DragonFlight

by Anne McCaffrey

Other authorsMichael Whelan (Artist)

1985

Status

Available

Publication

Ballantine Books (1985), 303 pages

Description

Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML:Volume I of The Dragonriders of Pern®, the groundbreaking series by master storyteller Anne McCaffrey On a beautiful world called Pern, an ancient way of life is about to come under attack from a myth that is all too real. Lessa is an outcast survivor�??her parents murdered, her birthright stolen�??a strong young woman who has never stopped dreaming of revenge. But when an ancient threat to Pern reemerges, Lessa will rise�??upon the back of a great dragon with whom she shares a telepathic bond more intimate than any human connection. Together, dragon and rider will fly . . . and Pern will be chang

User reviews

LibraryThing member fyrefly98

Summary: The Dragonriders of Pern protect their planet from the ecological disaster of invading Threads, whose coming is predicted by the red star. But there hasn't been a Threadfall in centuries, and the dragonweyrs are mostly empty, with most common people believing that the Threads are gone for

good. Only the riders of Benden Weyr keep the old traditions, and that includes a search for a girl to become Weyrwoman, and form a psychic bond with the newly-hatched queen dragon. Rider F'lar believes he has found a suitable candidate in Lessa, a serving girl who bears the last of a noble bloodline. Once Lessa Impresses the queen dragon, and her dragon mates with F'lar's dragon, he becomes Weyrleader, but Lessa has a mind of her own… and both of them will be needed in order to face the threat of imminent Threadfall.

Review: Errrrm, I don't know about this one, y'all. I mean, yes, this is a classic, and yes, it is referenced all the time, and yes, it's a product of its times and shouldn't necessarily be judged by today's social norms and all, but: damn. This is a prime example of an otherwise interesting world and engaging story being almost ruined for me by the super-gross gender politics involved.

I mean, okay. The dragons? Are awesome. And I totally see the seeds of later telepathic and vaguely snarky dragons being planted by this story. I totally get why Mori from Among Others spends so much time wanting to Impress a dragon. The world is also interesting. I found bits of it vaguely cliché (probably unfairly, since this came before most of what I'm comparing it to), and McCaffrey's method of leaving some details of her worldbuilding unexplained didn't always sit entirely well with me, but it eventually all made sense, and it all worked in service of the story, which was cool, internally consistent, and went in some directions that I wasn't expecting.

But. BUT. The gender politics. Like, there's this whole system in which girls are basically kidnapped from their homes to try to Impress the Queen, and then not really allowed to do anything once they do become Weyrwoman, and then it's assumed that whichever male dragon their dragon mates with, they will have sex with that dragon's rider, (ostensibly because their telepathically-linked dragon sexy-time emotions are too strong to be resisted?) and essentially become his concubine. Gross! And worse, this is the way it is, with no indication that anybody sees anything much wrong with the system. I honestly didn't realize until almost halfway through that we were supposed to see F'lar as a protagonist and not a villain. He is arrogant, he's rude, he's calculating, and he's not particularly nice to Lessa most of the time, alternating between condescending to her, ignoring her, and shaking her senseless for disobeying his orders. Well, all that, plus this:

"He caught her arm and felt her body tense. He set his teeth, and wishing, as he had a hundred times since Remoth rose in her first mating flight, that Lessa had not been virgin too. He had not thought to control his dragon-incited emotions, and Lessa's first sexual experience had been violent. It had surprised him to be first, considering that her adolescent years had been spent drudging for lascivious warders and soldier types. Evidently, no one had bothered to penetrate the curtain of rags and the coat of filth she had carefully maintained as a disguise. He had been a considerate and gentle bedmate ever since, but, unless Remoth and Nementh were involved, he might as well call it rape. Yet he knew, someday, somehow, he would coax her into responding wholeheartedly to his lovemaking. He had a certain pride in his skill, and he was in a position to persevere." --from time point 5:00:15

(My notes from this point say: SUPER GROSS AND RAPEY, DUDE. Which: yeah. And this is the hero! We're supposed to be rooting for him!)

Lessa herself is pretty awesome, except when she's anxiously trying to win F'lar's approval (or not get shaken.) I would have liked the book a lot better if the backbone she clearly has was on display the whole time. The story itself is quite good, and there are times when the gross gender issues are pushed to the background, but they were never entirely out of my head, which didn't exactly ruin the book, but did definitely make it less enjoyable than it could have been. 3 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I understand why it's considered a classic of SF/F, and there are a lot of really good elements to the world and the story and some of the characters. I found the gender politics pretty off-putting, but if you're able to treat them as a regrettable product of their time, there's a good story underneath. I'm not in a big hurry to read the next book in the series, though.

Show Less

24 more

LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C

This is often seen on lists of must-read fantasies, but it's really science-fiction (albeit with a fantasy feel). Pern is a lost colony of Earth. Dragons were bread from a species native to that planet--and are the natural enemy of the "spores" that periodically cause havoc.

This is an influential

book--you can see the similarities in other books, not just ones also featuring dragons, but ones that also feature close human/creature bonds, such as Lackey's novels featuring horse-like companions. Lessa is a strong and memorable heroine, and other characters in this book are just as appealing (particularly the Masterharper Robinton).

This is one of those books that was in my permanent library until it literally fell apart in repeated readings. I do think at a certain point the series (there are about 20 books) lost its verve, even before her son began writing many of them, and I no longer pick up the new ones--but certainly the first three in the Dragonriders of Pern and Harper Hall series are enchanting and come to a satisfying resolution even if you don't hunt up more.

Show Less

LibraryThing member RussianLoveMachine

Somehow my middle-school self missed the appallingly misogynistic aspects of this book. I get that the book is a product of its time, but a hero who is constantly shaking the heroine, to the point where she's actively afraid of provoking that reaction, is not okay. The worldbuilding is incredible,

and later books in the series seem to be somewhat less problematic, but this one is about as sexist as its pulp-style cover implies.

For awesome dragons without the sexist aftertaste, try Naomi Novik's Temeraire series.

Show Less

LibraryThing member apatt

I read a few Pern books in my teen, I thought they were readable but at the time I was not all that taken with them. At that age I was not too discerning, I cared nothing for characterization, dialogue or prose. I read only for fun and escapism, not for the artistry of the works. Well, I am way out

of my teen now, and I have cultivated an appreciation finesse to compensate for my own deficiency in that department.

Since her recent passing tributes have been pouring in for Anne McCaffrey from numerous quarters, including major sf/f writers including Neil Gaiman, David Brin, Lev Grossman, and Vonda McIntyre. These tributes reminded that I never really gave Anne McCaffrey's books a fair chance. Now is as good a time as any to start exploring them in earnest.

When I first heard about this series decades ago the idea of fighting threads did not fill me with enthusiasm, I mean fighting threads? May as well fight balls of yarn! I thought. Ah, but then there are threads and there are Threads, these things are more menacing than I ever gave them any credit for. They are basically mindless, true, but so are zombies and the threads are even more deadly. They burn and they burrow and they are of course relentless

This is not a YA book, it is not action packed, those looking for heart pounding scenes of dragon conflagration are not likely to be satisfied. The major strength and enduring popularity of this book - and I imagine the entire series - is the immersiveness of Pern. The slower chapters depicting day to life on Pern is what makes the world realistic, after all life is not full of nonstop action on a daily basis. The author wants you to live with her characters not go on missions with them. That said she really makes you wait for the threads to make an appearance though!

This is also not a fantasy book, not in the sense that Lord of the Rings or The Wheel of Time are. Anne herself has always been adamant that she is a science fiction author, no disrespect to the wonderful fantasy genre of course, but she deliberately backed the Pern fantasy tropes of dragons and medieval life with science. Pern is a planet, the dragons are genetically engineered and the lack of technology is due to some event that caused a fall of technological civilization. So no magic, no elves, no unicorns and no Dark Lord with a funny name (thank gawd!). The author's meticulous attention to details is awe inspiring.

Anne's prose style is - as her legions of fans would attest - is beautiful, clean, clear, concise and literary. The main characters are skillfully fleshed out, unfortunately my one complaint is that the protagonist Lessa is unrelentingly ill-tempered and willful to the point of being a pain in the posterior. I am looking forward to many more visits to Pern.

"That was well flown, I say. Well flown".
RIP Anne.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Girl_Detective

Loved it as a teen. Found it sexist and cliche-ridden as an adult.

LibraryThing member Ailinel

The first novel in McCaffrey's popular, long-lived, and prolific series, Dragonflight dances along the edge between science fiction and fantasy. The story opens on a colony world where dangerous thread fall (deadly spores) from a sister planet long ago isolated the colonists from Earth. Over time

they lost much of their technology, excepting the dragons long ago engineered to connect to humans who have a slight telepathic ability and fight Thread. In the novel's time much of history has become vague legend or lost entirely, and the world Pern has become a feudal society.

Four hundred years have passed since Thread scorched the land, and dragonriders have become a small group, detested by Holders and viewed as a useless relic of a bygone age. Dragonrider F'lar is certain that Thread is about to fall once more, and the dragon riders are ill prepared. Less, a girl who spent the past decade engineering the death of the man who murdered her family, no sooner executes her revenge than she is taken as a potential dragon rider for the new queen. With the secret ability to hear all dragons, recklessness, fearlessness, and a desperate need to control her own fate, she will be the catalyst through which the future of Pern will be decided.

The story is enthralling and its characters vivid. One small point of contention for me lies in the relationship between Less and F'lar. I found the way it developed difficult to believe, and felt the dichotomy of their relationship flip-flopped without any real reasoning. On a personal note, I was uncomfortable with and disturbed by the gender politics and with dragonriders' sexual practices, particularly that they were forced into a mental 'heat' when their dragons mated and regularly slept with other riders when they were unable to give clear-minded consent. One character almost manages to admit to himself (almost, as he determines dragons being involved changed the situation) that he had raped a young woman.

Show Less

LibraryThing member melydia

Lessa is a young girl who bonds with a queen dragon and joins the dragonriders to fight the Threads, a vague enemy which sounds more like a natural disaster than anything. I’ve read a lot of fantasy in my day, but this was my first visit to Pern, and I spent much of the time wondering how in the

world so many books managed to be written in this series. The characters are shallow and not especially likable, the names are all spelled with apostrophes (ugh!), the writing was awkward and flowery, and the paradoxes brought on by time travel were frankly tiresome. I guess if I had some kind of existing affinity for dragons I would have been more drawn in, but I don’t. I sincerely doubt I’ll be reading anything else set in Pern.

Show Less

LibraryThing member MarthaJeanne

I was asked how this holds up:

I want to lend the first two trilogies to a friend when I see her next month. Of course I want to reread them first. It will be interesting to hear her reaction, as she is probably in her late twenties. A big dragon fan, but upset at how often dragons are portrayed

negatively.

1969, well, it holds up better than most SF from that era. I probably started reading them in the 1990s. (My copy was printed in 1987.) It was not the sense I had when rereading Dune (1965) or Foundation (1951) of 'Did I really think was so wonderful?' (My husband just had a similar reaction to Ringworld (1970).

I can see a lot of places where it would be written differently if it were to be first published today, quite outside of several places where the book does not match the later prequels. There is sexism built into the structures of the society, which is greatly reduced in the later books. I think we are getting more sensitive to these things. However, Anne McCaffrey is good at catching people and emotions. Her women are not just side-kicks to the men. People react not just to circumstances, but also to each other. Which may be one reason why I keep rereading and reenjoying these books.

I think I probably will point out to Nina that these books are getting close to 50 years old. But I certainly don't need to be ashamed of still loving them. They are not masterpieces, but they are good, solid fun.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Narilka

I admit I went in to Dragonflight with some trepidation. Sometimes older scifi novels just don't hold up, specifically for me when it comes to the science aspects. I sometimes have a hard time turning off that part of my brain that keeps pointing out how wrong the old school science is considering

the advancements society has made in the years since the books publication. Turns out I needn't have worried as this is more of a medieval style fantasy with some touches of scifi mixed and, most importantly, dragons.

Lessa is the sole survivor of Ruatha Hold when Fax the usurper came and killed everyone. Lessa has stayed unnoticed by disguising herself as a kitchen drudge, plotting the day she can take Ruatha Hold back as rightful heir. Turns out that fate had something else in mind when Lessa meets and bonds with a queen dragon. Dragonriders have always protected Pern from Threads, malignant spores that drop from the sky when Pern's sister planet's orbit comes too close as dragon fire can burn Threads out of the sky. Threads have not fallen in such a long time that many no longer believe they exist and resent the need to pay tribute to the Dragonriders. Now the time of Threads have come again and it's up to Lessa and the remaining Dragonriders to address the planet wide threat.

I absolutely loved the premise of this book and the world of Pern. I can see how this series gained such a huge following. Who wouldn't want to bond with a dragon and become it's rider? The portrayal of relationship between dragon and rider is easily my favorite thing about the book. I also love the old school "dragons are awe-inspiring creatures to be feared and respected" thing. It really makes me wish I'd read this when I was younger as I think younger me would've devoured the entire series in a heartbeat. The writing is rather pulpy, the pacing uneven, with most everything working out way too conveniently, and I wasn't particularly drawn to any of the human characters, but dragons! More dragons please!!

What caught me completely off guard were the gender roles in the book. Fair warning: This book was written in the 1960s and is a product of its time. I was surprised just how badly the sexism came across, especially from a female author. The relationship between F'lar and Lessa is highly problematic and basically abusive by today's standards. I can see how this could be off-putting to modern readers.

Still I found it to be an entertaining enough read and I'm glad to have read this classic. That said, I don't feel the urge to continue this series any farther.

Show Less

LibraryThing member draigwen

This book has been a bit of a battle for me. On the one hand it's nicely written, kept my attention, and had characters that I've adored. On the other hand, it's had every feminist bone in my body (and I'm not much of a feminist, so there aren't that many) on edge. While the key character in the

novel is female, and a strong character, she annoys the hell out of me. She does stupid things (that fortunately turn out for the best). And while she is quite a hero and hugely important she is, to some extent, just a sex object. It's hard to explain without giving away spoilers, which I don't want to do. It's not like she's some Xena wearing skimpy armour - she's not a sex object in that sense - but her character is necessary because females are needed to procreate, and procreation is crucial in this book.Despite this, I really did like the book. I loved some of the characters (although I could have done with more characterisation and less jumping between times and missing out character growth). The plot is simple, and the enemy unusual, and in so many ways this shouldn't work as a book. But somehow it does. I wonder how the other novels (of which there are a lot) can take this further, as this book seems to sum up the lifecycle of the whole of Pern. I'm interested to read more, however, so will probably be ordering the next book on my kindle.

Show Less

LibraryThing member fuzzi

I really believe that Anne McCaffrey's best works were the first couple of series she wrote, the Dragonriders of Pern and the Harper Hall of Pern.

This book was the first in the first series, and a well-written book it is, with good character development. I especially love how McCaffrey wrote

Robinton, the Master Harper, and Fandarel, the Master Smith. I find myself grinning as I read, enjoying the back and forth of the lesser characters.

The plot: the last Weyr of Pern has experienced the death of the last female dragonrider, and her dragon is dying as well, but not before she has laid one last clutch of eggs, including a queen egg that only needs a strong woman to bond with once it hatches.

A search is conducted, looking for the right person to help bring the Weyr back to respectability, and to increase the strength of the dragons and their riders, who are the only defense against an upcoming attack by another planet's spore, aka "Thread".

Good plot, good story, believable, enjoyable. What more could one wish? A sequel? ;)

And thus was an entire universe created, and a legacy for book lovers.

Show Less

LibraryThing member alwright1

So the story in this book was interesting, as were a lot of the ideas. As a librarian, I of course enjoyed the problems of information storage and dissemination. However, the gender politics and chauvinistic attitudes are just icky, and I didn't find any characters to like or cheer for. Even as the

main characters' attitudes towards one another changed over time, I didn't get to know them any better or care about their codependent, borderline-abusive relationship. I'm curious about how the culture handles their looming environmental crisis and how the arrival of the new cast of characters changes their technology, but not enough to continue on with the series any time soon.

Show Less

LibraryThing member haloedrain

I avoided these when I was a teenager because they didn't seem like they could be any good, but I decided recently to try the first one because people really do seem to love this series. And it is an engaging book, but not actually very well written. The dialog is flat and mostly consists of people

yelling at each other because they didn't bother to tell each other important things before, certain interpersonal relations are problematic, the dragons are kind of cliche (though this may not have been McCaffrey's fault so much as everyone else's). I liked the overall scenario and would like to know what happens next, but possibly not enough to read more of McCaffrey's writing.

Show Less

LibraryThing member DeusXMachina

First reread of a Pern book after I first discovered them in the 1980s because I inherited a whole bunch of them from a friend. Back then, I was overwhelmed. Now, I can't find much good to say, at least about this volume. Especially Lessa is a spoiled brat, and that she jumps as soon as F'lar asks

her to only makes it worse. Not much development, neither in them as characters nor in their relationship.

Show Less

LibraryThing member TadAD

I absolutely loved this book when I first read it. I reread it a couple of years ago and the luster had diminished somewhat. However, it's still original, well-crafted and a lot of fun to read.

It's somewhat hard to put the Pern books into series as the various story lines such as Dragonriders and

Harper Hall intertwine in time. Most folks call this the first of the Dragonrider trilogy, even though there are some stories about the dragon riders set earlier in time. This is followed by Dragonquest and White Dragon.

Show Less

LibraryThing member ConnieJo

This was pretty great. The most interesting parts were definitely the time-travel elements, which I wasn't expecting when I started the book (I bought it on sale, thought I'd give it a try). I thought all that was pretty well-handled, and I especially liked how it dealt with the larger dragon

population of Pern.

I also liked the threat of the threads, I thought that was a great reason for the dragons and the culture of dragon riders to exist.

Lessa grated on me more than a little. She led a rough life, and I could see her being aggressive about the restrictiveness of the Weyr and the fact that the male population seems to want to keep her in the dark. She's a great, strong female character, and I wanted to like her. But she blows up in anger a lot, does things that are ill-advised, and just makes a lot of bad decisions seemingly as a result of the Weyr not educating her properly and her getting impatient. She reminded me a lot of Claire at the beginning of Outlander, when she made a lot of assumptions, bold statements and bad decisions based on what she thought was going on, so the other characters were constantly bailing her out and dealing with her misconceptions. It drove me crazy. Part of the problem with Lessa is that I felt like the passage of time in the present was (ironically) a little vague. So between angry outbursts, there may have been years passing. But all we read about was her being angry, so she came across a bit too negative for my taste.

I did like that F'lar liked her because of her strong personality, I appreciate it when characters acknowledge the flaws in others and like them because it makes them who they are. But as another reviewer points out, I was pretty uncomfortable with Lessa and F'lar's relationship throughout. Lessa rarely seems attracted to F'lar as a partner, and F'lar mentions that their sexual relationship seems forced. Lessa sometimes shows jealousy, but we hear far less from her about F'lar than we hear from F'lar about Lessa, so it felt forced.

Actually, in general, I couldn't get into any of the characters. But the plot and world were so good that I was able to forgive it that.

But there were a lot of good ideas. I'll probably return to the series at some point, probably skip to a book without Lessa to see how I like it.

Show Less

LibraryThing member atreic

Nearly everyone I know read and loved Pern when they were a teenager, so I thought it was about time I caught up. I do wish I'd found this book at the same time as everyone else, but I did enjoy it.

It has dragons! Except it's not fantasy, it's sci fi, because they are dragons on a colonised planet

that are essential for fighting alien spores! And just when you've got your head round that, there's a Big Reveal, and you find out they are time travelling dragons! I mean, what's not to like about a strong female lead and time travelling dragons?

It is a bit problematic, or at least it's not a book about consent. Lessa is taken from her home and placed in mortal danger to possibly bond with the queen dragon without an explanation or any choice. And F'lar and Lessa's relationship, with its snark and power imbalance and dragon induced sex is probably not a model for the young. But Lessa is clever and powerful and changes history.

It's interesting to run the story in reverse. Our good guys are good because they stayed alert and guarded the old ways and protected Pern even after 400 years of waiting. But if there really had never been another attack from the threads, they would have been quite foolish. They are Right to have faith and stay vigilant, and are the heros because of it... but that moral does make you wonder, would it have been good to wait for 1000 years? Forever?

Show Less

LibraryThing member Shirezu

When something mentions fantasy/sci-fi and dragons the first thing that comes to most peoples minds is Pern. Even if they haven't read it. I've been hearing about the Pern books for as long as I've been reading those genres. I can remember looking at the books in the library as a kid and picking

them up from shelves in bookstores but for some reason I never read a single one.

With this year being about challenging my reading habits and having to choose something for fantasy I thought it high time I actually read a Pern book. And there's nowhere better to start than the beginning.

Originally conceived as a couple short stories that went on to win awards McCaffrey pulled 3 short stories together plus a bit of writing between the gaps and Dragonflight was born. So far the Pern books have continued on for another 22 novels and a couple short story collections.

But after reading Dragonflight I just think really? I really liked the concept. A strange planet where people and dragons fight this mysterious infestation that only occurs every 200 years (sometimes longer) and lasts around 60 years each time. But the execution was lacking. I think Lessa could have been a much better character. She started out as a strong, intelligent woman but by the end of the book was treated as a stupid, unthinking girl. She has to be controlled by the male Weyrleader. For a book written by the first woman to ever win a major sci-fi/fantasy award she doesn't really treat the female characters that well. Lessa was a virgin who was practically raped (the male character even says it was pretty much that) yet she never mentions it at all. There are at this point only 3 other female characters who have any lines. One dies at the start, one is the wise woman in charge of the stores of the Weyr (cliche much?) and the other is a slut.

The ending was frustrating. Cliffhanger of course. After a very long setup the last part of the book, the bit you've been waiting for, just ends without getting to the good parts. After the way the book went I honestly don't think I want to keep reading the Pern books. Disappointing for a book so many people seem to love but it just goes to show again there's no accounting for taste.

Show Less

LibraryThing member CassandraT

short review: The gender roles in this book are especially grating because of the main characters' relationship. Most of the plot revolves around natural disaster response logistics. The general world set-up is interesting and so I want to read #9 in the series that has a collection of short

stories about the planet and dragon origins. I am less interested in reading more about the protagonists of this story, but I will just because I'm going something interesting will happen.

longer review: I first read WeyrSearch as a teenager in the Dragon Lovers Treasury of the Fantastic. I immediately put the Pern series on my list, but never got to reading them. I read Crystal Singer and other books instead. Now, fifteen to twenty years later I've finally read the first book in this trilogy books that I've bought in super sale. I wish I'd read it when I was younger, I think I would have enjoyed it more.

I appreciate that the story is from the mid-late 1960s, so I think there are a lot of creative and successful elements combining science fiction and dragons with medieval type environments. I think the strong objectification and dismissal of women in the story is a product of the 60s and not of the medieval setting. Given that it's fantasy and fiction and the future, there is no reason to have fictional women treated this way. The male characters are always evaluating the women and arguing with them and thinking about their sexual relationships. It doesn't help the story and actually ends up being distracting. It's great that the women are allowed sexual agency, but they are still primarily valued for their bodies and rarely described as intelligent or brave or for other qualities.

At one particularly disturbing part of the book, this takes up maybe a page or two, the main character wonders if he raped the main female character. it's wholly unnecessary and highlights a very weird relationship between the two main characters that is motivated by the nature of the animalistic relationship of the paired dragons. It's not clear what the female character protagonist thinks of the encounter was we never get her perspective, but the male character definitely should have backed off or engaged in some kind of an adult conversation.

I think someone else's review of a different book in the series stated that Anne Mccaffery is obsessed with logistics and I think that the story did have a lot of logistics as well as some action. I personally don't care too much for action scenes and logistics can be interesting but I just found it written somewhat confusing or uninterestingly in this story.

Overall I like that the book didn't have a lot of very detailed descriptions. I find that those take me out of the story. I felt that the characters were sufficiently well-developed; I understood their motivations and their histories and they had personalities. I didn't like that the main female character was mostly defined by how she's "not like other women" but that's a product of the past 30 to 50 years and I'm glad that we as a society are starting to get to a new generation of how women can be defined. The dragons and the dragon lore were captivating and the highlight of the story. I liked that there wasn't a super villian to motivate the whole story. But I felt that it was too long towards the end.

Show Less

LibraryThing member satyridae

Here's a book I loved as a teen that I really choked on this time through. What was I thinking? Misogynist crap, this. Stock characters, standard romance plot plus dragons. To make it even worse, the narrator was lame.

I suppose I just need a big rugged man to grab me by the shoulders and shake

some sense into me and then kiss me so hard my lips bruise. *grumble*

2 stars because of the fond memories.

Show Less

LibraryThing member BruceCoulson

People love this series, and this book; but I'm not one of them.

LibraryThing member earthlistener

Dragonflight is the first book in a highly acclaimed series. It deserves its acclaimed status. Anne McCaffrey begins her series by easing the reader into the world of Pern and describing how the world of Pern works around its characters and settings. While on the surface this book may look like a

fantasy novel, this series is not necessarily a fantasy or even a science fiction work. It creates its own world and does not relay on the clichés and stereotypes of novels based around dragons and other similar subjects used in these works. It is unique and original, and all around interesting story. A wonderful read.

Show Less

LibraryThing member fastfinge

This book was my introduction to pern. Honestly, it didn't do that good of a job; I doubt I will ever be back. The story wasn't captivating, the characters
were poorly developed, the dragons were developed even less, and the whole thing couldn't decide what sort of atmosphere it wanted to settle on.

I'm guessing
the author intended the dragons to be wonderful and loyal companions, but for me they held a near constant air of vaguely creepy mind-controlling symbiosis.
Needless to say, this broke the story for me. If what you're looking for is strong and well done companion characters, I recommend Mercedes Lacky highly
to you; she may not have been first, but she knows what to do with characters and how to develop feeling in the reader.

Show Less

LibraryThing member aarondesk

A little strange combination of science fiction and fantasy. Definitely shows some age. The first few pages explaining the dragon concept left me rolling me eyes, but the story does pick up the and the writing is decent. I can see what it is considered a classic, but I probably wouldn't read any