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Summary: Answered a Lot of My Questions About Pern!
Review: A small group of settlers have risked everything on the information of a survey of Pern a hundred years or more before. They have traveled 15 years in deep sleep on older spaceships to reach the new planet and to start a whole new way of life. Some come because they want the chance to own their own land, others come for the adventure, others come for riches. When they first arrive on Pern, it truly feels like a paradise. The settlers choose a valley at the base of three inactive volcanoes to be their first settlement, which they call Landing. The settlers are eagerly experimenting with seeds and plants brought from other planets and trying to get animals settled and fertilized. Schools to teach children about their new life are quickly organized. Charter members of the group get first pick of land and set out exploring and claiming their small holdings. Others are content to live in Landing and to wait for their turn to spread out. All seems to be perfect...Eight years later, the settlers notice an unusual cloud formation and think that there is a storm coming in. But when silver thread-like things start falling from the sky and devouring anything organic that can be found, paradise turns into a kind of living hell. The only bright spot that can be found in the whole tragedy is that the fire lizards seemed to know when the thread was coming and warned their owners to get inside where it was safe. The colony hopes that the thread-fall was a one-time occurrence, but then they notice the star with the irregular orbit that has slowly gotten closer to the planet and they realize that the thread is going to keep coming back. Many colonists despair and demand that the leaders send out the homing beacon to bring help from earth, but that could take 10 years or more, if help comes at all. Others turn to the fire lizards for answers. Finally, in one desperate action, they ask a geneticist to manipulate the genes of fire lizards to build something bigger - something more dragon sized that would be more effective against the thread. With time running out, all of Pern's hopes rest on the project of one woman... This book is a stand-alone in the Pern series in that you don't need to be familiar with any other background before you read it, but there are many things that won't really make sense or won't seem important if you are not familiar with Pern's later history. Dragonsdawn answers questions such as how the dragons came to be, how they got their mental connection with their riders, how watchweyrs are different from dragons and why, how the colonists ended up in caves on the northern continent instead of the southern continent where they first settled, how the grubs were developed that ate thread, where the cat came from that caused a plague that decimated the population during Moreta's time, who the first dragonriders were and why they named the Holds and Weyrs what they did. The only complaint that I had was that the story was told from so many different points of view and contained so many characters that you really had to be on your toes while you read it. At the first part of the book, it wasn't so bad. McCaffrey refered to people by their first and last names and many of them were familiar to me because they had holds, weyrs and natural landmarks named after then such as Paul Benden, Emily Boll, Sallah Telgar, etc. Then the last names were dropped and we were left with the first names. After a while I got used to it, but then we had those long stretches of time where everyone got older all of a sudden and there are children and other people to deal with. Good thing there are plenty of references in the book to help you keep track of everyone! Although this book could technically be considered the first in the Pern series as far as chronology goes, I think that it is helpful to read the books in the order that Anne McCaffrey wrote them so that you can fully appreciate the detail of the world that McCaffrey has so painstakingly created. This book is a wonderful blend of science fiction and fantasy and I think anyone would thoroughly enjoy it as there really is something for everyone!
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Summary: The book that started the greatest series ever
Review: Dragonsdawn is a great book. It has many characters and a great plotline about the colonists battle to keep everything they had worked so hard for alive. I cried once, when Salla Telgar died a horible and cruel death from Avril Bitra. It had many happy, sad, and scary parts. This is a great book. I couldn't put it down and I read it in one day. A great book for people being introduced to this series, or read in order.
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Summary: My First McCaffrey Book
Review: This was the first of McCaffrey's works that I have picked up. This book lays some foundation material for her world of Pern. It was a pretty good read as I was able to see what she was establishing and what could be done with it. The Characters were a bit shallow for my liking, but it was an overall good book. It piqued my interest enought to pick up some more of these books in the future. I have read that new readers are better off reading the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy first. Recommended.
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Summary: Dawn for the dragons
Review: Though I do not love Anne McCaffrey I am beginning to like her just a little.I read the Harpor Hall trilogy 1st and to some that would be a mistake but thats where my taste lies.Dragonsdawn is a good book.If you love fire-lizards its a good read.It kinda lets you into the dragons world little by little until you feel at home.Because of this book I want to read more not only of the fire-lizards but of the dragons themselfes and their bonded.The charachters are well written and I did cry twice to my surprise as I read the book.I got attached to the characters...Now my only problem is what is next after this book?...hehehe
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Summary: To prevent confusion
Review: I highly recommend this book as a useful prequel to the Dragonriders of Pern series. By giving a background for how the world was colonized and how the dragons came to be, otherwise confusion terminology is introduced gradually, so that by the main series it's not something to stumble over.
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Summary: McCaffrey is a faze, youll grow out of it.
Review: Dragonsdawn is McCaffrey's best, and the most sci fi oriented of the pern series(which is mainly fantasy). The Pern colonists are faced with the unforseen horror of "thread": a kind of macroscopic selfreplicating complex molecule that falls from the sky and eats anything organic. To fight "thread" they turn to gengeneering native lifeforms. The character interaction is superb, all of the characters come off as people, even the extra's. The tech requires no great suspension of disbeleif, and its a smooth read. I loved this book and have read most of Anne McCaffrey's work, which is all pretty much the same. Anne McCaffrey is great... and then you wake up and realize that these are kid's books and you start buying Mercedes Lackey books instead. McCaffrey's work is the TRAINING WHEELS of sc-fi/fantasy!
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Summary: Not worth the time
Review: 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.
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Summary: Another amazing accomplishment
Review: I cannot emphasize how much I love Anne McCaffrey's work. Dragonsdawn is a touching and amazing view of the first people on Pern and the creation of the dragons. The blend between science and fiction was perfect. I greatly enjoyed the genetic engineering (I'm minoring in BioMedical Engineering) and the honest look at how easily things can go wrong when trying to play with genes and with creatures' natures. An absolutely marvelous book, once again from McCaffrey.
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Summary: "Some Good Characters, But Needed More Drama"
Review: I was rather disappointed by the lack of drama I felt with this book, especially at the end when you've got a volcanic eruption and a big Threadfall coming. To me it seemed the Pernese settlers dealt with it in a business as usual attitude. However, McCaffrey handled the development of Sorka and Sean very well. They were by far my most favorite characters in this book. Liked how Sean starts off as a total loner and very, very slowly warms up to Sorka. Soon finds himself learning to depend on her and starts opening up. This is especially true once they discover the dragons on Pern. The dragons were pretty cool, especially when the Pernese start genetically altering them to grow bigger. And I did like the very first Threadfall, as debris from an Oort Cloud falls across Pern, burning almost everything it touches. McCaffrey really drew you into the scene and gave you a grand tour of the disaster and its emotional impact on the colony. On a whole, the book seemed to have its up moments and down moments.
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Summary: YAY!
Review: I love this book. i know it sounds weird, but this is the book that got me hooked on reading. i fell in love with reading (not to mention one of the books main charecters sorka. just kiddin!) this is a good book and i reccomend to everyone. its possibly the one book i am missing in a now huge collection of books
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