Reviews

Dragon's Time: Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

vaderbird's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish

valerielong's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Dragon's Time by Anne & Todd McCaffrey is the 23rd book in the Dragonriders of Pern series.

As I do with most Anne McCaffrey books (and by extension those by Todd McCaffrey as well), I devoured this book. I enjoyed every part of it except for the epilogue. I felt like someone told the authors to take the next 3 or 4 books and smoosh them all together in one short epilogue.

There are places in the book that can get a bit confusing, but the confusion comes from a chunk of the main plot, so I don't want to give it away. All I can say is don't give up on it! It does make sense if you keep reading!

I've been impressed by Todd McCaffrey's ability to "play in his mother's sandbox" (that's how he puts it). When he first started writing Pern novels, I wasn't sure I was going to like his writing style, but now that we're several books into it, I find that I almost like his characters more! He has developed several well-rounded, complex characters and I enjoy reading the interplay between them and watching them grow and develop.

All in all, an excellent new installment to the Pern series!

laurla's review against another edition

Go to review page

- I got a little tired of the constant counting of dragons. I know they wanted to make a point of how few were left, but since they keep telling us as they die, the constant counts felt repetitive and unnecessary. lots of that could have easily been shortened/cut.
- theres a lot of loss and death in this book that made me cry numerous times.
- even with those two points, I still enjoyed the book.

"we are stars in the darkness. we burn bright, beacons for others. we cannot see our own light, only those of others. our light lights others, as their light lights us. and so while there are stars, there can never be darkness."

"you let me worry about tomorrow."
"if you don't mind, i'd prefer it if you could worry a little faster."

"how can you be so sure your wits aren't addled?"
"because they're the same wits I had yesterday, and the day before that as well."

easolinas's review against another edition

Go to review page

1.0

It's official: Anne McCaffrey should have retired the Pern series, rather than handing it off to her profoundly untalented son Todd. And we get yet another demonstration of why in "Dragon's Time," another painfully slow, tension-free story that is more soap-opera than sci-fantasy. And this time around, Todd is obsessing about something new: PREGNANCY.

Specifically, Fiona is pregnant, and everyone cares about this because she's so wonderful. Lorana WAS pregnant, but traveling through time causes her to miscarry. However, she does manage to keep hopping through time, supposedly to find help in obliterating the thread in the present... although most of it just seems to be sightseeing.

Meanwhile, everybody is delighted by the fact that Fiona is pregnant, even when another woman miscarries. Fiona "adopts" more random people into her little family, Lorana pops in and out of the plot, and dragon eggs are attacked by tunnel snakes. Think that McCaffrey has run out of plot ideas?

There's supposed to be a lot going on in "Dragon's Time," but you wouldn't know it by actually READING the book. I mean, main characters DIE, two women miscarry their babies, and Pern is about to be obliterated by the Thread... and all anyone seems to care about is that Fiona is knocked up.

In fact, Todd McCaffrey seems weirdly obsessed with pregnancy in this book, since a good chunk of the story is devoted to what happens to the female characters' pregnancies. Occasionally he throws in some brain-meltingly confusing time travel stuff, or some truly horrifying romantic dialogue ("Shut up harper, and get into bed. I want your apology in silence").

And once again, McCaffrey seems to think that readers will adore Fiona as much as he does. Well, I don't. She comes across as a twee, syrupy Mary Sue who exudes love and peace -- one nauseating scene has all the other characters discussing how wonderful she is, and how they would even DIE for her. This sentiment is REVOLTING when it comes from a woman whose unborn child had just died.

As a result, the other characters are pretty much shortchanged. They seem to exist mainly as a cult to the pregnant mother goddess Fiona, and any hints of tension or dislike are quickly swamped under a sticky sea of oppressively warm'n'fuzzy feelings. Lorana is vaguely interesting, but too much of a silent martyr to be engaging.

It also doesn't seem like this book was proofread by an editor. There are frequent mistakes in punctuation, run-on sentences, and the phrase "She point to the worst spot."

"Dragon's Time" might as well have been called "Drags-on Time," because not much actually happens -- but hey, Fiona is pregnant, and that's all that apparently matters. This cash cow needs to be taken to the slaughterhouse.

erinngillespie's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

https://youtu.be/Bq8HmhGUwUE Caution SPOILERS !!!!!!!

angelahayes's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

Love this series of books. It's one of my all time favourites. I decided to re-read the entire Dragonriders of Pern series and over the past couple of months, I have been working my way through them all. Anne McCaffrey (Todd McCaffrey) has such a wonderful, boundless imagination and such a vivid and descriptive style, her (their) stories transport the reader into the fantastic world that she (they) created and sweeps you up on the breathtaking adventures. Spellbinding!

amalyndb's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

This made me cry, a lot at times.
The weyrs are very near the point at which they can no longer tackle thread, when Lorana borrows Tullea's queen and goes hopping through time to try to find a safe place for the weyrlings to grow and mature. At times, the timeline felt a bit hard to follow, but on letting go of trying to keep strict chronology straight in my head, this was very engrossing to read.

acreech's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Tying up more loose ends, and the characters/relationships had more of Anne's flair.

merixcil's review against another edition

Go to review page

1.0

I love so much of the worldbuilding in the Pern series and boy oh boy do I wish it was put to better use. The plots in these books aren't even bad, per se, but everything seems to waft along at a 'and then this happened, and then this!' sort of pace with very little rhythm to the stories. It makes it very hard to care about the needs of the huge cast of characters, when I'm finding it very hard to track their character arc

bookcrazylady45's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

A nice addition to the story line and, hey, Colfet is alive. I love it when loose ends get tied up. All the bases touched. Not so much sadness.