Book Review: Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

Dragonflight: Volume 1 in the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

In this first novel of the Dragonriders of Pern series, the planet of Pern faces an old peril. Pern's solar system has a planet with a highly elliptical orbit that comes near Pern every two hundred years. This wayward traveler is known as the Red Star. When it comes close enough, spores (commonly referred to as "Threads") fill Pern's atmosphere and fall to the ground. If any hit the ground, they wipe out any organic life they come in contact with. The southern continent is a desolate wasteland thanks to the Threads. Pern's main defense is its dragons, who fly aloft and burn the Threads as they fall from the sky. The two-hundred year interval causes a problem, since the dragons and their riders are taskless for a long time. 

As the story opens, only one of the half-dozen weyrs has dragons in it and the dragonlords have a hard time getting tribute from the kingdoms. The last functioning weyr has dwindled down to one queen and a few hundred dragons, hardly enough to stop a world-wide catastrophe. In the years leading up to the next conjunction with the Red Star, a new queen is laid. The dragonlords head out across the globe to find a woman to be the queen dragon's weyrmate. Who better than Lessa, from the noble family of the Ruatha Hold? She has been down and out since the usurper Lord Fax ruling her hold. She operates as a insignificant peasant who has messed up harvest and deliveries and other things to make Ruatha less attractive to Fax. Her schemes pull in dragonrider F'lar, who winds up in a duel with Fax. Fax dies. F'lar recognizes Lessa's potential. The dragonriders will need her creativity, energy, and drive if they will be ready to face the Threads.

The story is written with a bit of old-time flavor, like The Lord of the Rings, though this reads a little more like science fiction. The dragon-lore is detailed and interesting, with a bit of hierarchy among the dragons and some atypical powers, like their ability to travel through the "between," which lets them go from place to place almost instantly, as long as they have a fixed image of where they are going. The dragons and their riders have a telepathic link that lets them communicate privately and over distances. Lessa has the ability to communicate with all the dragons in the weyr, an unheard of power that she takes advantage of. The riders are a bit like medieval knights, which makes a fun change from the knight-versus-dragon expectation in so many fantasy stories. The book has plenty of twists on the old-time tales.

Lessa is a very likable heroine. She's a bit mischievous, willful, and smart. She isn't just along for the adventure, she drives a lot of the action. Her romantic involvement with F'lar is fun, though he might shake her a few times too many when he disagrees with her. They make a good pairing, as does their dragons (part of why they are a pair, another little oddity of this story's dragon-lore).

Highly recommended--I'll probably read more of the series, maybe even buy the books!

This novel was discussed on A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast #281. Thanks for recommending the book!