Dragonflight

I fell in love with the people of Pern and their struggles to survive. They adapted and overcame the dangers. They battled against the thread and made a home on Pern.

I was amazed that this was a science fiction book, not a fantasy. It had dragons. I was well past my young adult years when this book hooked me like a fish.

In this world, I saw infinite possibilities for more stories. It touched my heart and made me realize that I could overcome any obstacle in my life. It also taught me that, like Pern, my future held… show more.

All right, I’m a sucker for fantasy too. Dragonflight was a novel well before it was a video game; I first read it in the 1970s, not long after it was first published, and I think it was the first proper fantasy I’d come across.

Fifty years later, I thought I’d reread it, and I have to say, I was astonished.

I’ve read lots of fantasy novels in the intervening years, some of them very good, and I’d expected that Dragonflight would seem a little jaded by comparison. I found the reverse was true. This is a rollicking tale, with… show more.

Published in 1967, Anne McCaffrey’s novels, Dragonflight and later Dragonquest, about telepathic dragons who bond with humans to fight a lethal danger from the sky, read as a fantasy novel, yet McCaffrey insisted the novels were in fact science fiction.

Her world-building was extensive involving colonization, guided evolution, and interplanetary dynamics. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best SF novel, the books were also captivating reads.

This is the first book of a very long list of books about the dragon riders of Pern. This is one of my favorite series. Anne McCaffrey created a world where dragons and humans coexist to eliminate any threats against the planet of Pern. Only certain humans are chosen to bond with the dragons by linking with them telepathically, once the dragon accepts the bond is made. Once again the heroes have to fight off impending planetary threats while riding on the backs of fire-breathing dragons. Who wouldn’t want to ride on a dragon? While this is not the first… show more.

Dragonflight is the first book I read that combined dragon fantasy and science fiction. I eventually read all twenty-five novels of the Dragons of Pern Series. This book created a new world with a unique cooperation between dragons and humans. Humans came to the world of Pern to find new lives. They became cut off from the rest of humanity and lived an agrarian lifestyle. They live in peace until a natural phenomenon causes the humans to genetically adapt a local species to deal with a devastating repeating blight. The Dragons of Pern books pulled me into the world of… show more.

Dragonflight, of the Dragonriders of Pern series, is considered YA, yet these books are a very satisfying read for adults who may take different things from them. The two aspects of the books I found most powerful were, first, the craft guilds, both the valuing of craft itself--making things by hand--and the magic involved in the creation of cloth and music. Second is the sentience of the dragons; a rider is “impressed” by a single dragon, which lasts for life. These are both ideas admirably developed by McCaffrey that have stayed with me. 

When you want to turn off the real world and lose yourself in a book what could be better than a world filled with dragons, their riders, and a threat known as Thread.

I loved the Dragonflight fantasy, rich in world-building, characters, and lore, where Pern’s great dragon Weyrs have diminished and belief in them abandoned. Lessa, the last of the royal Ruathans, is hiding as a mere kitchen scully. She is discovered by dragonmen searching for new dragonriders to combat the devastating Thread that falls from the sky. Lucky Lessa is impressed by the new queen dragon when the… show more.

The Dragonriders of Pern was my first introduction to the genre of dragon fantasy and I loved it. Anne McCaffrey sucked me into a world where dragons and humans worked together to fight the dangerous and mysterious thread. The dragons can talk with their bonded humans and their bond influenced their character and mood. This connected with the deep desire that I had at that age to build bonds with animals and laid the groundwork for one of my later career choices of becoming a falconer. Other magnificent parts of this series where the jumping ‘in-between’ (allowing dragons to teleport)… show more.

This was the first book published in the now very long Dragonriders of Pern series, and introduced the human/dragon pairings that remain key to the series. David Weber, who developed the treecats that are at the heart of our own series, lists the relationship between the dragons and humans as a key influence on the treecats. I read the early books in the series when I was still in my teens, and always wanted more about dragons and their culture. I’m glad that, in my novels with Weber, we can do this for the treecats.

When I look back on books (or series of books) that influenced my own imagination, the earlier books of Anne McCaffey’s Pern series call to me, particularly Dragonflight. While there are some problematic things about it (I was always a little uncomfortable with what could be considered rape) I was always drawn in by the character of Lessa—a woman who had lost everything as a child, and yet would not be defeated. She had the will and the strength to fight for what she believed in, and saved her planet because of that. She doesn’t shy away from her… show more.