This is my second go-through for this installment in McCaffrey's Pern series. I read it many many years ago as a teenager. It is just as good, if not better, than it was back then. I never get tired of visiting and revisiting Pern. McCaffrey's writing style is addictive. If you've never read a Pern book before, the introduction to this story will fill you in on the pertinent backstory and details. It's my understanding that none of the books technically need to be read in any particular order, although this second time around I've been reading them in chronological order, which is quite fun. You'll get sucked into the character interactions and human drama and conflict pretty quickly. The bioengineered dragons and the enemy Thread that falls from the sky and devours everything organic that it touches only form the backdrop to the absorbing storytelling and human experience McCaffrey shares with us.
This book follows Fort Weyrwoman Moreta during the latter end of a Fall. As if fighting Thread wasn't difficult enough to deal with, a devastating plague sweeps through all the weyrs and forts, completely decimating pockets of habitations. Working alongside Pern's Masterhealer and Ruathan Hold's new leader Alessan, Moreta tirelessly balances her Thread-fighting duties with helping to inoculate those of Pern's inhabitants who the plague affects: namely the humans and their herd beasts. Time is against them and so Moreta must 'time' it (go back and forth in time, which is a capability of the bioengineered dragon she is telepathically linked to) before a second wave of the plague strikes again.
It's a simple enough story, but the characters are so fully realized and the emotions and love story so nicely detailed that at the ending of the book, you can't help but set your reading device down (my Kindle in this case) and sigh with the bittersweetness of life. Anne McCaffrey was a brilliant writer. It's too bad she didn't pass her masterly skills of writing to her son Todd, who has done a terribly clumsy, awkward, and embarrassing job of trying to imitate his inimitable mother. My warning to you: Only read a Pern book if it has ONLY Anne McCaffrey's name on it. Don't read anything blindly doting mother and son collaborated on and definitely don't waste your time on any of Todd's pathetic solo efforts at blundering around in his mother's intricate universe.
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