The Fresh Persepctive

^{4.5 out of 5 Stars}

This book is a classic for a reason. I feel like it tells a story while simultaneously building a world. We get some action, we get some romance, we get dragons, we get time travel. Like here is the thing I would have read this book like 25 years ago if someone had told me there was time travel. I love a good time travel story. While the time travel seems inconsequential at first it is the lynchpin of the whole story. Sorry spoilers.

So we start with Lessa a kitchen maid in Ruatha Hold. Yet Lessa has a secret, she is actually the sole surviving heir to Ruatha, she also can speak to dragons. Then we meet F’Lar a wingleader from Benden Weyr who, like all wingleaders, rides a Bronze dragon. He and his wing are on a Search. A Search is when the dragons of a Weyr must go out and find a new Weyrwoman to link with a new queen dragon. After some manipulations by Lessa she is brought to Benden Weyr and bonds with the new Golden dragon, becoming the new Weyrwoman.

So the story is about dragons and holds and weird rituals of marriages. Yet the dragons don’t just fly they can f***ing teleport! Like what? So Lessa is teleporting and figures out that dragon and dragonrider can not only teleport from one location to another but from one time to another when she goes back 13 years. So now they have this tool because the reason the dragons exist and the dragonriders is to fight Threads Threads will kill all the biological life on the planet but dragons can use their abilities to fly and ‘go between’ (#teleport) to stop the Threads form reaching the ground and destroying everything. The last time Threads threatened the planet was 400 turns ago, which I am guessing means years cause no one remembers the last time they fell and some non-dragonriders thing the dragons are no longer needed because of this.

I am sure other books in the series go into more detail about some of the things only mentioned in this book. They have flamethrowers in the past, as well as lots of technology that is more consistent with a science fiction setting than that of a fantasy setting. It makes sense that this is classified as science fiction though since it is mentioned in the introduction that the people of Pern are descendants of Earth who with the coming of the Threads from the Red Star lost contact with their former planet and eventually all memory of them faded from history.

I am glad I finally read this book and while I was lost a couple of times because the transitions just sort of happened and weird names that don’t follow English logic throw me off sometimes and make it hard to follow. I feel like I would have been fine if their names had been more like Felix and Xander and other names using lesser used letters. Doesn’t matter the story suffers really only in it’s age. While it is a female writer her female characters can be catty and subservient to the male characters. Lessa is strong-willed and persistent but she makes mention of F’Lar shaking her a couple of times that made me cringe a little.

I will read more of the series for sure though and can’t wait to read more about how their society rebuilds and what is in store for the dragonriders and Pern in general.