Let’s Read Good Books

My Thoughts (May Contain Spoilers)

After reading some recent dragon books, I wanted to go back to the OG dragon rider author, Anne McCaffrey, and view her books with fresh eyes. Well, older eyes. I read my first Pern book when I was around thirteen, and I was hooked. Flying in the air on a telepathic dragon, fighting insidious Thread? Hellz, yes, I was so in for that.

I decided that on my foray back to Pern, I would read the books in their chronological order, instead of their published order. Way back when, I read many, many Pern books in their pubbed order, but with college and real life, the series dropped off my radar. Now, I’d like to get my eyeballs on the books that I missed, or that give me a better overall world view of the planet, so Dragonsdawn was just a click away at the library.

I have to say, this is not the book to start with if you aren’t familiar with McCaffrey’s world. This read slow even for me, and I’m a huge fan of the world. It seemed so clinical and scientific, and I didn’t get a true sense of any of the characters, and there are a lot of them. This was not the fun fantasy world that I remembered so well; instead, this Pern is a sci-fi tale about a group of colonists hoping for a new start on a planet far from the politics and capitalist economies of the federation of planets. Parents wanting better futures for their children and themselves have signed onto the long journey in hopes of making a prosperous living on their promised stake acres.

After eight peaceful years, the colony is in the fight of their lives against voracious spores that begin falling from the sky with no warning. When the spores land on anything organic, including people and animals, it devours them. I still think this is such a great concept. After further analysis of the Threadfall, it is determined that the irregular space cloud they noticed as the colonists entered the solar system eight years earlier will continue to rain death and destruction on the planet for another 50 years. Yikes! And every 250 years, the deadly torrent will return. Anne McCaffrey, you were a freaking genius to create a world where deadly space spores consume all living things, and the only defense against it is the dragon fire of the planet’s native lizard species.

I don’t want to give away any more of plot, but suffice it to say, our humble colonists; with their limited technology, have a hellava fight on their hands. The stress of this dire situation causes tempers to flare, nerves to fray, plots to unfold. I love the politics during a good ole world wide extinction event, and this did not disappoint. There’s always a disgruntled few, who instead of pitching in and working together to figure things out, have to make events more tumultuous. And let’s not forget about the few who think only of themselves and how they can profit from a disaster.

One thing I didn’t enjoy was the slower pacing of the book. It took me a week to read this, and I don’t consider myself a slow reader. I felt that there was a distance kept between me and the characters in the story. I didn’t feel like I ever got to know any of them on a deeper level. They all seemed rather one-dimensional, and that really surprised me. I read Dragonsdawn when it first came out, and I don’t remember the characters feeling so cold. And I have words for Sallah. I totally missed the fact that she roofied her future husband in an act of complete selfishness. I mean, wut? That went completely over my head the first time I read this.

The foundation is built here for the later books, including the names of the Holds and the Weyrs, the start of the dragonrider culture and duties, and the move to caves and stone dwellings for the population. I enjoyed those details, and felt that it gave the later books needed context for the world building overall.

While I found Dragonsdawn more dry and more of a slog than I remembered, I don’t regret picking it up again. I’ll continue reading the series in chronological order, mainly because i haven’t read a lot of books that took place before Dragonflight. If you are new to the series and want to give it a try, start with the original trilogy: Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon. Then continue your journey through Pern in any order you choose.

Do I think this stood up to the test of time? Maybe? I think that the insane popularity of YA has caused an expectation of a constant, unrelenting demand for action and non-stop tension. Even when I read this the first time around, I was a little disappointed with the story. I loved the world building, but the people and their stories, not so much. This is in no means a bad book. I just had higher expectations for the meat of the story. Instead, it scores a 3.5 stars, which is still a high score, but not a favorite.