Dragon's Fire (The Dragonriders of Pern)

The jacket on the book was what I ordered, but inside was a completely different book by a completely different author. I am weary of ordering anything else from this site if it pulls such low things.

Just finished this book and must say I really enjoyed it. I was hoping for some novels about the time of Lessa and the days after the last Thread fall, but it is really nice to see some of the events that happened earlier in the history of Pern. If you love the Pern series, then get this book.

In the tradition of Anne McCaffrey and Pern, this book is seamless with the rest of the Pern series. I have been reading this series for over 20 years, and enjoyed this one as much as any that Anne wrote by herself. Todd seems to have taken up the torch well, and I look forward to more from him in the future.

As always, a very nice book. The focus this time is on the shunned and the watch weyers. Nice second book to Dragon's kin. Several of the characters return and several other rich characters are added. A must read if you like fantasy books,

"The Red Star grows larger and Thread will return." This quote, taken from Lord Fenner of Crom Hold, nicely sums up the situation in Anne and Todd McCaffrey's latest Pern collaboration, "Dragon's Fire". In only eighteen more years (or, rather, "Turns"), the world's ancient nemesis will return, a rogue planet called "The Red Star". It will tow in its wake hordes of deadly space spores; these will rain down relentlessly upon the planet for almost a lifetime. In contact with Pern's moist, warm atmosphere, the spores become Threads, organisms which voraciously consume all organic material. Only three things can stop Threads: water, solid rock, and the fire of the great, genetically engineered dragons of Pern. By the time of "Dragon's Fire", the settlers have been on Pern for almost 500 Turns. Memories of Old Earth are fading, and Pern has fully developed the feudalistic society familiar to all long-time fans of the Dragonrider novels. Inevitably, as the Pernese prepare for the return of their ancient enemy at the start of the Third Pass, they meet up with a slew of challenges requiring the most urgent attention. In "Dragon's Kin", the previous book of this storyline, we were introduced to the coal miners living in Camp Natalon, located in the hills near Crom. Of special import were the following characters: Masterharper Zist; Kindan, an orphaned miner boy; a blind girl named Nuella; a seemingly deranged villain named Tarik, himself a miner; Tarik's troubled young son, Cristov. We learned that coal has been getting harder to find close to the surface, and we learned new and important details about the watch-whers, ungainly creatures closely related to dragons, but comfortable only in dark places like mines. So, has the figurative coal seam of Pern's early history been played out? Hardly! There are many new veins to be discovered and quarried. While "Dragon's Fire" is technically a sequel to "Dragon's Kin", it actually consists internally of two books; I will treat them here as two separate entities. The events of the first book, called "Pellar", run mostly parallel to those in "Dragon's Kin". We learn of the great personal tragedy which leads to Master Zist going to Camp Natalon, a rather unlikely place for a Masterharper to be. We are also introduced to his adopted son Pellar, a mute boy with a great talent for hunting, tracking and other woodcraft, also healing. These two characters have a good reason to be in Camp Natalon: they are investigating the steady pilferage of coal. They have their suspects, but need proof. I actually liked "Pellar" much more than "Dragon's Kin". Although the latter was an enjoyable read, it suffered from two significant flaws. First, Todd's literary voice did not blend well with his mother's. Second, the behavior of miner Tarik, and to a lesser extent Masterharper Zist, just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They just didn't have the right kinds of motivations -- especially Tarik. But "P