Dragonsong (Harper Hall of Pern #1) by Anne McCaffrey

[Serena [Poetree]]

I've been looking forward to this book for a while, having been told that Anne McCaffrey is the "queen of dragons." And also because I haven't read a dragon book in... far too long. Although there weren't many scenes involving large dragons in this first novel of the Harper Hall of Pern trilogy, a large portion of the book focused on fire lizards, which are essentially cat-sized dragons. I love the personally of the fire lizards, though some of their names are a little silly. Lazybones, Mimic, Auntie One, Auntie Two... really?

Menolly is a fun, relatable, realistic main character. I enjoyed her interactions with the other characters, especially dragon rider T'gellan, and Elgion made for an interesting, very likable secondary protagonist. I also really liked Alemi, Menolly's older brother, and hope to see more of him in future books.

I did have to re-read a few passages multiple times to understand what was happening, and one confusing scene (the Impression, which is actually pretty important) wasn't really clarified until the beginning of book two. The descriptions needed to be fleshed out a bit, too, as part of my confusion resulted from not knowing the characters' surroundings well enough. At only 192 pages, Dragonsong could stand to have a few more words added, anyway. I certainly wouldn't complain!

Would I recommend it? Absolutely! And I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series.

[magsinator]

This was the first Pern book I read, and I can say, looking back, that if it doesn't feel fleshed out, it's because she spends so much time on the same time period in other books. She has a lot of books that see overlapping events from different points of view, and sometimes she depends on you having read the first published one first.

That being sad, I loved this as an intro to Pern, because I loved the concept of anyone being able to find and hatch some fire lizards, combined with my love of stories about people surviving outside of civilization. I hope you also enjoy the next ones and go on to read more of Pern!

[Serena [Poetree]]

That's great to know! I'm definitely planning to read the rest of the series, so I'm glad to hear that they're all good. I'm interested to see how some of them overlap, and am eager to read different points of view (though I very much enjoy Menolly!). Thanks for responding!