Klandor Rising: the complete series

Commander Irene Slade, renowned "Moonchild" from Earth's lunar colony, Venus expedition veteran, and Mars colony commander, is a woman shaped by profound personal loss. She has nothing tying her to Sol any more, so accepts the command of a new venture exploiting the newly developed, soliton-based, FTL technology: a two-year mission to AC4. This Earth-like planet in the Alpha Centauri cluster, with its nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, vast oceans, and apparent forests, promises the first signs of life outside our solar system.

But hope quickly turns to peril. Don Lindsay, starship navigator and pilot of the shuttle Encounter, meets two indigenous forms of animal life: the rahpa savagely territorial, the yolti showing startling intelligence - and revealing their name for their world to be Klandor. Don's unsanctioned first contact program plunges the mission into tragedy, threatening humanity's entire prospect of colonization.

The colonization committee keeps some of the details secret, and suppresses the survey team's report on the yolti's intelligence. When 23-year-old librarian Lorraine Firth and her 16-year-old sister Glennis apply to join the colonization mission, to the surprise of the selection committee, Irene uses her override authority to ensure the girls are accepted. On the planet, Lorraine is the first to encounter both rahpa and yolti, and becomes surprisingly influential as the pioneers endeavour to tame the new planet, prepare for the main wave of colonists, and learn to live with their new neighbours.

Glennis (now Lennis) trains to pilot the Endeavour, and becomes the indispensable go-to person for everything from the yolti culture to flying the notorious cyclone alley between the two colony sites. When Enterprise brings the Fairleigh colonists to the new northern settlement, their self-appointed leader is gung-ho engineer Yuri Gregovich, who feels insulted by them assigning a 'child pilot' to ferry him to Lakeside, where his enterprise and ambition quickly create conflict with environmentally focused council. But somehow the Firths seem to come up as the answer to every question or need, and an unlikely alliance starts to emerge.

Klandor Rising brings together the first three novels of the Klandor Series, Klandor Encounter, Klandor Endeavour, and Klandor Enterprise), into one comprehensive volume. The collection also includes Klandor Enigma, a new novelette, set a generation after the events of Enterprise, that delves into a chilling mystery: a series of inexplicable deaths of eleven-year-old children born in Lennisvale.

Discover the challenges of exploring and colonizing the alien world of Klandor-where the best and worst of humanity's ambitions clash as we try to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.