Mind-Speaker

What seemed like an exciting survey mission on a new world, turns ugly when a freak solar storm wipes out all of the colonists' technology. Marooned hundreds of kilometers from any help, Jamie and his injured father struggle to survive in a hostile land. In their attempt to walk out of the wilderness, disaster strikes again. Some distance away Amanda and her mother are also stranded with an inoperable survey vessel. To make things worse, the planet is home to a deadly predator, which comes after dark on huge leathery wings. Orphaned and starving, time is running out for her. Will their survival instincts and human ingenuity be enough to save the two young people? Perhaps an old book, a pocketknife, an indigenous species, and a remarkable crystal may hold the answer.

NIGHT of the RAPTORS: Every fifteen years on Mandeler's planet there are great black winged creatures, the Raptors, which come in the night to kill and take people away to their distant lair. On his sixteenth birthday, Mandeler is gifted with a remarkable green stone, but it also coincides with the return of the Great Raptors. Driven by his tormented dreams of flying with the Raptors, he sets out through rugged country, on a quest to warn others of the advancing attacks. Mandeler is accompanied on his journey by one of the planet's strange creatures, a denzel named Alheeza. While they make their way from one settlement to another, he meets the street-smart Gwenelle. The three of them soon learn that their very survival depends on their ingenuity and trust. Each night Mandeler is tortured by his dreams of the deadly Raptors, often coinciding with real attacks from above. Their only choice seems to be finding the mythical olive raptors in the vain hope that somehow their combined efforts will be a match for the worst danger of all, the Great Raptor Queen and her deadly hunters.