Dragonflight / Dragonquest

Pern (Chronological Order) #16-17

by Anne McCaffrey

Award-winning author Anne McCaffrey introduced us to the world of Pern nearly 30 years ago, and her books continue to thrill readers to this day. Pern is a world filled with powerful dragons, deadly parasites, and musicians whose prophetic songs bear warning of an uncertain future. For a limited time only, take advantage of this exciting opportunity: buy Dragonquest and get Dragonflight for free! Dragonflight: After ten long turns, Lessa was ready to come out of hiding, to reclaim herb birthright...and to Impress the young dragon queen and become Weyrwoman of Benden Suddenly the deadly silver Thread once again threatened all Pern with destruction. But the mighty telepathic dragons that for centuries had defended Pern were now few in number, not nearly enough to protect the planet in its hour of greatest peril. So Lessa hatched a daring and dangerous scheme: Rally support from people who had long ago ceased to exist... Dragonquest: Another Turn, and the deadly silver Threads began falling again. So the bold dragonriders took to the air once more and their magnificent flying dragons swirled and swooped, belching flames that destroyed the shimmering strands before they reached the ground. But F'lar knew he had to find a better way to protect his beloved Pern, and he had to find it before the rebellious Oldtimers could breed any more dissent...before his brother F'nor would be foolhardy enough to launch another suicide mission...and before those dratted fire-lizards could stir up any more trouble!

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dragons, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Young Adult, High Fantasy

320 pages, Unbound

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (Best Novella, Weyr Search, 1968) and the first to win a Nebula Award (Best Novella, Dragonrider, 1969). Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.
In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction. She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on 17 June 2006. She also received the Robert A. Heinlein Award for her work in 2007.

Reviews

[Mariah Tessin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just to set the record straight I have reread Anne McCaffrey's dragon books many many times. I loved them as a teenager and love them as an adult. My daughter has even read many of these books as well. If I would have never read these books I would have never known about dragons. McCaffrey's book have set the way I compare all other dragon books I have read. They may be good, but don't come close to the world of Pern.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Dragonquest, Anne MacCaffrey brings readers in to a wonderful, exciting, and fun-to-imagine world of men and dragons. It's a fairly quick read, and any one who read Dragonflight and liked it will love this book. It's a classic fantasy published in 1978, and it's one of the first dragon rider novels ever.

With a good mix of action, politics, and romance, Dragonquest is easily a page turner. There's a lot of characters, and readers get to know each one pretty well- and they're all different. Some of the best characters are dragons. While often disagreeing, they all ultimately struggle against the same foe: attacks from an organic-material-killing space rain they call "thread". The constant threat gives their world a sense of danger, unity, and responsibility.

While this book is fantastically written, readers should be warned of its some what extreme vocabulary. Atypical to fantasy novels, high schoolers and middle schoolers may run in to many words they don't know. I'm a senior in high school myself, and was surprised to find many of my classes vocabulary words with in, as well as some words I hadn't heard of such as "protuberance" or "decrepitude".

I definitely loved this book. The story, characters, setting, and action are all great. This is for readers who want a fun read, and an extremely original world of magic and adventure. This is not for readers who struggle with language, or are looking for something symbolic or profound. While great, it's still just a fantasy novel. As that's right up my alley, I recommend it fully.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of its good. Except for the non consensual sex. And that’s by the heroes. Then the women fall in love with then.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long review. Very long.

Dragonriders  of Pern
Dragonflight/ Dragonquest/ The White Dragon
Anne McCaffrey

A classic trilogy that uniquely blends science fiction and fantasy. I've never read anything quite like it and I'm wondering why Hollywood hasn't picked up on them. Well, I say that, but I suspect the real reason is that adapting original work is too hard for them anymore. Also, these books aren't structured in the way that film series have become settled on in recent years. The main character of the first book isn't the same as the main character of the third book and the primary antagonist is a scientific phenomenon that, is indicated, will never be be defeated. Yet, trilogy it remains as the story rolls and flows with the way the characters are affected by the cosmic threat in a concert of world building and the drama of the lives of the people thereon. Instead of a firm, overarching plot, it has more of a supple, overarching theme of a civilization losing valuable knowledge of their past, their struggle of reconnecting with that past without losing the progress that they've made, and balancing those dynamics to protect the future with both a firm grounding in their historical achievements and continued innovation of technology and improvement on cultural norms.
The peculiar union of scifi and fantasy could also complicate visual storytelling. The base premise is that a group of human space explorers settled on Pern. Shortly thereafter they noticed that another planet in the system would rain down deadly spores they dubbed "Thread" in predictable patterns that would destroy all organic matter. In adapting to the threat they bred native creatures, fire lizards, into large dragons that could be tactically flown during a Thread attack while the fire they breathe irradicates the spore. The fantasy aspect lies with the relationship between dragon and rider as they are telepathically linked as well as becoming physically and emotionally symbiotic. This leads to what would surely be cinematically frowned upon these days in what amounts to arranged marriages between the riders of mating dragons, as they helplessly succumb to the passions of their beasts with each other. I've seen some women refer to the romantic relationships in the books as "rapey" but these books were written by a woman so some of her own fancies and fantasies are embedded in the stories. I bet the same naysayers liked the 50 Shades trilogy. All I'm saying is that women's sensual imaginings aren't necessarily P.C. or feminist approved whether the world wants to admit it or not. But I'd still say the books lean more towards scifi because even for the dragons to breathe fire, they need to be fed a particular stones and can be used for instantaneously transporting over distances and through time. Anyway, back to the story... there will be some spoilers because it's hard to describe the books as a set without them.
The first book, Dragonflight, is the story of Lessa. Pern is coming to the end of a centuries-long interval during which there's been no threadfall due to the movements of the planets and has become akin to a civilization that's lost its faith. Most no longer believe that Thread will ever fall again and that the Dragonriders that they've been supporting financially are nothing but a useless burden on their supplies. The Dragonriders themselves have dwindled in numbers down to one weyr and have become complacent in training and vigilance, also supposing the Thread to be mostly a non-issue. All except for one Rider, F'lar, who has applied himself to studying the movement of the Red Star, the planet where Thread originates. Knowing that it will pass by again soon, he is determined to become the new leader in order to properly prepare. Leaders are determined by whose bronze dragon captures a golden queen dragon during her mating flight. So in search for a woman to bond with a newly hatched queen that his bronze, Mnementh, will one day fly, he finds a likely candidate in Lessa, who is a lowly drudge in an impoverished land hold. Her story embodies the themes of past vs. future and tradition vs. progression. She comes from an old bloodline entitled to power in her hold and she possesses the strength and drive of that line, born to lead and gifted with the rare ability to communicate with all dragon kind. After her dragon, Ramoth, is impressed on her, she bucks the latter-day traditions that have been set up in the weyr to protect the few queens and their shrinking population. She learns to fly on Ramoth even though it's not allowed. She travels "between" with her, which transports them instantaneously from place to place throughout Pern. And in doing so, it's she that discovers that dragons can travel in time as well as across distances. Only wanting to take back her own hold one day, she ends up being critical in saving the planet from the devastation of the falling spores. As hard as F'lar works over the years to prepare to fight the Thread, there's just not enough dragons or riders after all the years of neglect. Making progress with one flying, fighting queen is meaningless against such odds. So Lessa takes the daring and dangerous mission upon herself to travel back four-hundred turns (years) to when the weyrs were full and bring the Dragonriders of the past forward to help canvass the northern continent and protect the land holds from Thread. Lessa's dragon flight becomes the stuff of legends and the Master Harper is quick to set her story to song. It's a great start. And fun fact: this book is composed of two novellas that McCaffrey had published in Analog Science Fiction the year prior to its publication.
The second book, Dragonquest, is my favorite, I think. The honeymoon is soon over with the Oldtimers that Lessa brought back from the past as the book begins with the difficulties brought about by the resulting culture shock. Their arrival had its advantages. They boosted their numbers and brought invaluable experience to the generations that had never seen Thread. But society was ordered differently in their day. They begin to bully and oppress the people of the lands in their care, not taking into account that the land holds and craft halls had moved on over the centuries becoming independent of the weyrs, relaxing and freeing up the feudalistic economy a little. This book is centered on F'lar and the overwhelming task of protecting the population not just from Thread, but the outdated attitudes of the Oldtimers. To complicate matters, the Thread begins to fall in irregular, unpredictable patterns. It's at this point they start to learn how much past knowledge they've really lost. Upon discovering information and technologies belonging the ancient humans that first settled Pern, the past and present are put at odds again. Those in the present become just as resistant to changing their closed society to avoid the lack of communication that is impeding their ability to survive as the Oldtimers are to changing their traditional views of order in the land. F'lar has a full plate sorting all of this out. Also introduced in this book are the fire lizards which still exist on the southern continent, thought to be barren, that was only rediscovered and partially taken advantage of in the second half of the first book. The lizards' behaviors and impressions they make on their humans challenge coupling rituals that the weyrs had so strictly followed thus far. It's explored in the relationship of F'lar's half brother F'nor and Brekke. Their romance has a touch of the unrequited to it, which is what I like. I think F'nor is my favorite character. To be honest, both Lessa and F'lar are wound a little tight for me at times. And his brown dragon, Canth is also my favorite dragon. F'nor seems more secure with himself with no chip on his shoulder even though he doesn't have the same leadership pressures on him as F'lar. Likewise, Canth has no doubts or hesitations of his ability to out fly bronze dragons to capture Brekke's queen but not in an arrogant or boastful manner. They also show no fear when deciding that they are capable of traveling between to the Red Star itself when the tensions between the weyrs and holds reach their pique. The trust they have in one another without the need to agonize over every decision before taking action makes them a breath of fresh air. Although, I do sympathize with F'lar's obligation to exhaust all diplomatic solutions before finally fighting the leader of the Oldtimers and banishing him and all those aligned with him to the southern continent. This book brings closure to the main plot begun in the first book, confirming that Thread will always be a part of Pern and that plans would need to be made against the next extended interval to avoid losing their knowledge and forgetting the danger. The first two books actually make a pretty complete couplet.
To say that the third book, The White Dragon, is a let-down would be way too harsh. But it does seem a little disconnected from the first two. In the first book when Lessa realizes her destiny lies in the weyrs with her dragon, she cedes her claim to power in her land hold to another of the old bloodline, Jaxom, who was just born at the beginning of the story. His character is never forgotten and the beginning of his arc as a protagonist begins at the end of the second book when he impresses a dragon from an underdeveloped egg that would normally be left to die because it didn't have the strength to break its shell. Being groomed to be a Lord Holder one day, this puts him on the wrong side of everyone. But the blurb on the back cover makes his struggles sound more intense than what they actually end up being. He broke the rules by impressing the dragon but he's allowed to keep him after some good natured debate. The rest of his childhood is firmly controlled by his guardian and nurse, until he asserts his status of adulthood and he's given more freedom without much resistance. He learns about flying and going between without formal permission, but once he's caught there's no harsh repercussions for him to deal with and he's allowed to train as a dragon rider to fight Thread in a limited capacity. There's lamenting of his teenage recklessness, but usually with an underlying grin for the rascally young man. There's no problem with any of this except the most heroic thing he does at the beginning of the book - a deed that prevents an altercation between Benden Weyr and the Oldtimers in the south - is done in secret, never being officially acknowledged. And when most people figure it out, nothing is really said about it and he receives no accolades. Nor does he get much credit for important discoveries at the end of the book. To come full circle, in the same way Lessa realizes her destiny lies in the Weyr, Jaxom realizes his duty is to his land hold and finally returns to take his place as Lord. His story is fun and exciting, but also a little underwhelming. The fire lizards have more conflict to deal with than him, falling out of favor early on after the resurgence of friction from the aging Oldtimers. The fire lizards and their capability of ancestral memory is one of several other things that I loved much more than Jaxom's story that were just secondary elements in this one. I loved the Ruth, the runt, white dragon. He was deeply complex, was not useless as a dragon even though he was undersized, and had a unique relationship with the fire lizards. He always knew "when" he was when traveling between. And even though all of this is covered, it seemed incomplete and left me wanting more. Along with the latest discoveries made with the ancient's technology. They find that a grouping of stars in the sky are the ships that the original humans came in, still in orbit. And at the end, with Jaxom's impulsive and under-appreciated help, they find the location of the ancient's original settlement on the southern continent. It's such a tantalizing and frustrating tease. Will they learn everything about their ancestors? Will they travel to the ships? What other surprises lay in store? Also, will they now encourage the hatching and impression of diminutive eggs now that they've seen how special Ruth is? I'm more interested in that than the fact that Ruth had no proclivity to mate because of his size. But I suppose these threads (no pun intended) are picked up on in other installments or series; there are many entries in the Pern universe. The Harper Hall series overlaps with this one bringing in Menolly and Piemur as Jaxom's friends who assist him in his adventures. The storylines concerning the contentions between the Oldtimers and the Weyrs as well as F'lar's plans for the Dragonriders' retirement during the next long interval were wrapped up neatly in the background, spread out over the whole book since there wasn't quite enough content to fill it alone.
But overall, I have no complaints. This is a big, rich trilogy full of characters and situations that I haven't even had a chance to touch on. For as long as this review and my synopses are, there are still so many details I've had to leave out. So much great world building. Such detailed character development. So original. I can't recommend it enough for fans of dragons and light science fiction.

[The Batman (Reagan) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, the fantastic original story, and the world it took place in a lot. The dragons are cool, and the 'Threads' are a good plot device.
However, author Anne McCafferey fell into the Fantasy trope of using clunky, unpronouncable names as a means of being original. Except for Lessa, the protagonist, everyone's names ate littered with awkward apostrophes and too many syllables for the tongue to trip over. For some reason, my least favorite was definitely not the worst offender but it annoyed me to no end. Behold the awkwardness that is F'nor. What is that? Is it supposed to sound like 'fuh-nor' or rhyme with 'snore'?
Also, (and perhaps this was just the compiled version I read) there weren't any natural breaking points except for the title page between books; No chapters, little to no separation of paragraphs, nothing. This made it difficult to keep track of my place. (I always forget to use a bookmark, so maybe that's my fault. But then again, books should come with cloth bookmarks by default. Right?)
Sorry that this became a rant on everything but the book itself, but hopefully I made my point clear.

[Tarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book in this set is great! It's the entry to this series and is interesting and exciting. The second book is a huge "pass."

Dragonquest reads like a book of interconnected short stories with no clear transition between stories. This wouldn't normally be a problem but it's incredibly boring in parts, not offset by the few exciting or interesting stories. There's no clear main character, though there are important ones. We seem to be looking through a thick pane of old glass at those characters, the details there to make out but only if you find the right angle.

[Elise Mullette · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would not recommend this book! I love books with dragons, but the author did not do a very good job with it. The concept was intriguing, but the characters were under-developed, the plot under-explained and the point vague.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is for Dragonflight, book 1 in the Dragon Riders of Pern series. My Dad recommended this series to me, and I’m so glad he did! McCaffrey masterfully weaves fantasy and science fiction together as she introduces the reader to an otherworldly society of dragons, humans, and the females of both species who demand - and then command - the respect and admiration of all. McCaffrey’s writing style took some getting used to for this reader of mostly modern YA fiction - but it was well worth the effort!

[A.M. Geever · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books are among my favorites. My mom bought me the three book box set when I was about thirteen. The first book was a little slow and I might not have stuck with it but my mom had bought these books, and they were kind of expensive, and I am so glad that I did. Her imagination is wonderful, the characterizations of both people and dragons are wonderful, and the the mystery (and threat) of Thread exciting.

[Sharon Hughson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of science fiction to ride with these dragons. I’m not sure why I never read these books before, but I’ enjoying meeting the dragons and riders of Pern and learning about this well-drawn world from the pen of a master.
The omniscient narration feels too much like head-hopping to me, and at times it changes the perspective changes mid-scene giving me whiplash, but I’m still engaging with these character.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The science and fantasy parts are great.

The rape is not. Then for some reason the girl falls in love with him anyway. I don't care that there's some sort of weird dragon telepathy connection thing, rape is rape and it kept me from reading any of the other books in the series. I almost didn't finish this one, but the person who recommended it loved it so much that I did finish.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is not about the books, although I have to admit having read them again now I see how limited females were by what is considered strong in these books.

My review is Adrienne's reading. Yikes. She has a lovely pleasant tone, but it feels like a foot race. She needed to pause, let us feel the book. I'm hyperventilating to keep up. Nope.

[B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great books, great writer, great story. A classic fantasy series. If you like dragons, fantasy and sci-fi you should read these books about the planet Pern, its human inhabitants, dragons and dolphins.

[Priscilla Sage · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an excellent read. Anne McCaffrey is one of the best fantasy writers. I would recommend reading all her books.

[Neville Christensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable

[Katie Ruhl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please, do yourself a favor and read this entire series. It's one of the few things I enjoyed when I was young that is still as relevant and enjoyable as an adult. That's so rare, read it!

[Abraham Goldblatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anne McCaffrey was a wonderful author. It is a true shame that she is no longer with us. Her words will continue to fly in our hearts.

[Tim Dundorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pern is a marvelos world inhabitated by striking characters. Anne McCaffery has such marvelous diction.

[Mellanie C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series.

[Marcyjo Chachakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the world of Pern and the wonderful dragons and dragon riders who inhabit it. Makes me wish I could impress on a dragon

[Luther · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorites.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! It doesn't get any better! I love this author!
Fascinating story! Outstanding writing!

[Melinda Stinchfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A favorite, I've read a bunch of times. Re-reading is like visiting old friends.

[Jessica Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this series of books. Engaging story about a fantastical world. Creative way to intertwine the minds and lives of rider and dragon. Re-readable

[Deborah Lorich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this series so much this is a reread for I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this series.

[Gary Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

well it is the start to one of my big 5 series so i love it.

[David Yaede]

Steven C

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not my cup of tea. Very expository

[Kathleen Oaks]

loved all the pern books

[Corey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read the audiobook version performed by Adrienne Barbeau, who is a wonderful actor but a horrible narrator who speaks too fast.