Decision at Doona

by Anne McCaffrey

Book Overview

A fateful encounter between star-roving races by the author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern series After the first human contact with the Siwannese, that entire race committed mass suicide. So the Terran government made a law--no further contact would be allowed with sentient creatures anywhere in the galaxy. Therefore Doona could be colonized only if an official survey established that the planet was both habitable and uninhabited. But Spaceship...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345353773
• ISBN13: 9780345353771
• Release Date: October 1987
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful plot about co-existing races.

I was so tired of sci-fi books dealing with Humans going out to murder another race. This book gave a welcome change, two completely different species working together to create a new world for themselves. I've never read the sequels, but having just read this book alone was wonderful.

So what if it's 30 years old?

I enjoyed this book a lot. The writing style was not flowery or poetic, just easy to follow and understand. Ken, Hrrestan, and the other main characters are interesting and fun to read about, and we sympathize for the human colonists as they try to understand a new alien race, and face the possibility of having to leave this paradise of a colony world to return to an overpopulated and excessively structured Earth. Don't miss it.

The first science fiction book I ever bought.

I bought this book originally in its second or third printing. It was the first science fiction book I ever bought, and I freely admit I bought it because it had a giant cat on the cover. In the over 25 years since I bought it, I have read and re-read it more times than I can remember. The spirit of the colonists (both races) who wanted nothing more than to escape their stagnating worlds; the Hrrubans' sense of humor when they realized the humans thought they were savages; the release for Todd to discover there was indeed still a world where children can play and make the noises of childhood; all of these things are portrayed as fully as the bureaucracies that had me grinding my teeth in sympathetic frustration for both the Terrans and the Hrrubans. I later discovered Pern and Ms. McCaffrey's other worlds but Doona has always been my first love. The sequels to the original came many years after but they are no less dogeared, at least in my library. And In MY library, Ms. McCaffrey's worlds take up more than one shelf. I have everything she ever wrote except for one mainstream romance and can recommend her books to anyone (and have, many times).

A brilliant story

I've read many books by Anne McCaffrey, and I wouldn't be able to choose a favourite out of them all, but Descision at Doona is definitely in the Top 10. A thought-provoking tale about the tentative meeting of two species with dubious pasts in a friendship that will surpass barriers of fear and domination for the first time in both of their histories. I can read it over and over again.

A Must-Read for Sci-Fi Fans!

This is an excellent first-contact story...it shows the paronoia and xenophobia on both sides with good characterization. A tad dated, by today's standards, though...it was first published in 1969, and it shows in the technology level of the humans (about equivalent to the "Star Wars" films, with a few exceptions, while the Hrrubans are fully at the "Star Trek" technology level). On the whole, though, a great tale of trust, friendship, and the ability to rise above deeply ingrained fears and past failures