A review by cathepsut
The Renegades of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Renegades of Pern, published in 1989, starts a decade before the events of Dragonflight and covers the time up to Dragondrums fairly quickly. We get glimpses of Piemur, but the main storyline is otherwise just touched upon briefly here and there and shown through different POVs. Knowing the first two trilogies will give context, I recommend reading those first anyhow, although the first trilogy has a seriously dated tone and attitude.

The first half of the book has a rather episodic feel to it, with different POVs in every chapter. I figured that I was reading one of these in-between books one doesn‘t really need. I really liked Jayge‘s storyline.

However, by the middle of the book many of those strands came together. It got pretty interesting and added new things to the overarching story of the world of Pern. We cover not just new, but also important ground. I really enjoyed myself, especially when we started to spend serious time on the Southern Continent, which is always fun.

Not to be skipped when making your way through the Dragonriders of Pern!