Book: Dragon’s Fire

When I read the first two books set on Pern by Todd McCaffrey I really was not too impressed. Because they were from Pern, and the stories were OK, I knew I would keep reading them, but I didn’t feel that they had the same charm as Anne McCaffrey’s own work.

For the first few pages of this book I felt much the same way, but over time the story became more interesting and the characters more engaging, and for a while again I simply enjoyed Pern. The story is fairly simple, dealing again with the period of time just before a fall when there are skeptics who claim thread will never fall, and others who disagree on the preparations. I really appreciate the effort to deal with the implications of some of the social practices started by the colonists as we see some of the impact of the practice of shunning, something that had practically disappeared from Pern during the time of F’lar and Lessa.

We see a bit of overlap with Dragon’s Kin, and you may enjoy seeing some further development of those themes and characters. We also learn more about the watch whers.

All in all, this book was a good experience, and while I doubt I’ll ever rate Todd McCaffrey as the equal of his mother, I’ve definitely upgraded my desire to read his writing in the future.