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Catacombs: A Tale of the Barque Cats
Unavailable
Catacombs: A Tale of the Barque Cats
Unavailable
Catacombs: A Tale of the Barque Cats
Audiobook7 hours

Catacombs: A Tale of the Barque Cats

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

In Catalyst, award-winning authors Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough introduced listeners to the beguiling Barque Cats: spacefaring felines who serve aboard starships as full-fledged members of the crew. Highly evolved, the cats share an almost telepathic bond with their minders, or Cat Persons - until, suddenly, there is no "almost" about it, and a particular Barque Cat, Chester, learns to ex- change thoughts with his human friend, Jubal. Other cats soon gain the same ability.

Behind the seeming miracle is a mysterious cat named Pshaw-Ra, who possesses knowledge and technology far beyond anything the Barque Cats - or their humans - have ever seen. When fear of a virulent plague leads the government first to quarantine and then to kill all animals suspected of infection, Pshaw-Ra-with the help of Chester, Jubal, and the crew of the starship Ranzo - activates a "mousehole" in space that carries the refugees to a place of safety: Pshaw-Ra's home planet of Mau, where godlike cats are worshiped by human slaves.

But Pshaw-Ra's actions are less noble than they appear. The scheming cat plans to mate the Barque Cats with his own feline stock, creating a hybrid race of superior cats - a race destined to conquer the universe. Yet right from the start, his plans go awry.

For one thing, there's a new queen on Mau: Pshaw-Ra's daughter Nefure, a spoiled brat - er, cat - with a temper as short as her attention span. Pshaw-Ra's other daughter, the rightful queen Renpet, is exiled, running for her life in the only direction available to her - down into the vast catacombs beneath the Mauan desert. Far from receiving the hero's welcome he expected, Pshaw-Ra must use every bit of his considerable cleverness just to survive.

Meanwhile, as usual, Chester and Jubal stumble right into the middle of things, in the process uncovering the lost secrets of the Mauan civilization. But that's not all they uncover. In the forgotten catacombs deep below the Mauan capital, something has awakened. Something as old as the universe. Something that hungers to devour all light and life - and that bears an undying hatred for cats.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 7, 2010
ISBN9781441838377
Unavailable
Catacombs: A Tale of the Barque Cats
Author

Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey, a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner, was one of the world's most beloved and bestselling science fiction and fantasy writers. She is known for her hugely successful Dragonriders of Pern books, as well as the fantasy series that she cowrote with Elizabeth A. Scarborough that began with Acorna: The Unicorn Girl.

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Reviews for Catacombs

Rating: 3.584745749152542 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

59 ratings5 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Honestly these were goofier than I had hoped a series for the Barque cats would be, but they were still fun.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Having escaped quarantine and death by lethal injection after a plague scare resulted in all of the Barque cats being rounded up, Cat Person Jubal and his young Barque cat Chester are among the refugees aboard the starship Ranzo. Their rescuer is Pshaw-Ra, a somewhat self-absorbed (even for a cat) feline of supreme intelligence. And Pshaw-Ra has a plan for the Barque cats. Jubal and Chester will both need their wits about them if they want to survive the planet Mau - a deadly menace lurks below the planet's surface.Not one McCaffrey and Nye's better collaborations. The plot is okay, but the story doesn't flow well. Switches between characters are abrupt, and even though the story revolves around Jubal and Chester, they just aren't real enough to be very appealing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Fantasy space opera. I can't really view this as science fiction despite the space ships, etc. Perhaps there was some explanation in the first book as to why these Barque Cats have human-equivalent intelligence but it was not explained in any kind of plausible way in this book. Wormholes without rational explanation, evil snake meme without rational explanation, telepathic cats without rational explanation, etc.. Story was engaging enough but my suspension-of-disbelief was NOT engaged. Not my cup of tea.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A continuation of Catalyst, human boy Jubal, and cat Chester have a bond where they can communicate via their minds. They (and other cats) are brought to planet Mau by Pshaw-Ra, who is royalty on that planet. Pshaw-Ra has plans to rule the universe. Little does everyone know, but Pshaw-Ra is planning to find a way to use all these cats to his advantage. It was ok. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first book. I’m not a big fan of the space-stuff, but I enjoyed the cats themselves when the focus was on them and their behaviours and their links to their humans.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    really cool story a bit juvenile so really i think the cat series should be YA but whatever. i liked the second book more than the first which i reread before reading this one.