human children, the miners realize that others would like to take the girl, who they named Acorna, off their hands and exploit her powers. The three miners do everything they can to protect Acorna and give her a meaningful life, but even they can't shield her from all the injustice in the galaxy. This was a fun book with some interesting and enjoyable characters. I liked reading it, but I suspect it will not be one that I remember later. ( )

this was much more YA than I remembered from when I read it in '97. ( )

Recently I watched a review for “The Last Unicorn”, it was based on a book, however when I went looking for the book I couldn’t find it. I found this book however. Having read all of the “Dragonriders of Pern” series by Anne McCaffrey I decided to give this series a try.

This was an enjoyable book. It seemed to lack somewhat in characterization and plot. My memories of Dragonriders are a little fuzzy as it was several years ago I read them, but it seems they were much better written. These books boil down to good vs evil. The good being Acorna and her friends, the evil practically everyone else. I say practically everyone because not everyone is evil, but it seems that everyone who is not a friend of Acorna, if they are not evil, they end up becoming her friends.

The story starts with 3 space miners finding a floating escape pod and inside it is a little girl, human-like, but not human. Before they can back to their planet they take care of her, they become her ‘uncles’ and as such decide to keep her and raise her as their own. They discover she has some special abilities. Upon returning to their planet they find things have changed, this leads to the first encounter with ‘evil’ and they end up on the run and on a planet Kezdet, which uses child slave labor.

What follows is Acorna trying to free the children and acting impulsively, which disrupts the carefully laid plans already in place to save the children.

This could almost be considered a young adult book, but there is some violence and adult situations in it. ( )