Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Insights Into Pern's History!
Review: The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall is actually a collection of 5 short stories that take place around the time of Dragonsdawn. They are:The Survey: P.E.R.N - This is the shortest story of the collection and it deals with the original surveyors who were mapping that part of the galaxy and recommended Pern for colonization. The reader is offered tantalizing glimpses of a bigger story behind the tension of the survey crew, but, at only 18 pages, this story doesn't allow a lot of time for any detail. The Dolphin's Bell - This story takes place concurrently with the end of Dragonsdawn, but from the perspective of the dolphins and their caretakers. It was interesting to see the story from a different perspective and to experience what the colonists had to go through as they braved the treacherous ocean voyage to the northern continent. The story centers around Jim Tillek (of the later Tillek Hold), his love of the sea and his growing love for a courageous young woman named Theo. The Ford of Red Hanrahan - After the colonists had settled in the Northern Continent at Fort Hold, there was plenty of room for their greatly diminished numbers in the cavernous space. However, after some time, space is getting tight and there are those who are ready to venture forth and create new holds. One of them is Red Hanrahan, whom readers will recognize from Dragonsdawn (as a character and as Sorka's father). He journeys quite a distance from Fort Hold and founds what will become known as the famous Ruatha Hold. This story was quite interesting because it addressed the history of the plague that took so many lives in Moreta's time and how the colonists started fostering their children out to live with other families. The Second Weyr - Sean and Sorka have done a wonderful job training all of the other dragonriders and are the best weyrleaders that any dragonrider could hope for, but Fort Weyr just doesn't have enough space for them all! Torene, with her maturing queen, has dreams of settling a new weyr and has even found the perfect location, but is afraid to say anything to Sean. When Sean makes the surprise announcement that the dragonriders will be expanding into not just one weyr - but three! Torene is thrilled. She dreams of becoming new weyrwoman at one of the weyrs and waits in eager anticipation to see who will fly her queen in her first mating flight, for they will become the new leaders of the justly named Benden Weyr after their beloved leader who passed on. I have to say that this was my favorite story of the bunch, I just love to read about the dragonriders! Rescue Run - When Lieutenant Ross Benden's ship comes upon a distress signal around the Rukbat system, he cannot help but think of his uncle, who set off 50 years previously to colonize a planet there. He cannot believe that his uncle, hero of so many battles, would have panicked and set off a signal for help, not 7 years after starting colonization. Still, he is duty bound to explore the area and see if there are any survivors. The biologist on board is fascinated by the organisms that seem to come from the Oort cloud circling so close to the planet. A small team leaves the ship to take a shuttle down to Pern and are surprised to encounter a small band of survivors: Stev Kimmer (whom readers will recognize from Dragonsdawn as being one of Avril's group) and Kenjo & Ito Fusaiyuki's (whom readers will also recognize as being the pilot killed by Avril to steal the plane) children. They insist that there are no other survivors and, though Benden does a sweep of the area, he has no other choice but to believe that his uncle is gone, killed in the Thread attack and leave with the few survivors that remain. This story was interesting because it explains why no one else has ever gone to Pern and why that area of space is simply avoided, as I always thought that someone must come to see the colony after so many hundreds of years. I am not a big fan of short stories, as a rule, but I enjoyed this book. The stories are typically about 60 pages, except for the first one about the exploration team, which is only about 15. They are all well written and the characters are very interesting - almost too interesting for a short story because I wanted to know more about them! For anyone who has enjoyed the Pern series, I think that they will love the insights this book gives them into the history of Pern and its original colonists. Highly recommended for fans of science fiction & fantasy!
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book For Tying Loose Ends Together
Review: This was a fantastic book! In a nutshell, it tells you everything you didn't hear about yet, like how Pern was discovered, and what happened the eventful day that Landing was evacuated. The stories are all incredible, but my personal favorite is the story about the discovery of Pern. In it, we discover what PERN stands for, how fire lizards came to be known about, and how the Oort cloud was found and theorized about. I also liked the story about the Evacuation of Landing, an important event that set up the historical colonization of the Northern Continent. The dolphins evacuate everyone by pulling them along in boats. It's really a good story! I recommend it to anyone who likes Science Fiction, anyone who likes anthologies, or anyone who likes to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably good, but much too hard for me to read
Review: When I first picked up Anne McCaffrey's book all about the great dragons of Pern a long time ago, all I could manage were the first few pages where all the dragons swooped through the alien skies to destroy the falling Threads with their fire and a character witnessed the very first hatching of a baby Dragon. And the author's other book all about a dinosaur planet was equally difficult as well. I'm very sorry to say this, but I'm afraid Ms. McCaffrey uses far too many "big words" as well as long-winded descriptions of everything ever to happen to a certain character and this and that long before the very beginning can ever be finished and over with by the time the story itself needs to get going. I may be one of those restless readers who like to skim smoothly through a whole tale and take everything in as I go by without struggling and plowing through what this word and that word means and taking a whole sentence apart in order to understand it before I can go on. Too bad I didn't enjoy my visit to the mythical land of Pern, but - oh, well - I'm probably as lazy as a lion in a bed of dandelions!
Rating: 
Summary: True fans should avoid it
Review: `Okay, let's get one thing straight: I lived and breathed Pern for a great deal of my life. I have to recommend that all fans look long and hard at the slew of latter day Pern books, though, and consider making the hard decision to skip them. This is just such a book -- along with the incredibly disappointing book that showed the "first founders" of Pern and all the lame origins for things like the grubs, the dragons, the name of the holds, and so on, it only serves to rob the series of the`` wonder of the Ancients. I couldn't enjoy this book at all, I'm sorry to say -- the deep exploration of the homosexuality of Blue riders didn't help any. No, for my money, Pern fans should stick with the first three books, the Harper hall series (Pemur and Menolly), and All the Weyrs of Pern. Whatever you do, skip the lame books like Renegades of Pern (shudder) and this one.`
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