Dragon's Kin (Hardcover)

by Anne McCaffrey (Author), Todd McCaffrey (Author) "KINDAN WAS SO EXCITED that he practically bounced as he ran up to the heights where Camp Natalon kept its drum, fire beacon, and watch..." (more)
Key Phrases: coal drays, wedding platform, head miner, Master Zist, Camp Natalon, Wind Blossom (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Beloved bestseller McCaffrey has joined forces with her son, Todd, to produce another delightful entry in the Pern series, which began with Dragonflight in 1968. The action here centers on Camp Natalon, the site of a coal mine. Now that the surface seams of coal have begun to run dry on Pern, it's imperative to start extracting coal from deep underground, despite the increased danger. Some of the miners rely on the expertise of the watch-whers, smaller versions of dragons, to help keep them safe in the mines. As Kindan, blind Nuella and master harper Zist puzzle out the lore, habits and abilities of these nocturnal creatures, they find out more about the watch-whers (and themselves) than they thought possible. Fans who have become comfortable with McCaffrey's smooth trademark style over the years will notice no seams-which bodes well for any solo novels her coauthor, the heir apparent, may contribute to the Dragonriders saga.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The latest Pern novel is something of a family affair, with the creator of one of sf's most splendid and longest-lived sagas collaborating with her son on the latest installment. The story takes place during an unexplored period in the history of Pern, before the coming of the Thread. The watch-whers are already playing a prominent role, however, keeping watch at night at the holds and weyrs and helping in the mines. The protagonists are Kindin and Nuella, young people living in a mining camp. A cave-in wipes out Kindin's father and brothers as well as the old watch-wher, and Kindin moves in with camp Harper. There he learns the skills of being a Harper, including discretion and mediation. Eventually, he and Nuella learn the secret of how watch-whers see in the dark, and about their communication with dragons, which opens a wholly new range of capabilities for the dragon-riders. What with sound narrative technique, above-average characterization, and several of the Pern fans favorite ongoing saga themes, the new book is a guaranteed pleaser as well as a harbinger that Pern, an enduring monument for two generations of sf readers so far, will continue after its originator's departure. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; First Edition edition (November 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345461983
• ISBN-13: 978-0345461988
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #169,326 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 18 in The Dragonriders of Pern Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars solid but uninspired, one of the weaker Pern books, January 3, 2004

By	B. Capossere (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It is appropriate that Dragon's Kin is set in a mining camp as ever since the earlier "Long Interval" series of Pern novels she has been "mining" the world of Pern for more ideas and stories. The quality of these later stories is seldom as strong as the earlier ones (referring to Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon, and the Harper Hall trilogy), running a spectrum from almost as good (All the Weyrs) to merely adequate (dragonsdawn, renegades). Dragon's Kin falls somewhere in the middle, not nearly as good as her great works, not nearly as bad as the worst. If you haven't read any Pern, this book is somewhat independent, but does assume a basic knowledge of how the world works and therefore isn't a good starting place. Even more importantly, however, you should start with the strongest examples not the weakest, so begin with DragonFlight and move on through there before coming to Dragon's Kin.
By this point in the series, McCaffery is down to picking out minor parts of the Pern world that have yet to be explored--she already did the explanatory prequels, she covered fire lizards and dolphins, she's covered harpers and traders and riders. She isn't left with much and so we get Kin, focusing on watchwhers and miners.
This is set between the time of the original series and the prequel books. The disadvantage is that we don't get to see those characters most of us fell so in love with. The advantage is that she (I keep saying she but of course her son is co-author) doesn't have her hands tied as she did in the prequels with having to explain specific rituals, names, etc, a reason those prequel books tend to fall in the lower ranks of quality.
In general, this is a solid book. The characters are mostly interesting enough, though not particularly so and if they aren't all that vividly constructed, they also manage to move beyond being simply cardboard characters. The plot is somewhat predictable--it's hard to imagine a book centered on a mining camp that won't have at its climax a cave-in scene, though perhaps it didn't need to be so obviously telegraphed as it is here. Characters pretty much act as we would expect them to from our very first meeting of them (with perhaps one or two exceptions) and events pretty much fall into the order we expect. None of the characters have the force of a L'essa or a Robinton or a Piemur (even in comparison to their first introduction as characters as opposed to after reading several books about them), nor do any of the inter-relationships have the same emotional strength or passion as is so evident among those earlier characters (or even those earlier characters and their dragons). Granted, this is a high standard, but it is after all one which McCaffery set herself. But if Kin doesn't come close to meeting that standard, it doesn't fall completely on its face either.
That is, except for one curiously grating plot point involving watchwhers going between and which seems predicated on several characters having completely forgotten events from earlier in the book. This was a pretty major flaw to have found itself into the book, and in a stronger work would have had probably more of an impact for the worse, but here is just sort of annoying.
In language and complexity, the book seems geared at a somewhat younger age, though I'm not quite sure why. Dragonsong etc. were also somewhat YA, but I don't recall them being so simple in their language and plotting, though perhaps I'm not remembering correctly. As with those three Harper hall books, there is room here for a continuation with several of these characters, who were likable enough and just interesting enough that I'd pick up another book involving them, though not with the avidness with which I awaited books like The White Dragon or All the Weyrs.
In the end, a serviceable book, an amiable one, but not a compelling one and not an essential one.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars decent, but nothing to get excited about, January 21, 2004

By	Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Dragons Kin is Anne McCaffreys latest offering in her long-running and best-selling Dragonriders of Pern series. It is also the first time she has permitted a co-author into the Pern universe: her son, Todd. This time McCaffrey tells the story of an earlier time in Perns history. The time is more than halfway through the second Interval, 16 years before the next Threadfall and the next pass of the Red Star. We are several hundred years before the events in Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern and perhaps a hundred years from the events of Dragonseye. So, this is the time period we are looking at.

The story is set in the Natalon mining camp, and this is one of the first times weve had a look at the miners. This is the story of Kindan, a twelve year old boy who seemed older when I read the book. Kindan does not expect anything more out of his life than to follow his father into the mines when he is old enough. All of this changes when there is an accident at the mine and Kindans father and brothers are all killed. He is left an orphan and he is taken in by the Masterharper, Zist.

What the title of this book refers to is the watch whers (they appear in several of the Pern novels). The watch whers are dragon like, though smaller and nocturnal, and are used typically as a nighttime guard or as the first warning if anything is going wrong. They are kin to dragons (hence the title) from when humans first settled on Pern. Watch whers play a prominent role in this book (though, the watch wher egg does not appear until close to half way through the book).

At times, Dragons Kin did not feel like a Pern novel. Dragons play such a limited role, and this story is such a sub-set off of what became the primary storyline throughout Pern. This was a quick reading story, but none of the characters were as engaging as previous characters. There is no Menolly, or Lessa, or Flar, or Jaxom, or even any of the characters from Dragonsdawn. Kindan is too young, and while he may grow into a better character (assuming McCaffrey follows up with these characters), he isnt interesting enough to build a novel around. The minor character, Nuella, she has potential. Dragons Kin is a decent enough Pern novel, but it is nothing to get excited about.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good coming of age tale, but not great, July 7, 2004

By	Barb Caffrey "writer-for-hire" (Quad Cities, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Dragon's Kin," while not up to the standard of most of the earlier Pern novels, is far better than the last bunch about F'lessan.

The basic plot is as follows. Kindan wants to be a Harper, and has vocal and musical talent. He's about eleven or twelve when the book opens, and is kind of at loose ends; his favorite sister is marrying, his brothers are distant, and as the youngest of nine children, his father seems rather remote. Kindan does have a close friend, Zenor, who's a few months older, but that's about it.

And things are even more odd in this family than in most, because Kindan's father is bonded to a watchwher (distant cousins of both the fire lizards and the dragons), and lives different hours than most people as watchwhers are nocturnal. At any rate, Kindan doesn't realize how different his life is than most, although his friend Zenor does (and is envious of it).

And because of where he lives, Kindan gets to know more about watchwhers than most people. This might be considered an advantage by many, but not by Kindan. His heart is elsewhere.

Then disaster strikes, and most of Kindan's family gets wiped out in a mining accident. The watchwher dies helping to get the few miners who survived the accident out of the mine, and Kindan is left totally alone for the first time in his life. He has mixed feelings about this, but for the most part, those feelings are never brought to the fore.

Because of this, Kindan doesn't feel totally fleshed out as a character; he's never allowed to fully grieve. And even amidst a bunch of folks who are also grieving, I doubt Kindan -- or any child, no matter how mature -- would be as matter of fact about losing all his family.

Be that as it may, because Kindan is no more than twelve, he can't live alone, and he's not cut out for work in the mine. Fortunately, everyone realizes this, and he goes to live with the Harper. A brief idyll ensues, as Kindan enjoys helping the Harper and gets to know Nuella, a blind girl whose been hidden from most of the folks at the minehold due to her disability.

Then another disaster happens in the mine, and its determined that another watchwher must be sought. For whatever reason, the minehold of Natalon (that's the head miner) is now considered to be accursed by some (although this is never fully gone into, either), and no grown watchwher or his/her handler will go there.

However, if a watchwher can be raised from the egg, then they'll have some protection. Watchwhers are good in mines; they can detect bad air faster than humans can, and as they see by infrared, they're very good at rescue as well (as was seen by the loss of the previous watchwher).

What does this have to do with Kindan? Plenty, as he's the only person in the minehold -- the only one -- who knows anything at all about watchwhers.

(Spoiler warning below) *****

Basically, Kindan is forced to go find a watchwher egg despite not really knowing much about how to raise a watchwher. Then, after he brings it home and it hatches, Nuella shows a great talent with the watchwher, but does not bond with the new fledgling, so the new watchwher (dubbed Kisk) stays with Kindan.

How does this all play out? It's for you to read. (Don't want to spoil it any more than that.)

**** end of spoiler warning ****

The reason this gets three stars, rather than the four I was initially contemplating, is that the characterization (other than that of the blind Nuella) isn't as strong as most of the other Pern books. But it is at least the equal in characterization of the latter books (starting with "All the Weyrs of Pern" and continuing outward from that year), and it reads easier than most of those.

But is it the equal of the earliest of the Pern books about Lessa and F'lar? No. Is it the equal of the earlier YA novels about Menolly, Sebell, and Piemur? No.

So, although this is a good coming of age tale (and is definitely intended for younger audiences in my opinion, although older readers also will enjoy the book), and although it reads fast and easily, it's not great.

And what makes it less than what it could have been lays solely along the lines of characterization. This book doesn't make the reader look for underlying meaning. In "Dragon's Kin," the underlying meanings are either too plain, or too subtle; either one might have worked, but not both.

One final comment: I believe that Todd McCaffrey helped this book, rather than hindered. This book has much more life than most of the last books (anything after "All the Weyrs of Pern" in sequence) except for "Master Harper of Pern," and I think that's because of Mr. McCaffrey's contribution. And it's because of the life and liveliness of the book that I read until the end, and (for the most part) enjoyed it.

Three stars.

(...)