Dragonsdawn (Dragonriders of Pern Series)
by Anne McCaffrey
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Book Reviews of Dragonsdawn (Dragonriders of Pern Series)
Book Review: The Dawn of an Era, the Birth of a World...
Summary: 5 Stars
When one goes through countless reviews, some good, others bad, you stop to think if anyone ever reads these and if you are just saying what others have said. You know what I have come to think? I don't care. I just have to write something to praise the books I am reviewing... like this one.I read this book after I read Dragonflight. I know it is not how the series should be read but I could not find Dragonquest and I needed, urged for a Pern book. So I decided to read Dragonsdawn. And I made no mistake. I loved this book. It has so much in such a wonderful way. You can actually believe that this may happen... fiction is no longer fiction. It all seems to plausible. And it's wonderful.
You are faced with the Coloners from Earth in search of a world to colonize. They have come to the Rukbat System and found the third planet to be ihabitable. They named it Pern. And so it all begins. What they did not know was that Pern, for calmer and more beautiful it may seem, hides a dangerous and deadly secret. The threat of the Threads, brought by the Red Star, catches the coloners unware, unexpectedly. And from then on it is a race to protect the survivor's lives from certain death. You witness in this book the birth of the Dragonriders, and the beginning of the amazing relationship with the dragons. From the delicate fire-lizards there comes the dragons of Pern... to fight Thread, to breathe fire, to protect humans. And you can't keep yourself from suffering in the harsh times, bellowing in joy with the fight of this danger, and shedding a tear when the multi-faceted eye of a dragon crosses your own eyes...
If you love Dragonriders of Pern... Dragonsdawn will surely amaze you. Though if you want to keep the many mysteries of your world away from your knowledge, then you should not read this book. But then you'd miss a great book.
Book Review: OK but not great
Summary: 3 Stars
I loved Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon. They remain my favorites of the Pern series, combining interesting characters with compelling storylines. I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up Dragonsdawn. From the prologues of the previous books, we already knew the gist of Pern's history, so I wondered how McCaffrey would flesh it out. Not very well, in my opinion. The first half of the story is slow, introducing us to the colonists, their hopes and dreams, and their discovery of the fire-lizards. We are also given a glimpse of the main human villain, Avril Bitra, who is completely unnecessary to the story. Thread is enough of a menace that the book didn't need any other antagonists, and indeed, Avril's plotline is weak.
Things start to pick up once Thread falls and the colony falls into disarray. But here, the book falls down in its logic. A reader doesn't have to agree with the actions of the characters, but those actions need to make sense to be believable. The fire lizards had proven themselves effective Thread fighters without any human intervention. The idea that the fire lizards needed to be genetically modified to be obedient, more intelligent, and to carry a human rider is, therefore, baffling. But the author needed to get us from fire lizards to dragons with riders, so that's what she gave us from the beginning.
All in all, the story didn't captivate me as the previous books did. There was a certain mystique when Pern's colonists were shrouded in time and details left to the reader's imagination. Sometimes, the reality doesn't live up to the legend.
Book Review: Not worth the time
Summary: 2 Stars
That is how I summed up this book, not worth the time. This book is very confusing. This comes from the number of characters there are. In every incident in this book, you usually have to think back and remember who the characters are before reading on. There are a whole lot of villagers, then you have to keep track of all the different dragons too. The only way to accurately keep track of all the different characters would be to make a notebook with the character's name and what they do next to it. This book was also very boring. The author just doesn't have the flare in her words that keeps you reading, so most things don't even stand out to you when it is a important event. A good book would take a whole page to dramatize an important characters death, but Dragonsdawn takes about three sentences. Then, once you figure out that someone died, you have to go back and figure out who it was!I would compare the theme of this book to the book Ender's Game. In both books, mankind has to fight a alien hazard to stay and survive on their planet in a futuristic world. The main differences are that in Dragonsdawn, the battle against the alien hazard is on a different planet. The fighting in Dragonsdawn is done by a group of colonists on a new planet who are trying to escape the corrupt society on other planets, but the fighting in Ender's game is done by the military of planet earth. Dragonsdawn also uses dragons to fight the threat to their survival.
Overall, I consider this book a waste of my time. I just couldn't get into the plot enough to keep me reading. Two stars.
Book Review: Overall good book
Summary: 4 Stars
This book will keep you guessing how one thing relates to another, at first it's confusing but when you get into the book it starts to make more sense, for instance, why one of the pilots wanted to save so much fuel, at first you don't understand then later it makes sense. The relationship of the characters is very well thought out, but there are so many characters that play tiny parts, it's hard to remember who did what. Only the main characters have a real solid background on what they did throughout the book, while the more insignificant characters are just that, you remember what they did but not who they were. What I didn't like most about this book was the long introduction, they are on a spaceship, and they're going to Pern, what more is there to know, I don't really care for how slow it is at the beginning. Another thing that relates to the long introduction, is the long explanations, some of them take up quite a few pages that I'd rather not read, it's relevant, but the length of them is awful. There are also quite a few characters that have very significant roles, so you have to constantly remember who did what and why, some of them are in little groups so it won't be too hard to figure what they did in relation to the others.
All and all this book was a very good read, minus the lengthy explanations and introduction. So if you are thinking about this book or are not sure, read the first 50 or so pages, you'll know if you will like it from there.
Book Review: A Must Read
Summary: 5 Stars
Dragonsdawn, my all time favorite science fiction novel, is about colonists who travel to an out-of-the-way corner of the galaxy to escape from the stresses of their increasingly technological way of life. The book begins with their arrival on the planet Pern, and tells of their struggle to survive against unforeseen odds. To combat the evils of Thread, a strange organism that falls from the sky and devours anything organic, they bioengineer the planet's natural inhabitants - creatures they call fire lizards - into dragons that can char Thread in the sky.
It's a great example of science fiction because Anne McCaffrey deposits her audience in a society extremely far removed from our own and proceeds to illustrate that the fundamental elements of human nature extend even to the other side of the universe. Her multitude of well-developed characters depict the good and the bad of humanity, explaining that even in a world that could be perfect, people's basic nature remains unchanged. No matter where you go, there will still be greed, dishonesty and despair, but there will also be hope, courage and passion. Although the beginning may seem tedious, it's important later on to understand the motivations behind the characters. Allow McCaffrey about 50 pages to set up the background of the story and then her amazing characterizations and storytelling ability will suck you in and you won't be able to put the book down until the end.