The Girl Who Heard Dragons [Mass Market Paperback]

Anne McCaffrey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 1995

Anne McCaffrey's dragons are the stuff of which SF/fantasy legends are made. All of her dragon books for many years have been national bestsellers. She is one of the most popular writers ever in fantasy and science fiction.

The Girl Who Heard Dragons is a feast for McCaffrey fans and for all readers - a big, satisfying compilation of her fiction never before collected in book form. Best of all, it opens with an original short novel of Pern, "The Girl Who Heard Dragons." In addition, the book contains 24 beautiful black and white drawings by award-winning artist Michael Whelan.

Romance, humor, colorful description and affecting characters are Anne McCaffrey's hallmarks and the fifteen stories herein have these virtues in abundance. No wonder the Chicago Sun-Times described her as a "master of the well-told tale."

"The Girl Who Heard Dragons" is the story of Aramina, a teenage girl of Pern who hears dragons - a skill which does not seem likely to help solve her family's problems. They are "holdless," and must constantly roam the land, trying to hide from bandits. Aramina's mother fears losing her daughter completely to the life of a dragonrider, but McCaffrey has another fate in mind for her young heroine.

The fourteen other stories - all just as good - are:

Velvet Fields
Euterpe on a Fling
Duty Calls
A Sleeping Humpty Dumpty Beauty
The Mandalay Cure
A Flock of Geese
The Greatest Love
A Quiet One
If Madam Likes You...
Zulei, Grace, Nimshi and the Damnyankee
Cinderella Switch
Habit Is an Old Horse
Lady-in-Waiting
The Bones Do Lie

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spanning a variety of eras, settings and genres (SF to mainstream), this new collection of 15 tales by the prolific McCaffrey is a satisfying exhibition of her storytelling ability. In the haunting "Velvet Fields," colonists on a new world must make a terrible decision when the planet turns out not to be as uninhabited as it appears. The title story, the only tale set on Pern, recounts some of the circumstances leading up to Renegades of Pern , focusing on the plight of the masterless and homeless in times of peril. In "Zulei, Grace, Nimshi, and the Damnyankees," an Arab woman sold into slavery protects a plantation and its horses during the Civil War and its aftermath. A random group of people from different eras caught in a time storm are dominated by an old woman who can predict the time changes in "A Flock of Geese." The contemporary "Euterpe on a Fling" explores the relationship between a singer and an audience in producing a performance. Few horsemen have been left on the Earth depicted in "The Quiet One," where large animals have had to make way for an expanding human population. McCaffrey ( Lyon's Pride ) niceley demonstrates her range and world-building skills in this eminently readable assembly. Illustrations by Mike Whelan .
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This collection of 15 stories, including a new "short novel" of Pern, offers a varied look at one of sf's most popular storytellers. Recommended.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy (August 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812510992
• ISBN-13: 978-0812510997
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,288,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anne McCaffrey, the Hugo Award-winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern® novels, is one of science fiction's most popular authors. With Elizabeth Ann Scarborough she co-authored Changelings and Maelstrom, Books One and Two of The Twins of Petaybee. McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OK, fellow-Pern readers, calm down!, May 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Girl Who Heard Dragons (Mass Market Paperback)

The book "The Girl Who Heard Dragons" is NOT a Pern book. There. Maybe that helps a bit. See, this book is a collection of SHORT STORIES. Only the FIRST story takes place on Pern. The other fourteen are a collection of fasinating and extremly diverse group of stories. One of my favorites was "The Greatest Love", which is about two children being born in the womb of their aunt, not their mother. This is done all the time now; women unable to have children find proxy mothers to help them. But this was written years before the procedure was done. Anyway, the point is, this is NOT a Pern book. It's a collection of Anne McCaffrey's writings. The first Pern story was excellant, but the other stories were just as great. And to you confused readers out there . . . take a closer look!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing..., December 27, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Girl Who Heard Dragons (Mass Market Paperback)

I have to agree with many other people in the disappointment they expressed upon reading this book. I am a huge fan of the Pern series and, as such, I expected this book to be just as thrilling as others in the series. I must say that I was sadly mistaken. "The Girl Who Heard Dragons" is a rich and captivating tale, and I was thoroughly looking forward to its continuation in what I assumed to be the next chapter. However, as many before me have stated, it was a completely different story. There is NOWHERE on the book that indicates it to be a collection of short stories, which, quite frankly, ticked me off. I felt cheated because of this lack of information, and simply because I believed (and still do) that "The Girl Who Heard Dragons" would make an amazing novel. There is so much that could be built around it, and it simply disappointed me that the full potential of the story had not been met. I don't mean to insult or try to pretend that I could write such captivating works, but I felt the need to express my feelings about the book, or lack there of.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Warning! If you're new to McCaffrey, don't start here!, March 30, 2002

By 

Amanda Browne (Meadow Lakes, Alaska) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Girl Who Heard Dragons (Mass Market Paperback)

What a disappointment! Faced with what was promising to be an exceedingly dull afternoon, I was in urgent need of a good read. "The Girl Who Heard Dragons" presented itself, and, as my husband has always spoken highly of McCaffrey, I decided to give it a whirl. Immediately, I became engrossed in the plight of young Aramina and her family. The end of the first chapter found our protagonist somewhat apprehensively leaving her family to begin a new life in a new land. Eagerly, I began what appeared to be chapter two and found myself in a bizarre world with 100-year-old sentient trees. What could this possibly have to do with the dragon girl? I forced myself to have patience and read through to the end of this ridiculous story, whereupon I finally realized I had been scammed. With the exception of the first, which has no ending, "The Girl Who Heard Dragons" is apparently a collection of short stories. Unfortunately, in what I can only assume is a deceitful marketing ploy, this fact is never mentioned on the cover, the blurb, nor the introduction. Thus the reader is duped into buying what he or she is led to believe is a Pern fantasy. Frankly, I feel cheated, and my first - and likely only - McCaffrey experience has left me with a quite a sour taste.