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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
I loved the Pern books as a young teen, then eventually fell out of love with them, in part because the author's pretty bizarre views on sex and sexuality became more and more clear. But I found this in my bookshelf and decided to revisit Pern.
I think what surprised me this time around was how annoyed I was by the basically pro-feudal worldview of the books. To summarize the backstory of Pern in brief, every 250 years alien spores called Thread fall from a passing meteor onto the planet, so the Terran settlers bred dragons to ride and burn the Thread out of the sky and established a feudal system where all the farms and fisheries functioned to provide tribute to the dragonriders. However, through a quirk of orbits Thread failed to fall one time, so as the first series begins it's been almost 500 years without any need for dragons, and the feudal system has kind of started to fall apart as people decide Thread is a legend. Of course, then it comes back and all those ignorant farmers realize how terribly wrong they were and learn proper respect for the dragonriders again.
(You can see that as an adult my sympathies kind of lie with the people who break their backs to maintain a ravenous standing army that's only needed every 200 or so years, but the basic Pern narrative ---as I remember it--is very much Crude Stupid Rural Folks versus Sophisticated Charming Elites.)
Re-reading it, it's not a huge mystery why teen-aged me would enjoy a book about a sensitive, misunderstood, brilliant girl whose community is too hidebound, sexist, and plodding to recognize how amazing she is; a girl who through pluck and ingenuity finally finds her rightful place in a community of creative, intelligent people who affirm that she's brilliant. It's a very fun wish-fulfillment romp at that level!
I think what surprised me this time around was how annoyed I was by the basically pro-feudal worldview of the books. To summarize the backstory of Pern in brief, every 250 years alien spores called Thread fall from a passing meteor onto the planet, so the Terran settlers bred dragons to ride and burn the Thread out of the sky and established a feudal system where all the farms and fisheries functioned to provide tribute to the dragonriders. However, through a quirk of orbits Thread failed to fall one time, so as the first series begins it's been almost 500 years without any need for dragons, and the feudal system has kind of started to fall apart as people decide Thread is a legend. Of course, then it comes back and all those ignorant farmers realize how terribly wrong they were and learn proper respect for the dragonriders again.
(You can see that as an adult my sympathies kind of lie with the people who break their backs to maintain a ravenous standing army that's only needed every 200 or so years, but the basic Pern narrative ---as I remember it--is very much Crude Stupid Rural Folks versus Sophisticated Charming Elites.)
Re-reading it, it's not a huge mystery why teen-aged me would enjoy a book about a sensitive, misunderstood, brilliant girl whose community is too hidebound, sexist, and plodding to recognize how amazing she is; a girl who through pluck and ingenuity finally finds her rightful place in a community of creative, intelligent people who affirm that she's brilliant. It's a very fun wish-fulfillment romp at that level!
Read this -- I think a few times -- many years ago and remembered loving it, so it's nice to discover that holds up really well! So well, I've put the next book on hold to follow Menolly's adventures at the Harper Hall.
I haven't read this or any of the Pern books in years and initially, it took me some time to get back into it, but once I did, I was hooked until I finished. I'm looking forward to revisiting the rest of this trilogy!
This is the book that drew me into Pern, and I still find it a delightful read.
"Dragonsong" is the first book of Anne McCaffrey's "Harper Hall" series which is a parallel one to that of her "Pern". It tells about the girl Menolly, who is a gifted young girl living in the Seahold and is struggling to find meaning in her life. She is very talented in music, but traditionally music is performed by men and as such her father has prohibited her to do anything related to music. She is supposed to do the daily chores and help her Hold-mates to deal with the day-to-day challenges the planet Pern confronts them with, especially during the periods of thread-fall when dangerous threads fall to Pern and destroy crops and people who stand in their way.
When Menolly gets stranded one day close to the sea due to rapidly changing tide, she notices some fire lizard eggs and saves them, taking refuge in a cave in the process. When the fire lizard eggs hatch, she ends up imprinting 9 fire lizards and devotes herself to protecting them. She has to teach the children music when the present Master Harper dies, but this makes her father quite unhappy.
Thus the book is about the personal development of a young girl, while it skirts the famous events of the main Pern books. It is an interesting twist on the Pern universe and worth reading for McCaffrey fans.
When Menolly gets stranded one day close to the sea due to rapidly changing tide, she notices some fire lizard eggs and saves them, taking refuge in a cave in the process. When the fire lizard eggs hatch, she ends up imprinting 9 fire lizards and devotes herself to protecting them. She has to teach the children music when the present Master Harper dies, but this makes her father quite unhappy.
Thus the book is about the personal development of a young girl, while it skirts the famous events of the main Pern books. It is an interesting twist on the Pern universe and worth reading for McCaffrey fans.
The dragons are adorable, and Menolly is a well-written and fleshed out character. The world-building is done somewhat clumsily, although I'm not sure if this is the first book written. It may have been assuming a reader's knowledge of other books in the series, as several references were made to other characters and situations that weren't fleshed out here, and didn't make much sense in context.
Delightful, with just the right amount of teen angst. Perfect book to introduce a pre-teen(one with a love of fantasy but horror of 'old books')to an amazing author.
I have always had a soft spot for the Pern books, even if they haven't aged terribly well, and particularly for Menolly. I don't identify with that feeling of not fitting in quite as much now as I did as a young teenager, but it's still a very familiar story and one I enjoyed following through to its expected but still satisfying end. I'll forever remain wistful at the thought of having a firelizard, let alone a fair of them!
I couldn't get into this, which is weird because I totally love dragons and science fiction. Somehow this didn't work for me at all, and I've never tried to read anything else by her because I found it too boring.
A good review would of course explain why, but to be honest i just don't know why this didn't grab me. It just didn't. Wish I knew why.
A good review would of course explain why, but to be honest i just don't know why this didn't grab me. It just didn't. Wish I knew why.