Dragonsinger

Harper Hall Trilogy, Volume 2

By: Anne McCaffrey

Narrated by: Sally Darling

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Menolly has returned home and entered the Harper Hall. But her entry into the Hall proves the beginning of more troubles, and the Master Harper gives her a difficult time because she is a girl. As Menolly begins to despair, she finds help in the shape of nine bright allies.

Don't miss the other books in the Harper Hall Trilogy.

©1977 Anne McCaffrey (P)1992 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"The transformation of Menolly from a terrified outcast to a woman secure within herself is skillfully handled, making her a sympathetic character with whom many readers will identify." ( School Library Journal)
"A superbly crafted fantasy in the heroic tradition....Unlike many sequels, this maintains the dramatic tensions of its predecessor." ( Horn Book)
"Although set in another world, where dragons fly and people have fire lizards as pets, Menolly's innermost concerns are wholly contemporary." ( Booklist)

totally a great fun read

As enjoyable the 2nd time as the first time heard it. Wonderful characters, lovely story.

Dragonsinger

This is the second book in the Harper Hall Trilogy and it follows Menolly as she comes to the Harper Hall to become and apprentice.

I absolutely love this character. She has been through so much with a father who would hold her back from music because she is a girl. She is so talented in music and as a song writer that it is such a shame. They did whatever they could to hamper her dream of music. Then, the Masterharper of Pern finds her after looking for the one that has written the songs that are so loved. She is taken as Masterharper Robinton's apprentice.

As she comes to the Harper Hall, she is not accepted well by the other girls. She is more talented than them, she outranks them and she has nine fire lizards. So they are cruel as girls will be. Menolly takes everything in stride even though she is modest and often times questions when good things happen to her. The harpers all see how talented she is. This book takes you on her first week in the harper hall with all her troubles and new friendships and how she grows. Soon, she realizes she does belong and in the end is made a Journeyman. It is a well deserved honor.

These are such fantastic books and Menolly is such a great character.

*Shell's* it's the Halls dummy!!* skater

I was fortunate to read these books as a 15- 16 year old. and Cumo was one of my most favorite

Menolly comes into her own

The Goodreads description of Dragonsinger was accurate if a little small. The description on Audible sounded like it was for the wrong book. I did not find the narrator to be horrible, although she has a bit of a southern accent which seems a little out of place for a Pern book and kept surprising me now and then.

This is the second book of Menolly’s journey to becoming a Pern harper. She has now come to the Harper Hall proper where her injuries from her time in her family’s Seahold and her time living in the cave with her Fire Lizards and contending with Thread unsheltered are properly tended to.

Neither Master Harper Robinton nor any of the other Harper masters who are the teachers at the Hall really give Menolly a hard time, especially not because she is a girl. But all of them are good teachers, and like all good teachers, they push her to do her best. Menolly seems to know this instinctively, and she does work hard to do her best and learns a great deal.

The people Menolly has problems with at Harper Hall are the girls. Silly me thought that female Harper apprentices would be common by this time, as there is nothing about singing or making music that would keep a girl or woman from doing it. However, it seems that this is not the case. There are girls at the Hall, but they seem to be using it as a kind of finishing school and have no intention of using what they learn there as anything but a way to catch a husband, preferably one who is, or eventually will be, a high-ranking Lord Holder. They live in a separate cottage, sort of like a girls’ dorm, with their own dorm mother – who generally disapproves of Menolly and specifically is scared to death of Fire Lizards. Menolly has nine Fire Lizards.

Menolly makes at least one friend among the male Harper apprentices, Piemur, who is at this time a boy soprano and a talented mischief maker. But he is unflinching in his support of Menolly, and he appears frequently in later books.

a great book in the series of perm

this is very good second book in the series of the Harper Hall I love the depth and complexity that are placed in the characters in this book overall I would recommend this series to anyone who is in love with pern

if your grandma read sci-fi/fantasy

This is a book I've loved since elementary school when I picked it up at a book fair. The story is appropriate for young readers and enjoyable for adults as well. However, the performance is tiresome. Memory is a young teen girl, and the story is read by someone who sounds like Angela Lansbury or Julie Andrews: very grandmotherly and aged. She reads moderately well, but her voice does not fit the story and is distracting.

A wonderful sequel

I love Sally Darlings reading of the Harper Hall Trilogy. I wish she had read all the books.

perennial favorite

I have read the book and just finished listening to it for the 3rd time. It's my favorite of the McCaffrey books.

Part2 of Menolly's story

This is the continuation of the story of Menolly, the girl Harper. She's breaking "tradition" and irritating people to no end, really just through circumstance. Typical teenage jealousies that turn vindictive cause her numerous problems. The fact that she's a girl and the "owner" of 9 fire-lizards, in a male dominated society and in a school of jealous kids just automatically marks her as trouble. I like this story for the most part, but Menolly's subservience and eagerness to please are almost irritating, and even knowing her history of abuse and denigration at home don't make it totally acceptable. She does of course, overcome these things and all ends up well. Same problem for me with name pronunciation as before, and the narrator seems to veer a little to the melodrama for me again, but all in all this book still ranks at the top.

Fun

I really like the narrator. I don't like missing portions.. I was reading along and it jumped to a different place forward.