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The Twin Souls #2

Cloud Conqueror

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Captain Richard Ford is given command of the first royal airship, Spite. Her to destroy the King's enemies, particularly dragons and wyverns. His Crown Prince Nestor. How can Ford survive the "King's brat?" If you love airships, magic, meddlesome gods , you'll love Cloud Conqueror. Get it today!

153 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 19, 2018

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About the author

Todd McCaffrey

111 books533 followers
Todd J. McCaffrey (born as Todd Johnson) is an Irish American author of science fiction best known for continuing the Dragonriders of Pern series in collaboration with his mother Anne McCaffrey.


Todd Johnson was born 27 April 1956 in Montclair, New Jersey as the second son and middle child of Horace Wright Johnson (deceased 2009), who worked for DuPont, and Anne McCaffrey (deceased 2011), who had her second short story published that year. He has two siblings: Alec Anthony, born 1952, and Georgeanne ("Gigi", Georgeanne Kennedy), born 1959.

Except for a six-month DuPont transfer to Dusseldorf, Germany, the family lived most of a decade in Wilmington, Delaware, until a 1965 transfer to New York City when they moved to Sea Cliff, Long Island. All three children were then in school and Anne McCaffrey became a full-time author, primarily writing science fiction. About that time, Todd became the first of the children to read science fiction, the Space Cat series by Ruthven Todd. He attended his first science fiction convention in 1968, Lunacon in New York City.

Soon after the move, Todd was directed to lower his voice as an actor in the fourth-grade school play, with his mother in the auditorium. That was the inspiration for Decision at Doona (1969) which she dedicated "To Todd Johnson—of course!" The story is set on "an overcrowded planet where just talking too loud made you a social outcast".

Anne McCaffrey divorced in 1970 and emigrated to Ireland with her two younger children, soon joined by her mother. During Todd's school years the family moved several times in the vicinity of Dublin and struggled to make ends meet, supported largely by child care payments and meager royalties.

Todd finished secondary education in Ireland and returned to the United States in 1974 for a summer job before matriculation at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He studied engineering physics and discovered computers but remained only one year. Back in Dublin he earned a Mechanical Engineering degree at the College of Technology (Bolton Street). Later he earned a Politics degree at Trinity College, Dublin.

Before Trinity College, Todd Johnson served in the United States Army 1978–82, stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, and determining to pursue civilian life. After Trinity he returned to the US hoping to work in the aerospace industry but found employment in computer programming beginning 1986.

He earned a pilot's license in 1988 and spent a lot of time flying, including solo trips across North America in 1989 and 1990. Meanwhile he sold his first writings and contributed "Training and Fighting Dragons" to the 1989 Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, using his military and flight experience. Next year he quit his job to write full-time and in 1992 he attended the Clarion Workshop for new science fiction and fantasy writers.

Writing under the name Todd Johnson until 1997/98 he specialized in military science fiction, contributing one story each to several collective works

As a boy, Todd accompanied his mother to her meetings with writers, editors, publishers, and agents; and had attended conventions from age 12.

He was exposed to Pern before its beginning: soon after the move to Long Island when he was nine, his mother asked him what he thought of dragons; she was brainstorming about their "bad press all these years".

The result was a "technologically regressed survival planet" whose people were united against a threat from space, in contrast to America divided by the Vietnam War. "The dragons became the biologically renewable air force."
About thirty years later, Todd McCaffrey recalls,

"the editor at Del Rey asked me to write a "sort of scrapbook" about Mum partly to prevent Mum from writing her autobiography instead of more Pern books. That was Dragonholder [1999].

The editor had also pitched it to me that someone ought to continue Mum's legacy when she was no longer able. At the time I had misgivings and no stor

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5 stars
73 (37%)
4 stars
58 (29%)
3 stars
49 (25%)
2 stars
14 (7%)
1 star
2 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Kara.
303 reviews14 followers
April 13, 2021
This book rolls back to the sky ship on the day the wyvern is shot down in the first book. Following the captain, the mage and his crew with the Prince as the spite is launched for the first time. On the maiden flight both a dragon and a wyvern are spotted and the Prince orders the captain to follow and shoot one or both down with him taking the credit when the wyvern is shot. But on the ground they can't find the body of it. Instead they find the body of a woman buried in a large patch of wyvern flowers with the same injuries that the shot down wyvern should have.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Bruce Dinsman.
1,510 reviews3 followers
September 25, 2024
okay I’m liking this

Same story from a different perspective moving the story forward. By the way does anybody else hate this prince? I’m waiting for the King to step on him.
Profile Image for Dale Russell.
441 reviews8 followers
March 2, 2019
Captain Ford of the ship...NO...the AIRSHIP Spite is ready for its first true test flight. A run out to the coast and back. Uneventful. Just a simple shake down spin. Of course, the fact that the extremely spoiled and obnoxious Crown Prince Nestor is along for the ride means it's far from simple. Be that as it may, the flight is going as planned, everything ticking along as it should.

But then, the true function of the new airship is to be tested as the sighting of a wyvern and dragon rising among the clouds and the crew spring into action.

An air battle...death among the clouds...the magic of Twin Souls...and fall and rise of a legendary creature. All of these are wonderfully interwoven and crafted into the second book of the Twin Soul Series in what co-writers Todd McCaffrey and Brit and Brianna Winner call a "sidequel" to the first book in the series WINTER WYVERN. While the second in the series, this book can be read in parallel with the first and, in fact, could be read first without confusing the reader or giving away the story.

This is an amazingly well written story that I am expecting will entertain you and have you rushing to your local book dealer in an effort to continue the story and find out "What Happens Next?"
Profile Image for Theresa.
8,261 reviews133 followers
January 16, 2019
Cloud Conqueror (Twin Soul Series Book 2)
by McCaffrey-Winner
This is a great edition to the Mccaffrey bibliography, I found that this new series is just as appealing as many other stories produced by Todd Mccaffrey. The idea is the next step in the Wyvern series, how do people protect themselves from the magic of dragons. The conquest of the skies starts with gaining access to the air. Using a wizard of hot and cold, the kingdom has begun to ascend into the air. It's only the start of the problem. On the maiden test flight, the ship is required to take the young heir to the throne. He is wanting to prove himself. Now we have a problem. The political nature of problem only heightens the problems of a magical world. The death of the wyvern is only the start of the mystery. This book sets up the reader to read father into this very imaginative detailed world, it draws the reader into a world of magic, dragons, and all the politics of royalty.
14 reviews
August 6, 2022
Cloud Conqueror mania

This book is a great overlap of the first book in the series. It fills in a lot of background. We did not really miss it in the first book, but it really helps complete this story.
Author 57 books8 followers
March 3, 2021
Book two brought surprises. Pages sequential with book one, and a back story to book one. Here's hoping the rest are as interesting.

Bobbie Kaald
Profile Image for Heather.
1,170 reviews
May 23, 2021
This reads like anime. It's like the characters are all just yelling at each other the whole time and there's no world building or scene description.
321 reviews
June 18, 2021
Interesting story

I like the story. I like the characters. I like the writing. Individual books are like chapters though. It will take patience to read the whole series.
Profile Image for Wendy Brandibur.
8 reviews3 followers
July 13, 2021
More information revealed!

This just gets better and better with you seeing the other side of what was going on in the first book. On to the next!
222 reviews
June 16, 2022
Now this is part of the omnibus edition, books 1-5, it makes them worth reading
16 reviews
October 18, 2022
Interested reading

Good pace well written reels you in and keeps you interested makes you want to read more so read on
Profile Image for Millie.
117 reviews1 follower
March 27, 2025
Too Confusing???

Sorry. I love Pern but these stories just made me too confused to get into them. Could not find a character that I really enjoyed. Not continuing this series.
415 reviews
August 9, 2024
meh

I’m going to persevere. I want to get through my own dislike of Todd McCaffery and read this set of books.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews

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