The Rowan

McCaffrey, Anne. The Rowan. New York: Ace-Putnam, 1990.

First of the Rowan books. Note Purza the pukha: a kind of cybernetic teddy bear for helping kids who need a bit more than an imaginary friend; cf. and contrast H. Harrison's "I Always Do What Teddy Says". Note also premise of Rowan books of great power possible in a "gestalt" of power generators and humans with Psi powers. The "beatle" invasion threat at novel's end is destroyed by a merging of human minds with Psi powers to decapitate (our word) the hive mind and then throw the planetoid the "beetles" come in by throwing it into the sun. For the "beatle" enemy, cf. and contrast R. A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers and it descendants and critiques (J. Haldeman's The Forever War, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series [starting 1977], etc.). Note that the decapitation is done by women, and the telekinetic destruction of the planetoid is done by men in gestalt with generators. CAUTION: The novel is strongly pro-natalist and rather bellicose. (RDE, 27/06/94)