Crisis on Doona

When humans colonized Doona they thought it to be uninhabited. When they discovered another race--the catlike Hrrubans--the two races decided to forego their traditional isolationism and try to share the planet. That treaty is up for review 25 years later, and a conspiracy is afoot to discredit Todd Reeve and Hrriss, best of friends, who have come to symbolize the human/Hrruban cohabitation and, by extension, the treaty. McCaffrey and Nye (coauthors of The Death of Sleep ) return to the setting of McCaffrey's 1969 Decision at Doona for a novel that falls far short of their previous works. The good guys (Todd, Hrriss and their families and friends) are so noble and upright and true and the bad guys (Admiral Landreau--who has a longstanding grudge against the Reeve family and the Hrrubans--and his flunkies) are so irredeemable that any interest in the conflict is lost. Interactions between catlike aliens and humans have become a stock element in the SF genre, and McCaffrey and Nye have nothing new to add. (Mar.)