From Publishers Weekly
Half human, half Hydran, Vinge's young protagonist, Cat, has always been an outcast in the world of the mid-21st century. In this richly detailed and suspenseful sequel to Catspaw (1989), Cat travels to the planet Refuge, home to the only surviving enclave of Hydrans, a once-powerful race of psions, or telepaths, whose nonviolent culture left them at the mercy of aggressive human expansion. As part of a research team sent to study the cloud-whales, aerial creatures whose lifecycle may hold the key to advances in nanotechnology, Cat also hopes to learn more about his alien heritage. When he inadvertently helps a young Hydran woman kidnap a human child, however, he is swept into a deadly conflict between the two races. Vinge deftly twists together multilayered plot strands as misguided loyalties and fanaticism, both human and Hydran, propel events toward inevitable disaster. Although the story loses momentum near the end, it deftly explores themes of family and loyalty. And, as always, Cat proves a sensitive and engagingly stubborn narrator. Author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Another yarn featuring the half-human, half-Hydran, sometimes telepathic, always abused Cat (Catspaw, 1988, etc.). This time, on planet Refuge, Cat's employed by Tau Biotech to help plumb the secrets of the cloud-reefs, huge landforms composed of the solidified thoughts of the vast, enigmatic, floating, telepathic cloud-whales. But here, as everywhere, the psi-powered Hydrans are feared, hated, repressed, marginalized, and exploited. So when a human child is kidnapped by Hydran terrorists and held for ransom, Cat--he inadvertently helped the kidnapper--is immediately blamed by Tau's brutal police. Even when his innocence has been established, he's forced to act as a go-between--and the Hydrans mistrust Cat because his telepathy is blocked. Then Cat meets the kidnapper, the lovely Miya, and the two realize at once that they're destined soulmates. Unfortunately, Miya's sister Naoh, the chief terrorist, feels divinely inspired and intends to raise a planetary revolt. She's crazy, of course, and her plan would bring ruin to the Hydrans. Can Cat prevent a planetary disaster and hang on to Miya? The cloud-reef backdrop is spectacular but makes no sense. And despite Cat's streetwise upbringing, constantly alluded to, he hasn't learned anything useful, so his chronic suffering soon becomes tiresome. An overlong and mediocre addition to the series. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Cat, the halfbreed telepath hero of Catspaw and Psion, joins a research team on Refuge, homeworld of his mother's people, the Hydrans. Immediately, he finds trouble when he helps a Hydran woman escape human pursuers.

The decimated Hydran population of Refuge is confined to a bleak "homeland," by a huge corporate state, Tau Biotech. Tau also controls Refuge's one unique natural resource, "Dreamfall." The tangible residue of cast-off thoughts from beautiful, enigmatic "cloud whales," dreamfall forms vast reefs, sacred to the Hydrans, but mere exploitable data to Tau.

Caught between Tau and desperate Hydrans who fight to reclaim their world, Cat must somehow forge the ruins of the past into a means to defeat Tau's brutality to save his people--and himself.



About the Author
Joan D. Vinge wrote the Hugo Award bestseller The Snow Queen, sequels including the Hugo finalist The Summer Queen and the Nebula finalist World's End, and the Cat series. She's written a dozen movie adaptations, including the #1 bestseller The Return of The Jedi Storybook. She lives in Madison,Wisconsin.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From his earliest memories in the desperate slums of Oldcity, Cat has hated the pretensions of the rich, the machinations of the powerful interstellar combines; for at every turn Cat has been used. He's been a thief, a hustler, a spy, a slave. Used as a pawn. As bait. But at this moment, Cat is a scholar, a university team xenologist doing field research on the planet Refuge, home of the enigmatic cloud-whales. Vast aerial creatures created by an unknown species, the telepathic whales are far more than uniquely beautiful. Their thoughts and dreams manifest, falling from the sky to form vast reefs of solid data comprised of pure, retrievable thought... data mined by the planet's all-powerful corporate owner, Tau Biotech. Refuge is also the home of the psionic Hydrans, Cat's lost alien half. Refuge had been theirs, like much of the galaxy, long before the ascendance of the human federation. Now they live like refugees amid the ruins of their past. For the first time in his troubled life, Citizen Cat has the chance to study, reflect, seek his roots. Until he hears a woman's scream... Suddenly, Cat plunges through the false serenity of Refuge society into a nightmare of brutality, bigotry, conspiracy, and corruption, where kidnapping and terrorism are stepping-stones to revolution - or genocide. Beneath the velvet glove of Tau Biotech's corporate state is the iron fist of a government willing to kill to protect its profits. For Tau can only profit by plundering dreams. The broken dreams of Hydrans, whales, and humans... the stolen dreams of the world.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly