The Skies Of Pern (Hardcover)

~ Anne McCaffrey (Author) "Since it was not at all unusual for dragonriders to be found poring over the volumes in the extensive Aivas archives, F'lessan, rider of bronze..." (more)
Key Phrases: fresh klah, healer hall, klah pot, Cove Hold, Lord Holder, Harper Hall (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anne McCaffrey's Pern series has been running successfully for so long that most of the Dragonriders' original problems have been solved. In The Skies of Pern, she confronts her standard cast of characters with the consequences of those solutions, consequences that are a whole new set of problems. Now that the Red Star has been pushed to another orbit, there will only be a few more ravenous Threads descending from it for them and their dragons to fight--and what role will that leave for them? They have successfully reclaimed Earth's lost technology--and suddenly everyone with a craft that might be outmoded, or who is phobic about surgery, is on the rampage, sabotaging and smashing and making up rumors. These fundamentalist Abominators are sure that something terrible will happen if the old ways are not gone back to--and sure enough, fire descends, on cue, from the skies.

Anne McCaffrey's tales of genetically engineered dragons and a lost colony that has declined into feudalism are ultimately SF rather than fantasy because they are about finding solutions to problems, solutions that involve working with what you are given to start off with; The Skies of Pern is all about elegant solutions to credible problems. --Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller McCaffrey's first Pern novel in three years returns to the world of her most popular series, Dragonriders of Pern, reprising almost all the best-loved Pernese characters. In earlier episodes, hero and heroine F'lar and Lessa summoned the captivating dragons and their riders from the remote past to save Pern from a devastating rain of Thread, while the later discovery of Aivas, the artificial intelligence that guided Pern's original human settlers, brought technological marvels like printing to Pern and helped shift the Thread-producing Red Star from its lethal orbit before it self-destructed. Now neo-Luddite Abominators are bent on destroying all of Aivas's gifts and returning watery Pern to its primitive state, while the Dragonriders struggle to find new purpose in a Threadless world. F'lar and Lessa uneasily contemplate second careers or horrors! retirement, while their genteel and amorous son F'lessan and perceptive green rider Tai arrive at both a dragon-assisted romance and a whole new role for the telepathic and telekinetic dragons. McCaffrey's various themes traditionalism vs. technology, the necessity of societal change, feminist commentary on draconian psychology are at times awkwardly integrated. And her slightly watered-down villains seem peripheral to the action, merely a means to showcase familiar personalities performing during crises. Nonetheless, as all her Pern novels amply demonstrate, McCaffrey's sexy and cunning dragons carry the day and the novel with impeccable, irresistible panache. (Apr. 3) Forecast: A likely genre bestseller, but some younger Pern fans may be put off by the emphasis on retirement, unable to appreciate the angst of inexorably approaching age.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st edition (April 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345434684
• ISBN-13: 978-0345434685
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (120 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #887,768 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 16 in The Dragonriders of Pern Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth every penny!, April 3, 2001

By	Robert Shepard Jr. (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a long-time major fan of Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, I gleefully pounce on them the moment they appear in hardback. In fact, they're the ONLY novels I'll routinely shell out so much money for. In the case of "The Skies of Pern", I managed to get my hands on the UK version...

Was it worth it? Definitely! I'd've downed it in one marathon sitting were it not for having to go to work and earn a living. And I reread it the following week. All 450 pages of it!

Once again Ms. McCaffrey visits our old friends in the Ninth Pass, picking up where "The Dolphins of Pern" leaves off. We get to see how they deal with the perils of anti-technology fanatics ("Abominators"), the uncertainties of the role dragons will play in a Thread-free world and Lord Toric's endless greed and conniving. A major new threat faces Pern from above, and the dragons have to come up with a novel and surprising way of dealing with it. A way hinted at in earlier books, particularly "All the Weyrs of Pern".

Along the way, Ms. McCaffrey does her usual excellent job of developing characters both old and new. Be prepared for a real tear-jerker toward the end.

So, if you're a Pern fan, this one is a must! While you're waiting for this one to arrive, you might want to dust off your copy of "All the Weyrs" and "Dolphins" just to refresh your memory and whet your appetite.

My only hope is that the next installment comes soon.

74 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well... at least it takes us back to Pern!, April 18, 2001

By A Customer

I love Pern. I've loved Pern since the first books have come out. I've read and re-read every book so many times that I have a list of all the typos and chronological "boo-boos" in each one. But I still love Pern and the wonderful dragons.

The Skies of Pern is a fair book. It takes me back to Pern and I get to meet all my old friends again. See how they've grown, what new changes are taking place. It's like going home again.

But there are some major descrepancies that just cannot be ignored. For these four serious blunders I have to give only three stars instead of five.

Blunder No. One: Lady Lessa. Lady?? Since when is Weyrwoman Lessa called Lady? She is not a Holder's wife. She gave up the right to be Holder of Ruatha at Jaxom's birth. Aivas called her Lady once and was trounced quickly as to her real title and rank. She is Weyrwoman or Ramoth's Rider. This is a very serious mistake. How can Anne not remember the titles and ranks of her own characters??

Blunder No. Two: Golly. The noble bronze dragon Golanth is called "Golly"? In Dragon's Dawn the first dragons clearly let it be known that they will not tolerate nicknames. The dolphins might shorten a name due to pronunciation, but for the humans to pick up on it and follow along is wrong. It demeans the dragon.

Blunder No. Three: Mirrim. OK, to be honest here, I can't stand Mirrim. I didn't like her in DragonQuest, I tolerated her in Dragonsong, and I wished she had been banished to the Far Reaches in White Dragon. But she keeps popping back up like a really bad penny. I like Toric more then Mirrim. But besides all that. What is she doing being a weyrleader? She is only a green dragon rider. Where is the Queen Dragon of Eastern? Who is the Queen dragon of Eastern? Where does this bizarre menage a trois start? Have I missed a short story somewhere where all this is explained?

Blunder No. Four: When did the Runners Guild become a player? Seems to me that we should have had some inkling of them back in the very first book. They might have come in handy when F'Lar was trying to figure out a way to communicate with all the holds before Thread started falling. At least in Renegades of Pern, Anne started the Traders Guild back at the beginning and slowly brought them forward with the rest of the story. But in Skies of Pern we are thrown in with a very major guild and left to wonder who they are??!

I loved the book for the fact that it did take me back to Pern. But there were some major "wrongs" that I just can't ignore. So I stand by my assessment of Three out of Five stars.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A major disappointment, April 18, 2001

By	"annezo" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

In the original six books for this world, McCaffrey offered us an enticing concept with sentient dragons in partnership with humans and a world-wide threat (Thread) that served to alternately unite and divide various elements of her society.

Unfortunately, the weaknesses of plot and characterization that I've been determined to avoid seeing in the previous books hit me smack in the face with this one. More like an amateur effort at copying McCaffrey's style than a book by the same author of the rest of the series, The Skies of Pern draws heavily on the same cliched character devices McCaffery includes in all her books while taking her episodic style of writing to a dizzying and confusing extreme.

Less than a hundred pages into the book, I would have paid double the cover price for a timeline listing what was happening and who was involved. The action skipped around in time and changed POV character so frequently that you need a scorecard to remind yourself who was involved in what particular scene.

She has littered the landcape of this novel with characters familiar from previous books, without managing to make their contribution to the plot either compelling or convincing.

The plot itself is contrived and suffers from an excess of exposition as the characters deliver huge chunks of mathematical explanation for various stellar or planetary events. Such indegestible chunks are both unnecessary to the plot and out of place in the universe the story inhabits. Quite frankly, those passages read as though the author had a minimum word count to reach for the novel and was desperate to add a few hundred words here and there.

Characterization is always predictable for this series, since each book features a selected Abuse Victim who is destined to Rise Above Adversity in the end and Save The World. And, yes, the way she writes, you can almost read the capitals in the speeches designed to clue you in on how badly this or that person has been treated by life. But never fear...they'll triumph in the end, probably with a scene so treacly that your teeth will be glued together for hours afterwards.

In closing, I can't describe how disappointed I was with this book. Amateurish, poorly plotted with clumsy exposition and lifeless dialogue, it was more like a first effort by a teenager than the work of a mature, experienced author.