Dragon’s Fire by Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey
Might contain spoilers.
This book is one of my ‘comfort reads’. I bought it at Vancouver Airport in 2007 while waiting to board the flight back home to India. Like Crystal Rain , it reminds me of that major transition in my life.
Nevertheless, however pleasant the memories that accompany it, I wouldn’t have read it so many times if it weren’t a rather good story to begin with.[1] The fully fleshed-out world of the Dragonriders is a joy to explore. (As is to be expected: I only discovered a few years after reading it that this was the 19th book published in the Dragonriders of Pern—or just Pern—series!) The only thing that doesn’t sit well with me is the timing of Pellar’s experience with Arella.
I thought Pellar might not be dead after the events of the first half, but my recollections were indistinct enough that I couldn’t be sure, and I worried that he might indeed be lost for good. After all he went through, and at a time when he had finally started to find himself, it would have been too much to bear. I was much relieved when he returned at last, though Chitter’s death was a terrible cost.
- I have two other books dating from that period: Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn and Angel Stations by Gary Gibson. I don’t think I’ve ever reread the first. As for the second, I believe I read it twice in the first five years, but I found it rather unpleasant when I returned to it a couple of years ago. The third time emphatically was not the charm.↩