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J-Haskell In reply to Biohazardia [2019-07-23 16:29:01 +0000 UTC]

Thank you! The leaves were pretty tricky to get right.

Pern is a pretty good set of books, and I'd recommend reading them just because of how well McCaffrey created an interesting and believable world. The dragons are very smart, but they do think in a different way than the humans, and the level of focus they get varies from book to book; they might just be there or they might be a major character! Both Naomi Novik and a few other authors were inspired by what they read to try their own take on dragonriders, so it's interesting to read them and see what they liked best and what they decided to change.

The dialogue and story are fine, and it's probably the only take on time-travel that I could actually understand, hahah. McCaffrey's strength was worldbuilding, so that's honestly the part of her story that sticks with you the most. Her son actually helped write/and wrote some books entirely on his own; I've read them... and sometimes I like them better than Anne's work? And sometimes I don't. There's a new book in the series by her daughter, but I haven't gotten the chance to read it yet. (But the cover looks awesome and I'm going to try to grab a copy soon.)

The fans of the series tend to just grab all the stuff about canon they like and ignore everything else, because it's more fun that way (and, well, although it was progressive at the time, some of the older books haven't aged well: they're still fine to read, though). But the best part is honestly the community! There's not too much on DA specifically (although I'd like to see about changing that, hah) there's more RP forums based on the series than you could shake a stick at. The series is just full of potential for fans to create their own characters and stories; it's probably one of the main reasons it's still around.

Also did I mention there's one book about sentient dolphins? Because it's actually pretty good.

Aaaah, sorry for the rambling! These books were my childhood and I have a lot of thoughts on them.

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Biohazardia In reply to J-Haskell [2019-07-23 17:29:24 +0000 UTC]

That sounds pretty cool! I do really like a solid worldbuilding, usually I get concerned about the characters/dialogue because while good worldbuilding I think is needed for a reader to "get lost" in a book's universe (as you mentioned with lots of RP forums and places for fans to expand), I tend to get bored of a story without characters that I care about. I do know at least Tui and Novik did take aspects from Dragonriders of Pern, so naturally I'm quite interested in what they decided to change and such ^_^

Which book would you recommend that I start with for the Pern series then? I know there's some debate about whether to start in the written chronological order or the chronological order of the story. And don't be sorry bout the rambles, I can tell you like the series from them, which is why I'm now interested  

Also sentient dolphins  

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J-Haskell In reply to Biohazardia [2019-07-23 18:02:15 +0000 UTC]

Yeah!  The characters and story are definitely solid enough to keep you interested in what's going on.

As for where to start - there are two spots I'd recommend!  Going by publication order (so starting with Dragonflight) is probably the simplest option.  I would definitely not recommend starting with the first book chronologically - Dragonsdawn is fine, but it's very very heavy on the science fiction aspect and if you haven't read any of the Pern books before you'll be confused and maybe even bored.

The second option is to start with Todd's books - either Dragonheart or Dragonsblood are good points to jump in, and then you'd go on with the next books published chronologically!

If you're just looking to learn enough about the world to interact with the fan-created places without getting confused (although they usually have extensive informational areas for people who haven't read the books/need a refresher), just reading Dragonflight/DragonQuest/the White Dragon and/or Dragonheart/Dragongirl should give you a solid foundation of what the setting is like.  (The White Dragon has a very strong focus on the main character's dragon partner!)  There's a ton of books (23+), so you don't need to read any of the ones that don't interest you, and usually you don't even need to read the books that came before it.  (If you're thinking about buying one and aren't sure if it'd be a good read, let me know and I'll give you a basic idea of what it's like!  I've read most of them, but there's a few I haven't gotten to yet.)

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Biohazardia In reply to J-Haskell [2019-07-26 15:30:48 +0000 UTC]

Oooh okay I'll start with Dragonflight then!! I think at the moment I'd just be curious in reading the series (need something to fill that long commute to lab every day ) but if I get really into it I'd probably be in interested in joining RP communities, so I'll give the others a try Thank you so much for the long explanation!!! 

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J-Haskell In reply to Fuego-fantasmal [2019-07-23 16:48:10 +0000 UTC]

Thank you!

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Fuego-fantasmal In reply to J-Haskell [2019-07-23 20:10:13 +0000 UTC]

You are welcome.

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J-Haskell In reply to dcat12 [2019-07-23 16:48:17 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much!!

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