My first introduction to Pern was through the Harper Hall trilogy which I absolutely love and recommend. The Dragonriders of Pern trilogy starts with ..Show More »Dragonflight. If you are completely new to Pern, it takes a little getting used to the names but don't let that put you off of a wonderful series. There are several websites out there that give you the chronological order of the entire series and this trilogy is in the middle. It is a good place to start for those new to Pern (it is where I started). Once I came to love Pern, I went back and read the earlier stories about Pern's history.

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"Dragonsong" and it's sequel "Dragonsinger" are my favorite Pern books and I have faithfully devoured every Pern novel, novella and short story publis..Show More »hed. I was so excited when I found these in audiobook format and revisiting my 'old friends' was simply wonderful. The only reason I did not give this selection five of five stars was that the narration was merely 'ok'. Several of the pronunciations of names and places, as well as the odd sentence or two, were awkward and pulled the listener out of the flow of the story. Nothing too bad, but noticeable all the same.

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This is the second in the Mennolly stories about the life and role of Harpers on Pern. Menolly is now an Apprentice Harper, and she and her 9 fire liz..Show More »ards are having a rough time fitting in. As with all of the early McCaffrey stories of Pern, the plot is solid, and the character development good, and the book is an excellent "read".

The reader here is acceptable. Not Wanda McCaddon(Donada Peters), by any means, but she at least doesn't detract from the story.

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The story of Jaxom and his unusual white dragon Ruth is my favorite of the Dragonriders of Pern. I also highly recommend the Harperhall trilogy.

This is another favorite author of mine from my adolescence. I am rereading them with my ears and finding them more enjoyable than ever. The wonderf..Show More »ul tales thread together to create a world of dragons. Yet the story is still a story of human relations, charactors, emotions, life and society. In each book we can find our selves and those we know.

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I have read most, if not all, of the Pern series of books. I chose this as my first audiobook based on its reviews on the narrator. I thought that S..Show More »heila Hart did a good job with both male and female parts. However, the characterization of an older female seemed forced at times (as in I noticed that it was a younger narrator voicing a younger character). This was not overly problematic, and I was able to stay immersed in the storyline as much as possible during my 30 minute listening sessions (commute to work). After finishing Moreta, I immediately purchased The White Dragon (the book that hooked me on the series) and narrator reviews were also a major consideration.

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I love Dick Hill as the narrator he really shows off his talent in this book. The story is Great and the characters are diverse, I really cant say en..Show More »ough about this read it was like rediscovering pern all over again, If you have read the earlier books it will only make this book all the much better. No one can do it like Dick Hill can wish he had been used in all the Dragon riders of pern series. Honestly he could read gobbledy gook and make it sound like sweet poetry. YOU WILL BE DISSAPPOINTED IF YOU MISS THIS ONE.

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This series is very good, but definitely don't read this one first. I would suggest going by book publication date, which is not the same as chronolog..Show More »ical by the story line. There are a lot of "a-ha!" moments, especially at the end of the series, as Ms. McCaffrey tells the same story from different people's viewpoints. All I can think of as a description is that it is a rich tapestry of a story.

I've read most of the books twice, and look forward to listening to them many times again.

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If I hadn't already read this book in print and knew that it was worth the read, I might not have been able to make it through. Mel Foster is NO Dick..Show More » Hill and I found him very difficult to listen to. His halting reading compelled me to listen to the book at 1 &1/2 speed. It sounds more natural that way.

Other than that Anne McCaffrey never disappoints :)

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I read this long ago. I recently picked up a large collection of McCaffrey hardback (many first edition) novels. I felt somehow in Her presence as I w..Show More »as about halfway through this book when she passed to 'between.'

This is not my favorite book of the Pern novels, but it ranks very high. I am passionate about dolphins and swimming... and dragons. But at times I wished for more of Readis's life than the life of the 'politicians' of the planet. I wished for more science discovery. There was a lot of that, but I wanted more. But I know these are the threads of the next books and the evolving of Pern, so I shouldn't complain.

Though I have the hardback, I now prefer to read on Kindle where it doesn't hurt my eyes. And at times I need the audio version to listen to when my eyes get tired. Since the text to speech tool didn't work on this novel I downloaded the Audible version. Hearing a human voice narrating is always preferable to the computerized versions, anyway.

Mel Foster's interpretation was different than what I expected. I think, knowing that Anne McCaffrey is of Irish descent, I expected a brogue to come from the sea holds rather than what sounded a southern drawl. But that was Mel's interpretation and I soon adjusted. He did a decent job keeping the character's voices dissimilar enough to know who was talking when.

I look forward to 'worming' my way through all of Anne's books, those I have read and those I haven't yet. I hope I can afford to use Audible/Kindle help to do this. R.I.P. to my most favorite author.

Let the all humans, firelizards, dolphins and dragons keen:

Drummer, beat and Piper, blow
Harper, strike and Soldier, go
Free the flame and sear the grasses
As the dawning Red Star passes...

Until eternity passes

For Anne McCaffrey

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The book itself is excellent (as are most of the books in the Dragonriders of Pern series). What was disapointed was the quality of the recording, it ..Show More »sounded like it was recorded in a tunnel...even when downloaded at the best audio quality Audible offers. The narrator was also not up to Anne McCaffrey standards for previous books. The audiobook overall sounded amateurish.

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This is one of the better sequels, or in this case a prequel, to McCaffrey's original six Pern novels. Robinton is a great character and although she..Show More » makes him suffer more disappointment in life than anybody should bear, McCaffrey fills in a lot of interesting "historical" detail leading up to Dragonquest. However, she sometimes errs in the details (how could Sebell simultaneously be an adolescent journeyman when Fax takes Ruatha hold and still be the same age some twenty years later when Menolly arrives at the Harper hall?)

The narrator is generally very good and uses a variety of voices. My only quibble is that children and adolescent boys sound a bit too whiny and are delivered with a vaguely distracting NY/NJ style accent.

Overall, highly enjoyable. I would order it again.

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I enjoyed listening to this book again (have read it before), but the narration became irritating to me when the narrator tried to pitch his voice hig..Show More »her to read the women's voices- he just couldn't carry it off. It sounds better reading it all straight. Also, I noticed a few mispronunciations- earlier in the book, Menolly was pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, whereas later in the book, it was emphasized on the first. I have read it with the pronunciation on the first syllable (in MY head). I noticed it with one or two other names, also. It makes me wonder, do the readers find out from the authors how to pronouce certain names, or just wing it?

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But there is a definite difference between Todd McCaffrey's style and his fantastic Mother's. This was a somewhat frustrating listen with too many th..Show More »reads (pardon the pun) going every which way. Character's seemed to leapt to correct conclusions without much evidence to go on and Mr. McCaffrey seemed to not care too much about the fate of his characters and treated many- including the heroine a little coldly. If he does not care for the characters, what makes a reader?
I suggest Moreta Dragonlady of Pern before reading this. Maybe Todd's style will mature with time, but this seemed an amateur outing to Pern. It was like visiting your favorite vacation spot, only to find it under new (and less than capable) management.
I hope he improves on his next ventures and does his mother proud.

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I was sorry to see one of my favorite authors put her name on this book. It started out as a conglomeration of several previous books with very littl..Show More »e originality. It ends as a lengthy and tedious account of sickness and dying. Very little was either original or interesting. I forced myself to finish the story in hopes there would be something redeeming. The narrator was good but it wasn't worth the effort or time.

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This book takes on a new cast of characters in the Pern Dragonrider series. I've read, not listened to, many of the other books set in this world and ..Show More »thoroughly enjoyed them. The premise of this story is rather vague, the writing is awkward and the plot development is tediously slow. The end of this book seems very far away.

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I love Pern and I have read all of the books. For the most part, I appreciate what Todd is doing to add to the canon of Anne McCaffrey's Pern; ..Show More »and the narrator here neither adds to nor detracts from the story. [Especially compared to the droning narration that makes so many of the audio versions of Anne's excellent books unlistenable.] Dragongirl, which had great potential, is an exercise in frustration. Every element of the story is belabored to death, rather than developed. There are random enjoyable bits, but mostly the characters keep waiting for an ominous something very bad to happen while everyone around them dies. The "something" finally seems to happens near the last few minutes of the book, but it's all rather vague. Their problems aren't resolved, most questions aren't answered, and the elements that seem to contradict Anne's books are left unexplained. There are hints about what's to come, but mostly it's a cliff hanger of the worst sort and left me unhappy with characters that I had become fond of in previous books.

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A collection of short stories raking place in the early years of Pern, including the initial survey of the planet, First Fall is a good listen overall..Show More ». Unfortunately, the reader, Meredith MacRae, is bland and lifeless. All of the stories feature multiple characters and MacRae's reading and lack of inflection or characterization makes it difficult to follow who's who. Likewise, it's very difficult to differentiate between male and female characters as MacRae fails to alter her vocal pitch at all.

The stories themselves are well written, but the actual reading makes for a difficult and distracting listen.

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