One minute Sara was walking in Central Park, then, after a nightmare of best-forgotten pain and fear in a Mil ship, she wakes up from her shock on an alien planet, in a modified body, playing the part of a moronic attendant in a mental institution. She rapidly discovers her patient, Harlan, is not mad, but drugged, and helps break him out. Her troubles are only just starting, as she must help Harlan defeat a usurper, foil an invasion of the flesh-eating Mil, all the while concealing her own status as a reviled restoree.
Anne McCaffrey writes mainly SF, with the odd romance. This is definitely at the romance-lite end of the SF spectrum: the occasional throbbing and thrusting can be safely skipped over. The main plot is "human dumped into middle of alien culture", and Sara, although often swept along by events out of her control, manages to cope quite well with the various trials she must overcome. The plot and style have an old-fashioned feel of a straightforward 1950s yarn; the eating sub-plot makes a pleasant change from today's fanatical health watching.
[The title was intended to be Get of the Unicorn, but the typo survived]
I think the best story in this uneven collection is "The Greatest Love", for two reasons. Firstly, nowadays real life stories of host mothers carrying children for other couples are so common they make the news only when something goes wrong. But in 1956, when this story was written, such events truly were science fictional. It's fun to think how much things have changed within less than a lifetime. Secondly, the tale is a great romp, and tells an interesting and complete story.
[My edition of the book disgracefully includes no prior publication information, but I got the dates from The Locus Index.]
Three asteroid miners discover an escape capsule containing a baby alien. They rescue her, and Acorna grows up -- rapidly -- as a humanoid with hoofs, fur, and a horn that can purify air and water and heal ills. Soon they are pursued by all sorts of people, for all sorts of reasons.
I find this poorly characterised (the three miners are indistinguishable apart from a few offensively stereotypical characteristics -- we don't see much of Acorna herself -- the stupid bureaucrat and the evil scientist are less than one-dimensional). There are too many coincidences used to drive the plot (the miners are being pursued for something they did in the past, and for Acorna, and for what the people did who originally owned the ship whose ID they appropriated to lose the other pursuits, and for Acorna by someone else) -- one of the key people who helps them early on turns up again later in a different key role [I know I support the theory that there are only 400 people in the world -- 200 who you know, and 200 "extras" to provide background -- because this is the only way to explain why you keep running into people you know in the strangest places -- but this is a galaxy full of planets, for ghu's sake]). And the story just isn't engaging. So I said the Eight Deadly Words, on page 198.