akob Faraday is exploring the atmosphere of Jupiter when he discovers intelligent life, the manta-ray-like Qanska. Twenty years later, he recruits Matt Raimey, a 22-year-old quadriplegic, to have his brain transferred into a Qanska fetus to become the liaison between humans and the Qanska.
The transfer succeeds. As Raimey is reborn, he is attacked by a sharklike predator called a Vuuka and barely survives. This is the first of many harrowing adventures as Raimey, who renames himself Manta, grows up as the only hybrid human/Qanska. He is assigned a Protector, and is befriended by two other youths, a male named Pranlo and a female named Drusni. He must learn to find food plants, escape various predators and fit into the complex society of the Qanska. Faraday, meanwhile, is managing a team of experts in low orbit who observe and communicate with Manta.
As Qanska youth grow, they change roles, becoming Breeders, then Nurturers or Protectors, Counselors, Leaders and the Wise, with each succeeding group living deeper in the atmosphere of the gas giant. Manta has problems fitting into their society, but shows uncommon resourcefulness. He sometimes feels ostracized from the Qanska, sometimes from mankind and sometimes from both.
After Manta becomes a Breeder, he learns that both the humans and Qanska have hidden agendas for him. The humans reveal a startling discovery: the Qanska are not native to Jupiter, but of extraterrestrial origin, and they want Raimey to steal their technology for interstellar travel. He also learns that the Qanska have a serious problem as well that they hope Manta can solve. While Faraday struggles to keep control of the project while faced with an impatient Earth leadership, Raimey must either decide which group to help or else be clever enough to devise a way to meet the critical goals of both mankind and Qanska.
Hard to put down, but not hard enough SF
Manta's Gift is a superior adolescent coming-of-age story of the type that has been a mainstay in SF adventures since the 1950s. Zahn, best known for his widely read Star Wars novels, shows significant skills in providing an engaging story with memorable characters, especially Raimey, who becomes a very different and more sympathetic character after the trials and tribulations of his second adolescence. The Qanska are one of the more interesting of the many alien species created in the SF field, especially regarding their genetics and ecosystem, even if they are a bit too similar to humans in their psychology.
Zahn, however, does not write cutting-edge hard SF, and veteran SF readers might find this novel somewhat pedestrian. He readily uses hoary SF cliches, such as humanity needing interstellar colonization to relieve acute population pressures, which are belied by even a cursory analysis. He also appears to choose details by whim, creating annoying scientific flaws and logical inconsistencies. Older Qanska should have to stay lower in Jupiter's atmosphere, for instance, only if their density, not size and weight, increases with age. Much of the storyline appears to require Jupiter to be even smaller than Earth, not 400 times larger, and the Qanska to have been on Jupiter for millennia, not decades. Indeed, no reader will guess the surprise ending solely because it is logically inconsistent with information provided earlier in the story.
But these types of flaws can be ignored in an otherwise superior SF adventure novel, whose strengths lie in making solid use of time-tested SF literary tropes and techniques. Fans of Timothy Zahn or other writers of SF adventure stories will find Manta's Gift to be a pleasant addition to his oeuvre.
