Dragonsong

Rating:
Summary: A different kind of good!
Review: A very good book. Anne McCaffrey has outdone her other works with this one! This book exhibits the usual rebellious elements, without using the sexual experiences of the others.

Rating:
Summary: Very original and light-hearted
Review: I admit, when I pick up a fantasy book, I'm usually craving some sort of crazy plot with action and close-calls...all spiraling down to one final battle scene. This book was nothing like that. It's about a quiet girl who lives her every day life until events take her to another more exciting (but still pretty tame in terms of fantasy) setting. Although this book didn't grip me with a sense of anguish, glory, and exhilaration like some more exhuberant fantasy series, it was still very original and entertaining. It's good for a quick, light read. McCaffrey was able to build great characters within a small amount of time (the book is only a little over 100 pages long), which is rare in most fantasy books today. It has hooked me enough that I will probably continue the next few books in the series when I need a break from some of the more action-packed fare that I'm used to reading.

Rating:
Summary: Will Start a True Song for You!
Review: This is an excellent book. I thoughly enjoyed it, and read it in one day. And I will admit, Menolly is now my favorite character of all of Anne McCaffery's series. I didn't like her very much in The White Dragon, because I felt like she monitered jaxom too much.

In this book, you will read about a young 15 year old girl, blessed with the gifts of music and singing. But she lives in a sea hold, with her extremely strict father, Yanus, and equally strict mother, Mavi. They despise the fact that a girl of all thing wants to make music, and makes up her own tunes. They forbid it. But when Menolly goes against them, she gets beaten. Bad goes to worse, until Menolly finally runs away from Half-Circle Sea Hold. She runs into the legendary fire-lizards, and.... well, if I tell you anymore I will ruin this small novel for you.

Pick it up! Read it! You won't be able to put it down.

Rating:
Summary: Dragonsong's not a bad book
Review: For the first time reading an Anne McCaffrey book, I didn`t think it was too bad. It was hard to understand at first, but then it would get easer and more exciting.

Rating:
Summary: A great book that's apparently being misunderstood here.
Review: Another reviewer said some completely wrong things about this book and I had to correct it. The person says, "Menolly, a young farm girl sets out to both fit in and find individualism amongst her new found friends, the sailors." CORRECTION: Menolly lives in a sea Hold (not a farm!) which means her whole family and everyone she knows is a sailor, as it has been her whole life. Her "new friends" in the book are the fire lizards, and of course, some people later on -- but not sailors, for goodness sakes!

The reviewer adds, "she sets out on an adventure whereby she is kidnapped and subsequently escapes." CORRECTION: Menolly NEVER is kidnapped! She runs away (I'm not giving this away, it happens early on).

All this aside, I must add that this a great book, probably my favorite in the whole Pern series. Menolly is so 3D, her feelings are so human, and her experiences, though not at all what real life is like here on Earth, yet somehow relate to what we all experience growing up. She strikes out on her own, taking a chance because she has to.

And if you have to read it for school, may I give you some advice? Don't just hate it because it's been forced on you. This is a very enjoyable, sweet book about dragons and music and coming into your own as a person. It's a treat, like Star Wars or something, not a pain, like Moby Dick (sorry, but I hate that book ~_^). It should be something you love, not something you despise. Give it a chance! This is pleasure reading all the way and you're lucky to be reading it! I mean, if a teacher made you listen to your favorite band for school, would you hate it too?

Rating:
Summary: A good intro to fantasy lit
Review: Drangonsong is the first in the Harper Hall Trilogy. These books are, in turn, a part of a series about Pern, a planet far, far away. The first time I found out about this story, I read an excerpt from it in a Heath reading book in fifth grade. I didn't realize that it was and excerpt from another book, and not just a short story, until I happened across the actual book in my school library. I really liked the book, but I couldn't figure out why McCaffrey kept including scientific explanations for various mystical occurences, until I figured out that this is actually a kind of sci-fi-fantasy hybrid. You see, the people of Pern are actually descended from travellers from Earth. Earth faced some kind of catastrophe and all of the Earthlings had to get into space ships and travel until they got to Pern, which is in a binary solar system. Over time, the Earthlings multiply and totally forget about Earth, and technology, and go back to the feudal system, with only traces of their old culture left. I only fully realized this when I read the Dragonriders of Pern series, and I also realized that they are on the same timeline as the Harper Hall Trilogy. To tell you the truth, I liked the young adult series with Menolly better than the adult series, although I would recommend reading both, because the land that McCaffrey creates is quite impressive. I think that she has a gift for young adult fiction that she doesn't use nearly enough. She's got way too many crummy adult books and hardly any stuff for teenagers. I think that the former genre doesn't need her as much as the latter.

Rating:
Summary: Confusing, only read this if you're into fantasy
Review: I got this book assigned as a term paper for my english class and i was lookin for critisms of this book because uh, that was part of the assignment. i read a lot of the reviews of the book, and i found that even if the person gave the book a 1 or 2 star, they still said stuff like "it is a exciting, imaginative book" or something along those lines. it's not really exciting, but it is imaginative, i'll give it that much. I'm not a big fan of fantasy, so it's quite understandable that i didn't really like this book. It got boring pretty fast. i was interested (well kinda), but there are so many wierd names and stuff that it all gets confusing. it has some makings of a good plot, you could sorta get into the plot (well sorta)(girl has musical gifts, but higher authority doesn't permit her to play music, girl runs away, finds and befriends or "impresses" 9 fire lizards, almost gets killed in Thread fall but saved by dragon rider guy, goes to another place and becomes accepted as a musical genious, or something like that) but i never got into it. its probably because i kept skipping over words because it got boring. I recommend this book ONLY to those people that are interested in fantasy and escaping reality. if you are a english teacher DO NOT assign this book. It turns out that im not the only one who had to do this book for some kind of english assignment. I read a whole bunch of reviews from kids in Sacremento, in the same class i presume, and most of them didn't understand this book fully. not that i did either... but anyway i still gotta do this term paper...

Rating:
Summary: The first Anne McCaffrey book I ever read!
Review: I thought this book was a little strange at first because I didn't understand the language, but after a while, I got really interested in it, and I have read many other Pern books. So far, all of them have been rated 5 stars by me!!! Way to go Anne!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A child no longer
Review: First book in the Harper Hall trilogy, one of the many books about the dragons of Pern, this book, along with the second in the trilogy, Dragonsinger, is my favorite book in the entire series.

There is nothing spectacular about it. No thrilling action, no mysteries or horror. It's just that I love the main character, Menolly.

The book starts with Menolly singing farewall to Petiron, the Harper, who was her most cherished friend and mentor. At 14, youngest child of Seaholder Yanus, in the isolated Half-Circle Seahold, prospects for her future are not promising. Still, she could well endure it if not for one thing: the one thing she loves most in life, music, is soon to be denied her.

From here to the end of Dragonsinger, Menolly is essentially leaving her childhood behind and becoming a young adult, within little more than a single year.

After Petiron's death, Menolly is put in charge of learning the young children into the teaching ballads, as she is the only one with the proper skill in all Seahold, and a new Harper will take a while to arrive. Seaholder Yanus is not happy about it, though, because Harpering is a man's job and Menolly is just a girl. Worse still, she also has the nerve of composing songs of her own, something he quickly forbids her, rather than risk the children learn them and shame the hold in front of the new Harper.

It is not easy for Menolly to hold back that which comes naturally to her, and which she loves so deeply. She breaks the rules laid down to her unintentionally, in moment of distraction, and gets caught at it. And that spells utter doom to her, as Yanus becomes determined not to let the new Harper ever learn about her.

Her bad fortune is composed by an accident while cutting fish, which leaves her left hand crippled. Denied her joy in music, ignored by all, she ends leaving the Seahold one early morning only to get trapped during the deadly threadfall too far away from home... and get herself most unexpected new friends.

And so does Menolly leaves her hold of birth, in a path that will lead her to new friends, to people who care for her, and, in the end, to a meeting with the very MasterHarper of Pern.

The only thing I really dislike in this book is that, at less than 200 pages, it is much too short!

Rating:
Summary: Best book ive read in awhile
Review: This fantasy book was one of the best books I have read! If you like reading about adventure, fantasy, and mythical creatures, i suggest you read this book! The book is focoused on a girl on the star Pern, where she discovers Firelizards (kind of like, miniature dragons). Menolly (the girl) wants to become a Harper, but Harpers arent allowed to be girls, and her father finds he a disgrace to the Half-Circle Sea Hold. Menolly runs away and helps a Firelizard queen save her clutch. But, danger awaits Menolly as shes never sure when the dreadful Thread will fall from the Red Star. What will Menolly do with her 9 Firelizards, out running thread, trying to become a Harper, and dealing with limited supplies?