Sky Dragons

Dragonriders of Pern, Book 23

By: Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey

Narrated by: Emily Durante

From the New York Times best-selling mother-and-son team of Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey comes the final installment in the riveting Pern saga that began with Todd’s solo novel, Dragonsblood. Now, with all of Pern imperiled by the aftereffects of a plague that killed scores of dragons and left the planet helpless against the fall of deadly Thread, the only hope for the future lies in the past.

There, on an unexplored island, a group of dragonriders led by Xhinna, a brave young woman who rides the blue dragon Tazith, must battle lethal Merows and voracious tunnel-snakes to build a safe home for themselves and the dragons, whose offspring will one day—if they survive—replenish Pern’s decimated dragon population. But as the first female rider of a blue dragon, and the first female Weyrleader in the history of Pern, Xhinna faces an uphill battle in winning the respect and loyalty of her peers... especially after an unforeseen tragedy leaves the struggling colony reeling from a shattering loss.

Amid the grieving, one girl, Jirana, blessed—or cursed—with the ability to foresee potential futures, will help Xhinna find a way forward. The answer lies in time... or, rather, in timing it: the awesome ability of the dragons to travel through time itself. But that power comes with risks, and by venturing further into the past, Xhinna may be jeopardizing the very future she has sworn to save.

©2012 Anne McCaffrey (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Narration quite iffy.

Very flat boring narration. I almost didn’t get through the fist part of the story. Better as story progressed when doing characters. The whiny characters drove me nuts. This story did not fit in with any of the other perm timelines, seemed completely disconnected. I liked the stronger women and women riders. That was the main redeeming part of the story. Over all, barely tolerable.

Struggled

I struggled to follow the story line and to finish the book.
Narrator was OK but not great.

Sort of glad this arc is finally over

This has been a long arc. The overall story is good, but most of the books in this part have covered a little more detail than I thought was really necessary, to the point where I was often confused by the multiple instances of ‘timing it’ required to keep the settlement on Pern from collapsing altogether. I am kind of glad to see the end of this part of the Pern saga.

That said, these last two books of this arc have been a little different, cutting into the repetition of the earlier stories somewhat. This time, the young dragon riders have gone back in time to a part of the planet previously thought to be uninhabitable on a long-term basis in an attempt to rebuild the fighting strength of the dragons after the depredations of the people plague followed by the dragon plague, and exacerbated by some mistakes on the part of weyr leaders who should have known better.

Once again weyrwoman Fiona led the initial jump back in time, setting up a temporary weyr on the coast of one of the islands in the southern part of the planet. But after a tragic failure on the hatching sands of the beach when an attack of tunnel snakes aided by a lethal group of cat-like beings they call Mrreows (I picture these critters to be somewhere between bobcats and mountain lions in size when fully grown) leads to a greatly reduced hatching for the dragons, Fiona feels she and most of the more experienced dragon riders must return to their own time temporarily. Fiona leaves Xhinna, the first woman to ride a blue dragon, in charge of the troubled weyr.

This book is the story of how Xhinna tries to save the endangered weyr and raise strong dragons and competent dragonriders to send back to the future Pern struggling to destroy the lethal thread that periodically threatens to destroy all life on the planet instead. To do this, she has to find ways to keep the eggs safe from the tunnel snakes, keep the people safe from tunnel snakes, Mrreows, and each other, and find food and living quarters for all of them. They move into a stand of trees on a hillside above the beach, which eventually acquires the name Sky Weyr, leading to the term Sky Dragons.

Eventually their goal is achieved, and finally they have the dragons to travel forward to their own time and save the planet.

A Tragic Loss

Would you listen to Sky Dragons again? Why?

By listening to this audio book, I have learned that the woman who inspired me to learn to read (in grade 8) has passed away. I will miss her worlds greatly, but that said, her son Todd has also come into his own as a writer and at least Pern will not be lost forever. I do find Todd a much darker writer. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes I yearn for the lighter touch of his mother. This book is a series of books I have been enjoying and I found this one quite interesting indeed. Sky Weir! I like it :-) There is a lot of foreshadowing for subsequent books which i can look forward to. The lenth of the book is pleasant and i hope you take the time to listen to this. I would very much help if you listen/read the other books in this series before listening to this one.

Sincerely,

CJ

Don't start here

There doesn't seem to be a clear order to read these books without we listening to follow the Lorena / Fiona timeline.