The Guardian of Isis is the second novel in Hughes's Isis trilogy. In the first, The Keeper of the Isis Light (1980), fifteen-year-old Olwen Pendennis must adjust to arrival of eighty settlers who have fled the destruction of Earth and are seeking refuge at the space lighthouse on the planet Isis. Olwen has had no human contact since the death of her parents when she was five; in Hughes's outer space equivalent of being raised by wolves, Olwen has been raised by Guardian, an advanced scientific robot which her dying mother reprogrammed to nurture and protect her. Guardian has changed her physical appearance, giving her characteristics which will enable her to survive in the harsh atmosphere of Isis. With the arrival of the settlers, Olwen must decide whether their acceptance is worth the risk of an operation to return her to her original human appearance, all the...