An internationally bestselling author and an inductee into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Anne McCaffrey is one of the most popular and most celebrated science fiction and fantasy authors of all time. She was the first woman to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America—not to mention wracking up thousands of dedicated fans worldwide.
McCaffrey is best-known for her long-running Dragonriders of Pern series, which began with her Hugo Award-winning novella “Weyr Search,” originally published in Analog in 1967. Since then, there have been more than two-dozen Pern books in print, with several of the later ones written or co-written by McCaffrey’s children, Todd and Gigi McCaffrey.
While the Pern books are fan favorites, however, McCaffrey has also written dozens of other novels over the course of her career, often collaborating with her children, or with fellow authors such as Margaret Ball and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. Of her later-career collaborations, McCaffrey has said that, “While I would dearly love to have the energy to tell a tale all on my own, I really cannot say that I am not ably represented with my collaborations.” These include numerous series featuring space travel, magic, and sometimes both—among them, McCaffrey’s Acorna series.
Here's a handy guide to the 10-book series.
Acorna
The saga began in 1997 with Acorna: The Unicorn Girl, co-written with Margaret Ball. Acorna introduced readers to the eponymous unicorn girl, a member of an alien race with unique physiognomy and incredible powers including telepathy and the ability to heal, all linked to a unicorn-like horn that sprouted from the center of her forehead. It also introduced the Khleevi, an insect-like species preying upon the peaceful inhabitants of Acorna’s former home world.
Acorna's Quest
The story continued in Acorna’s Quest in 1998, before Margaret Ball was replaced as co-writer by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, who would continue to co-write for the remainder of the series, which included five more books in the main saga, as well as three books published under the Acorna’s Children moniker. These told the stories of Acorna, her family (both biological and found), her friends, the love of her life, and her daughters, in a fan-favorite series that Publishers Weekly calls “good spacefaring fun.”
Acorna's People
The third book in the Acorna series and the first to feature Elizabeth Ann Scarborough as co-author, Acorna’s People finds the unicorn girl back on her home world for the first time, where she meets others of her own kind. However, due to her different upbringing, she has trouble fitting in amongst those like her—trouble that comes to a head as she must face new menaces and uncover ancient secrets that show that her ancestors and the humans who raised her may not be as unrelated as they appear.
Acorna's World
In Acorna’s World, Acorna has joined the unorthodox crew of a salvage ship, and among her crewmates she may have found the love of her life in the scarred and traumatized Aari, who was captured and tortured by the Khleevi. Unfortunately, the menace of the Khleevi has not been left in the past, and Acorna and her crew must try to find a way to warn her home world before all of her newly-rediscovered people are wiped out for good.
Acorna's Search
“This popular adventure series demonstrates the storytelling expertise of co-authors McCaffrey and Scarborough” raves Library Journal, and there’s no better place to see why than in Acorna’s Search, which finds the home world Acorna never knew rebuilding after a deadly attack by the insectile Khleevi. Though peace has returned, however, all his not well, and as some of the people closest to her begin disappearing mysteriously, Acorna will have to venture underground to find the solution to a mystery older even than she knows.
Acorna's Rebels
Aari is missing and Acorna’s attempts to find him lead her and her crew to the forbidden planet of Makahomia, where they discover shocking new information about Roadkill, one of the crew members, as well as the fate of the mysterious Makahomian Temple Cats. As Acorna struggles to prevent a terrible calamity and find Aari, readers will see why Booklist hailed the Acorna series as “entertaining fare, indeed, for sf fans.”
Acorna's Triumph
The final book in the regular Acorna series “packs plenty of action into 320 pages” (Booklist). Finally, Acorna and Aari are back together again. But Aari seems changed by his time travel, and Acorna must not only unravel the changes that have come over her love, but also fend off dangerous villains and alien intercessors in this “fitting coda to the series” (Publishers Weekly).
Acorna's Children
While the regular series of Acorna novels ended with Acorna’s Triumph, the story wasn’t finished. Acorna’s Triumph was published in 2004, and in 2005, McCaffrey and Scarborough introduced readers to the beginning of a new saga, this time chronicling the children of Acorna and Aari. The first novel in the series, First Warning, is a coming-of-age tale following Acorna’s rebellious daughter Khorii, who inherits the gifts that defined her parents’ species.
Second Wave (Acorna Book 9)
Second Wave continues the story of Khorii and her adopted android brother Elviiz—“named for an ancient Terran King”—in a “spirited second installment” (Publishers Weekly) as they struggled to find a cure for a deadly disease and contend against a new menace of wraith-like aliens. It also introduces a shocking family secret… an unknown twin sister of Khorii who had been taken before she was even born.
Third Watch
It all reaches its dramatic conclusion in Third Watch, the finale of the Acorna’s Children series which is packed with “plenty of stirring adventures” (Publishers Weekly). Now reunited, Khorii and her mysterious twin sister Ariin have a lot of work to do if they hope to save their family—and the universe—from deadly external threats in the thrilling conclusion not only to the Acorna’s Children series but to Anne McCaffrey’s entire Acorna saga, which spans ten books written and published across a decade.
