Dragon Harper: A New Novel of Pern (Dragonriders of Pern Series) [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [MP3 CD]

Anne McCaffrey (Author), Todd McCaffrey (Author), Susan Ericksen (Reader)

Book Description

Series: Dragonriders of Pern Series | Publication Date: December 26, 2007

Life in the Harper Hall is busy for best friends Kindan, Nonala, and Kelsa. As the only female apprentices, Nonala and Kelsa are the butt of jokes and easy targets for the bully Vaxoram and his cronies. But when Kindan springs to Kelsa’s defense, he winds up in a fight for his life against the older, bigger Vaxoram - a fight that will lead to a surprising friendship. Meanwhile, in nearby Fort Hold, a clutch of fire-lizard eggs is about to hatch, and Lord Bemin’s beautiful young daughter, Koriana, is determined to Impress one of the delightful creatures. At the hatching, Kindan Impresses a fire-lizard of his own…and wins the heart of Koriana. But Lord Bemin mistrusts harpers and will not hear of a match between his daughter and the low-born Kindan. Then fate intervenes in the form of a virulent plague as fast-spreading as it is deadly. Arising suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the contagion decimates hold after hold, paying no heed to distinctions of birth. In this feverish crucible, friendship and love will be tested to the breaking point and beyond. For with Threadfall scant years away, the Dragonriders dare not expose themselves to infection, and it will fall to Kindan and his fellow apprentices to bravely search for a cure and save humanity. The price of failure is unthinkable. But the price of success may be even harder to bear.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a terrible plague sweeps Pern, a brave Harper apprentice emerges as a true hero in this satisfying third collaboration between McCaffrey mère and fils (after 2006's Dragon's Fire). The danger this time is not the deadly Thread but a virulent disease, similar to our world's 1918 influenza epidemic or the more recent outbreaks of SARS. Kindan, a young apprentice of the Harpers' Guild who's dedicated to music, education and healing, had hoped to become a dragonrider, but failed to bond with a dragon at the last hatching. Then his education and budding romance with a lord's daughter are disrupted by the epidemic, which poses a particular threat to the dragons and dragonriders who will be needed to fight the approaching Thread. The McCaffreys depict the crisis vividly, with enough detail to make the tragedy all too real and with enough hope to keep fantasy fans happy. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

In this sequel to Dragon’s Fire (2006), young Kindan is now a Harper Hall apprentice and proud owner of a fire lizard. Hall, Hold, and Weyr (three sections of Pernese society) are threatened by a deadly plague, and Kindan and his fellow apprentices are racing to find the cure before the Third Pass begins. In a smooth, clear reading that is somewhat lacking in intensity, Ericksen does not create distinct voices for each character. Series fans, however, will undoubtedly have no trouble identifying the principal players. Featuring a large cast of adolescent characters, this coming-of-age tale is suggested where earlier Pern titles by the McCaffreys (mother and son) are popular. --Jessica Moyer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• MP3 CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed; Library edition (December 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423314697
• ISBN-13: 978-1423314691
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,672,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Picks up in latter third but tough going until then, January 12, 2008

By 

B. Capossere (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dragon Harper (The Dragonriders of Pern) (Hardcover)

To be honest, I don't expect much when I pick up a Pern book anymore. These last few have ranged from middling at best (Dragonsblood) to nearly unreadable (Dragon's Fire). While the eternal optimist in me keeps me reading the series, the realist in me can't help but note just how long it's been since there's been a good book (I'm not asking for the glory of the great ones). Sadly, Dragon Harper doesn't break that streak. It's not as bad as Dragon's Fire, though that isn't saying much at all, and it's not quite as good as Dragonsblood, which also isn't saying much since that novel was mostly just adequate.
Time-wise, the book picks up just after the events of Dragon's Kin and Dragon's Fire. Harper apprentice Kindan is having a tough time at Harper Hall--he can't find something he's good at and he and his friends (Verilan and two girls--Nonala and Kelsa) are tormented by the requisite school bully Vaxoram. Kindan eventually challenges Vaxoram to a duel and Vaxoram becomes his servant and then friend. Soon after Kindan impresses a fire-lizard and at the hatching meets and falls in love with Koriana, daughter of Lord Holder Bemin of Fort Hold (who has Harper "issues" and is no way going to allow his daughter to hook up with one). Then we get the by-now-too familiar plague sweeping across Pern, killing nearly everyone. Kindan and his young friends frantically search the records to find a cure and then gradually take on even more duties as the adults begin to falter before the plague's onslaught.
Where does one start when detailing all the problems with the book? How about plot? The biggest problem has already been mentioned--we've seen it all before. The plague. The search through records. The sense of urgency. The exhausted survivors trying to save the others. The young apprentice constantly being bullied and having to stand up for himself. Dragons going between. Fire Lizards being impressed. If one can't have originality, then one can hope for the comfort of familiarity. But there's a fine line between familiar and stale and Harper crosses that line. Add in the sketchiness of much of the plotting (almost no sense of what is happening elsewhere, who else is combatting this plague and how) and some implausibility tossed in as well, and the book just can't rely on plot to save it.
The same sense of staleness resides in the characters who are at times overly familiar (Kindan has echoes of Piemur) but have none of the spirit or freshness of the characters they are pale shadows of. Some are mere caricatures--the bully and the redeemed bully. And, hearkening back to the major flaws of Dragon's Blood, too many lack a consistent core. A character gloats over another then less than a page or two later speaks with pride of the same person he was just gloating over. Characters switch moods on utter whims, with no sense of reason. Vaxoram's switch from bully to devoted servant is simply unbelievable, with not even a facade of complexity tossed in. Characters learn to fight with their complete opposite hand in under a week. Try dribbling a basketball with a week's practice in your off hand. Now imagine fencing with it. There's suspension of disbelief and then there's not even bothering to pretend it's believable. A character gets the smart idea of surgical masks to help contain the killer flu, but then simply waits around for full-fledged masks to be delivered rather than jury-rig something out of all the material at hand (such as the sheets flapping around outside since the laundress is dead). And the list goes on.
There are other issues as well--flat side-characters, clumsy introduction of feminist issues (it's not the raising of the issue, it's the painfully clunky way it is done), the reliance on "timing" once again to solve a problem (with all its attendant questions/paradoxes, an unnecessary prolog that plays at being coy but is self-evident to any Pern fan and that adds nothing to the plot,
Is there anything good? Actually, yes. While way too familiar, the plague plotline, once it starts going and focuses solely on Kindan's role as healer, is by far the strongest part of the book. The action is tight, focused, well-paced. Characters start to flesh out a bit and one starts to actually care about some of them. It's a sizeable chunk of the book, about a third, and since it comes in the end it means the book leaves a relatively positive taste in your mouth once you finish it, no mean accomplishment after how bad the first two-thirds of the book were.
But a third of a book is still just a third of a book. The fact that it comes at the end means the memory of the book is more positive than it has any right to be, but it still doesn't make it a good book. So I can't recommend this book. Though I fear most Pern fans will read it anyway, hoping against hope and experience--just be forewarned. Anyone who hasn't read the Pern books yet will obviously start with the first ones so it will be long period of enjoyment before they get to the lower quality of the latter books. I envy them their journey and would recommend that current Pern fans can better spend their time retracing their steps in the series rather than continuing forward.
I'll let you know how the next one turns out--though I fear we all already know.

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Another Pernese Plague, December 28, 2007

By 

David Reich "docmagick" (NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dragon Harper (The Dragonriders of Pern) (Hardcover)

OK, I accept that Anne McCaffrey has passed the Pern torch to her son, Todd. I even accept that Todd is passable as an author, though he lacks his mother's genious. But how many plagues will Pern suffer? Can't he come up with another plotline? There are fewer than two dozen characters in the storyline, and most of these flit into scenes without any development. His characters are inconsistent and the situation unbelievable. In a sudden, catastrophic plague, the Masterharper of Pern sets his most junior apprentices to searching the Archives for a cure. Not Healers. Not even Masters. Or Journeymen. And the basis for the search? Look for information about the last Plague. No symptoms of illness, no original source, no planet-wide gathering of Lords, Masters and Weyrleaders - almost all critical decisions are made by a pubescent Apprentice Harper! This premise is well outside bounds set previously in the series, and so absurd that "suspension of disbelief" is impossible. This is a cute enough story that should be in Youth Fiction, but not creditable or deep enough for anyone over the age of twelve to waste any time on this pathetic attempt to continue the Pern saga.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, December 30, 2007

By 

Aerin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dragon Harper (The Dragonriders of Pern) (Hardcover)

This is the firsst of the collaborations between Anne McCaffrey and her son that i've read and my overall impression is disappointment! I adore the Pern series and have been reading them since they first came out but thisis definitely lower quality. In the first place, it is highly inconsistent with the body of the works:
1. If this is supposed to have happened before "Moreta's Ride",why is there no mention of this previous, major plague in that work; if it happens subsequent, why don't the people of Pern have the benefit of that previous experience.
2. Somewhere on Pern, there is a "Healer's Hall". Every other profession has a power base but healers don't? If they exist, as logically they must, where are they? Where is there the group of people trying to find a cure as in Moreta's day?
3. By all accounts, the ability to impress fire lizards is discovered in Lessa's day but here they are, all over the place. PLEASE do not tell me the records were lost! Weyr records were lost when most of the Weyrs of Pern went forward in time leaving their records untended. The rest of Pern, however, went on its merry way and the Harpers kept their records intact. Where are the teaching Sagas about this in Lessa's day?
4. Finally, since when are major tasks, like finding information about plagues, left to the bumbling efforts of adolescents, WITHOUT ANY SUPERVISION? Look at the original Pern books where many adolescents appear as major or minor characters but only under the direction and supervision of adults.

In addition, I find the total concentration on "superteen" Kindan a little lacking in the color and richness of Anne McCaffrey's solo works. Compare this with three novels in "Harper Hall of Pern" and you can see the difference.

Unfortunately, this should have been written as the other side of "Moreta's Ride" - the same history from the point of view of the people of Pern, rather than the Weyrs. Unfortunately, that would have required leaving out the firelizards and weaving in a far more complex tapestry.