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Title | Dragon's Kin
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Author | Anne & Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | Paul Youll
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2003
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2003
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Title | Dragonsblodd
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Author | Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | Les Edwards
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2005
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2005
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Title | Dragon's Fire
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Author | Anne & Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | Paul Youll
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2006
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2006
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Title | Dragon Harper
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Author | Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | Paul Youll
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2007
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2007
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Title | Dragonheart
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Author | Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2008
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2008
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Title | Dragongirl
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Author | Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | Les Edwards
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2011
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2010
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Title | Dragon's Time
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Author | Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | Les Edwards
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2011
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2011
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Title | Anne McCaffrey & Sky Dragons
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Author | Todd McCaffrey
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Cover Art | Les Edwards
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Publisher | Del Rey - 2013
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First Printing | Del Rey - 2012
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Category | Science Fiction
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Kindan, Nuella, Masterharper Zist, Loranna/Arith, Pellar, Halla, Cristov, Fiona/Talenth, T'mar, Xhinna, Taria, Bekka |
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Main Elements | Dragons
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Website | ---
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Dragon's Kin
Beginning with the classic Dragonriders of Pern, Anne McCaffrey has created a complex, endlessly fascinating world uniting humans and great telepathic dragons. Millions of devoted readers have soared on the glittering wings of Anne’s imagination, following book by book the evolution of one of science fiction’s most beloved and honored series. Now, for the first time, Anne has invited another writer to join her in the skies of Pern, a writer with an intimate knowledge of Pern and its history: her son, Todd.
Young Kindan has no expectations other than joining his father in the mines of Camp Natalon, a coal mining settlement struggling to turn a profit far from the great Holds where the presence of dragons and their riders means safety and civilization. Mining is fraught with danger. Fortunately, the camp has a watch-wher, a creature distantly related to dragons and uniquely suited to specialized work in the dark, cold mineshafts. Kindan’s father is the watch-wher’s handler, and his son sometimes helps him out. But even that important job promises no opportunity outside the mine.
Then disaster strikes. In one terrible instant, Kindan loses his family and the camp loses its watch-wher. Fathers are replaced by sons in the mine–except for Kindan, who is taken in by the camp’s new Harper. Grieving, Kindan finds a measure of solace in a burgeoning musical talent . . . and in a new friendship with Nuella, a mysterious girl no one seems to know exists. It is Nuella who assists Kindan when he is selected to hatch and train a new watch-wher, a job that forces him to give up his dream of becoming a Harper; and it is Nuella who helps him give new meaning to his life.
Meanwhile, sparked by the tragedy, long-simmering tensions are dividing the camp. Far below the surface, a group of resentful miners hides a deadly secret. As warring factions threaten to explode, Nuella and Kindan begin to discover unknown talents in the misunderstood watch-wher–talents that could very well save an entire Hold. During their time teaching the watch-wher, the two learn some things themselves: that even a seemingly impossible dream is never completely out of reach . . . and that light can be found even in darkness.
Dragonsblood
In Dragon’s Kin, bestselling author Anne McCaffrey did the unthinkable: for the first time ever, she invited another writer to join her in the skies of her most famous fictional creation. That writer was her son, Todd McCaffrey. Together, they penned a triumphant new chapter in the annals of the extraordinarily popular Dragonriders of Pern. Now, for the first time, Todd McCaffrey flies alone. And Dragonsblood is proof that the future of Pern is in good hands. After all, dragons are in his blood…
Never in the dramatic history of Pern has there been a more dire emergency than that which faces the young dragonrider Lorana. A mysterious fatal illness is striking dragons. The epidemic is spreading like wildfire…and the next deadly cycle of Threadfall is only days away. Somehow, Lorana must find a cure before the dragons–including her own beloved Arith–succumb to the sickness, leaving Pern undefended.
The lyrics of an all-but-forgotten song seem to point toward an answer from nearly five hundred years in the past, when Kitti Ping and her daughter Wind Blossom bred the first dragons from their smaller cousins, the fire-lizards. No doubt the first colonists possessed the advanced technology to find the cure for which Lorana seeks, but over the centuries, that knowledge has been lost.Or has it?
For in the distant past, an aged Wind Blossom worries that the germs that affect the fire-lizards may one day turn on larger prey–and unleash a plague that will destroy the dragons, Pern’s only defenders against Thread. But as her people struggle to survive, Wind Blossom has neither the time nor the resources to expend on a future that may never arrive–until suddenly she uncovers evidence that her worst fears will come true.
Now two brave women, separated by hundreds of years but joined by bonds transcending time, will become unknowing allies in a desperate race against sickness and Threadfall, with nothing less than the survival of all life on Pern at stake.
Dragon's Fire
Bringing fresh wonders and dangers to light in the skies of Pern, Anne McCaffrey and her son, Todd, who demonstrated his writing talents in the bestselling novels Dragon's Kin and Dragonsblood, return with their second collaboration: a thrilling adventure of discovery and fate.
Pellar is an orphan taken in by Masterharper Zist. Though born mute, Pellar is a gifted tracker, and when Zist sets off to take over as harper for Natalon's coal-mining camp, Pellar-along with his fire-lizard, Chitter-joins him on a secret mission of his own: to find out if reported thefts of coal are the work of the Shunned, criminals condemned to a life of wandering and hardship.
Halla is one of the children of the Shunned. Though innocent of their parents' crimes, these children have inherited their cruel punishment. Lack of food, shelter, and clothes is their lot; hope is unknown to them. And what future would they hope for? Without a hold to call their own, there will be no protection for them when the lethal Thread inevitably falls again. Life is even tougher for Halla. Her family gone, she must fend for herself. Yet despite the brutality of her surroundings, Halla is kind and gentle, devoted to those more helpless than she.
As depraved as Halla is good, Tenim is in league with Tarik, a crooked miner from Camp Natalon, who helps him steal coal in exchange for a cut of the profit. But Tenim soon realizes there is a lot more to be made from firestone, the volatile mineral that enables the dragons of Pern to burn Thread out of the sky. Tenim doesn't care what he has to do, or whom he has to kill, in order to corner the market.
Cristov is Tarik's son. Dishonored by his father's greed and treachery, the boy must make amends somehow, even if it means risking his life by mining the volatile firestone, which detonates on contact with the slightest drop of moisture.
When the last remaining firestone mine explodes in flames, a desperate race begins to find a new deposit of the deadly but essential mineral, for without it there can be no defense against Thread. But Tenim has a murderous plan to turn tragedy to his own advantage, and only Pellar, Halla, and Cristov can stop him-and ensure that there will be a future for all on the world of the Dragonriders.
Dragon Harper
For millions of readers the world over, the name Pern is magical, conjuring up grand vistas of a distant planet whose blue skies are patrolled by brave dragons and their noble riders, a paradise threatened by the periodic fall of deadly Thread. But not all dangers descend from the skies. Now, in their third collaboration, Anne McCaffrey and her son, Todd McCaffrey, spin a tale of a mysterious illness that may succeed in doing what centuries of Threadfall could not: kill every last human on Pern.
Life in the Harper Hall is busy for best friends Kindan, Nonala, and Kelsa. As the only female apprentices, Nonala and Kelsa are the butt of jokes and easy targets for the bully Vaxoram and his cronies. But when Kindan springs to Kelsa's defense, he winds up in a fight for his life against the older, bigger Vaxoram-a fight that will lead to a surprising friendship.
Meanwhile, in nearby Fort Hold, a clutch of fire-lizard eggs is about to hatch, and Lord Bemin's beautiful young daughter, Koriana, is determined to Impress one of the delightful creatures. At the hatching, Kindan Impresses a fire-lizard of his own . . . and wins the heart of Koriana. But Lord Bemin mistrusts harpers and will not hear of a match between his daughter and the low-born Kindan.
Then fate intervenes in the form of a virulent plague as fast-spreading as it is deadly. Arising suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the contagion decimates hold after hold, paying no heed to distinctions of birth. In this feverish crucible, friendship and love will be tested to the breaking point and beyond. For with Threadfall scant years away, the Dragonriders dare not expose themselves to infection, and it will fall to Kindan and his fellow apprentices to bravely search for a cure and save humanity.
The price of failure is unthinkable. But the price of success may be even harder to bear.
Dragonheart
The specter of sickness looms over the Weyrs of Pern, felling fire-lizards and threatening their dragon cousins, Pern's sole defense against the deadly phenomenon that is Thread. Fiona, the young rider of queen dragon Talenth, is about to assume the duties of a Weyrwoman when word spreads that dragons have begun succumbing to the new contagion. As more dragons sicken and die, Weyrleader B'Nik and queen rider Lorana comb Fort Weyr's archives in a desperate search for clues from the past that may hold the solution to the plague. But could the past itself prove the pathway to salvation for Pern's imperiled dragons? Guided by a mysterious ally from a wholly unexpected place, and trusting in the dragon gift for transcending time, Fiona will join a risky expedition with far-reaching consequences for both Pern's future and her personal destiny.
Dragongirl
Young Fiona, rider of the gold queen Talenth, has returned with the dragons and riders who fled into the past to heal their battle wounds and prepare to fight anew the menace of Thread. Now more than three years older, Fiona is no longer a child but a woman - thrust into authority by a shocking tragedy. But leading weyrfolk who are distrustful of a young outsider will be only one of her challenges. Depsite gaining reinforcements from the past, too few dragons have survived the recent plague to stem the tide of the intensifying Threadfall. As a senior Weyrwoman, Fiona must take decisive action. With the aid of Lorana, the rider who sacrificed her dragon for others, and Fiona's true love, the harper Kindan, she proposes a daring, nearly impossible plan. But if it succeeds, it just might save them all.
Dragon's Time
For the first time in more than three years, bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey, mother and son, have teamed up again to do what they do best: add a fresh chapter to the most beloved science fiction series of all time, the Dragonriders of Pern.
Even though Lorana cured the plague that was killing the dragons of Pern, sacrificing her queen dragon in the process, the effects of the disease were so devastating that there are no longer enough dragons available to fight the fall of deadly Thread. And as the situation grows more dire, a pregnant Lorara decides that she must take drastic steps in the quest for help.
Meanwhile, back at Telgar Weyr, Weyrwoman Fiona, herself pregnant, and the harper Kindan must somehow keep morale from fading altogether in the face of the steadily mounting losses of dragons and their riders. But time weighs heavily against them - until Lorana finds a way to use time itself in their favor.
It's a plan fraught with risk, however. For attempting time travel means tampering with the natural laws of the universe, which could drastically alter history - and destiny - forever. Or so it has always been thought. But Lorana discovers that if the laws of time can't be broken without consequences, it may still be possible to bend them. To ensure the future of Pern, she's willing to take the fateful chance - even if it demands another, even greater, sacrifice.
Sky Dragons
Scores of dragons are dead after plague swept across the world of Pern, and now the Weyrs are struggling to rebuild before Threadfall destroys everything - and everyone - left alive. Their best hope lies with a group of new dragonriders who have volunteered to brave the dangers of an unexplored island populated by vicious wild felines and voracious tunnel-snakes to create a safe home for their young dragons, whose offspring will hopefully replenish Pern's decimated population. But their leader, Xhinna, the first female rider of a blue dragon, faces an uphill battle to win the respect of her peers, especially after tragedy leaves the new colony reeling. The way forward seems to lie with the awesome ability of the dragons to travel through time. But that power comes with risks: By venturing into the past, Xhinna may jeopardize the very future she has sworn to save.
I decided to group these books together since they have two things in common, they were written by Anne's son Todd (sometimes on his own, sometimes as co-author with Anne) and because they take place it their own timeline, just at the start of the Third Pass (the Dragonflight trilogy takes place about 2 thousand years later in the Ninth Pass). This was an excellent idea on Anne and Todd's part, to give her son an opportunity to invent his own characters and stories with only some limitations in that Anne told us about what came before, and we know where we will end up. Here, we see how technologically advanced colonists start to lose access to their technology and start to forget their origins, and we start seeing how things will evolve into the future.
I have to admit I really had to stretch my acceptance of some of the concepts and ideas in these books. For example we know a little bit about watchwhers, after all one died tried to protect Lessa in the first book. We don't see much more of this dragon cousin, but here we find out that they weren't "mistakes" on the part of Wind Blossom, as implied by Dragonsdawn, but that they have a huge role to play in protecting Pern from Thread. After all, unless you can see in the dark, how do you fight Thread at night? It doesn't conveniently fall only during the day (as it seemed in all books up till now). So the whers' nocturnal nature was designed for them to fight Thread at night without rides. But by the Third Pass there are almost no whers left at all since Wind Blossom failed to share this secret purpose with anyone so the whers were considered at best a nuisance, at worst, something to be destroyed. And in the ninth they seemed to be all chained up, so....who is fighting Thread at night?
There's also what I think as a ridiculous connection and random time travel between the First Pass and the Third in Dragonsblood. I'm not sure that made any sense at all (why would Loranna's mental cry reach Wind Blossom of all people?? Why would dying fire lizards and dragons choose to land on her front doorstep??). Its one of those things you just have to try to ignore and focus on the rest of the story. Dragonheart also involves time travel, secret time travel that is, no one is supposed to know they are there...except by the time they are done half of Pern must know! I did enjoy the fact that we get to see Weyrling training in much more detail, and kind of cute to have a 14 year old "senior" Weyrwoman running a Weyr consisting of a bunch of injured older riders and a couple hatchings worth of Weyrlings.
The publishing sequence is a very confusing too. In the chronology, Dragon's Kin comes first, then Dragon's Fire, then Dragon Harper, then Dragonsblood and Dragonheart...but in publishing order Dragonsblood is the second with Dragonheart which takes place at the same time coming fifth, so it's a bit like you hear about things that happened in the past and then the authors went and filled in the missing bits then jumped back to go over the same time period (been there, done that with Moretta & Nerilka!). I got a bit confused about how old everyone was supposed to be at any moment in time. This is a very rare time I would recommend reading in chronological order!
The giant holes of logic aside, I couldn't detect much difference in writing style between mother and son, and this is a good thing, it keeps the series consistent, fast and pleasant to read, and overall I still ended up enjoying them and nearly crying when a dragon dies (in Dragonsblood we have a dragon plague so there's a lot of that going on).
But ugh, I don't like plague stories and this sequence more than doubles the total in the overall Pern series.
I then read the last three books...what an insane muddled mess, where do I start? Could it be that while it's been made clear that Timing is is considered dangerous and a last resort but now all the characters are bouncing around all over the place CONSTANTLY with themselves multiple times in one timeline, up to four, maybe even five times at the same time? It's like Todd ran out of plague stories to write so he decided he wanted to write time travel SF instead. This resulted in really confusing plots figuring out who what where and when, and sometimes even why, oh, and some characters can see the future to make things even more time-addled.
Then there's Fiona and her obsession of having the entire Weyr in her bed. Sure, she's not having sexual intercourse with *everyone*...just almost everyone. I know the Weyrs are very open sexually, given that they have to live with the passions of the dragons around them. But seriously, that whole foursome with T'mar unconcious, Kindan + Lorana flying T'mar's dragon during Fiona's queen's mating flight was just...really, really weird. Oh, and then that poor bronze had to fly another TWO mating flights one right after another while just so T'mar can recover from his concussion...WHAT?? Dragon sex to heal a brain injury? Well that's not kinky at all. And keep in mind Kindan and Lorana are a couple, and then T'mar hooks up with the Telgar headwoman while he's still the Weyrleader to Fiona's Weyrwoman and...then everyone gets pregnant and Fiona has twins, one for each male she "mated" with...and argh. Also remember half the female characters in these stories are like 10 years old so most are having sex at 13. I know this is a kind of feudal world but really, ALL the main characters are underage to start with. It does get a little icky when you think about it. And what's with the flood of super mature pre-teens? Do you really want a 10 year old as your midwife, even if her mother trained her well?
And by the last book the dragons are living in trees, and flying in low orbit on a regular basis. Anne supposedly worked on many of these books with her son but I can't imagine how she let her son go ahead and break EVERY SINGLE RULE about how dragons work. In fact if anything, it seemed like Todd was determined to do a first everything, first female blue rider, first visit by a dragon to the Dawn Sisters, first Weyr in a tree, first dragon plague, first case of multiple people bonding with a dragon during a mating flight, first human-to-human dragon-like telepathic contact, youngest ever headwoman, youngest ever Weyrwoman, youngest ever healer (why the obsession around young girls *cough* kinda uncomfortable coming from a male writer)...ugh. It's like he had to outdo himself in the "first" and/or "youngest" with every book he wrote.
The only positive I'm left with now having read to the very end of the Todd books is that he really maintained his mother's writing style, it still felt like Pern even if the plots were absurd. And he still maintained the overall optimism and positivity that Anne put into her original books. There's no really bad person, just misguided ones, and the enemy is a force of nature, there's no real evil here. In a time period of grimdark fantasy and depressing SF, Pern still comes as a welcome breath of hope for the future.
But honestly, because the Todd books are in their own time period and in fact not only don't add to the overall Pern lore but messes it up, you can just avoid them. Stop at The Skies of Pern and you won't be missing anything. If I hadn't bought all the books in naive hope they would be good when they first came out, I doubt even I, an obsessive series completer would have finished them. I'm a book hoarder, so it says something that I decided to give these books away. I have a complete Pern set and I'm willing to break it up because really, I shouldn't waste more time of my life re-reading these, once was enough.
And thus I tremble in fear of Gigi's newest book that came out end of this year, Dragon's Code...she's even overlapping Anne's core timeline that has already been very well covered by her mother. I can't imagine anything good will come from revisting Masterhaper Robinton and Piemur, if feels like that will be a HUGE mistake on her part not to pick another Pass or something in the future. Anyway, I'm not buying that book, maybe if the library picks it up (which I'm wondering is a sign that it hasn't while it has picked up books that came out two months later!) It has the potential to mess with the core Pern even worse than the damage Todd did in his personal Pass.
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