Most fantasy is trite or cliche when it involved dragons to the point of including them in the title. And if you'd like to know who is to blame for this, look no further than Anne McCaffrey.

Just like how much of modern fantasy that involves Dwarfs, Elves, and Quests is basically a lamprey with a typewriter securely affixed to Tolkien's underbelly (ew), any modern fantasy revolving around dragons owes a whole heck of a lot to McCaffrey.

And in this omnibus edition, you'll find the books that started it all, the three original Pern books, which chronicle the tales of the noble Dragonriders and their more noble dragons.

Dragons, in McCaffrey's canon, talk to their riders telepathically, must eat special stones in order to produce fire, and are capable of jumping Between, a limbo place that allows them to emerge in a different place, or even in a different time.

If you've read more modern fantasies involving dragons, and have found yourself wanting, I recommend you pick up this fine collection of books and start reading. After a taste of real dragon-fantasy, you'll almost certainly want to put those other books Between. ( )

The best of her Dragon books are the ones for juniors. ( )

In the begging of this book i was all mixed up but with some help from the dragondex was able to follow the story and ended up really enjoying this. I would not suggest this to someone who wants a quick read or to be read along with another book. Other than that i would recommend this to any fantasy lover. ( )

I found the first book in the trilogy to be a bit hard to follow, but once I adapted to the authors writing style I was completely absorbed in the books. I'm reading them all based on McCaffrey's suggestion post-publishing as opposed to the order in which they were released. This is sure to give me a different perspective than those who read them as they were released, but I don't think that it will alter the overall story too much for me. ( )

McCafferey's adult series includes the characters from the teen series. A good follow-up for those who like Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums. ( )