Two young people—Kinder and Nuella—sort out their lives and overcome challenges to become productive and respected members of their community. Kinder is an orphan with no one to help him get ahead and Nuella is blind and an embarrassment to her father. Kinder inherits his father’s position and becomes bonded to a watchwher. Later he gives up his bonding to Nuella whose blindness is an advantage and enables her to “see” what the watchwher sees. This entry fills in blanks about early Pern history and develops the background of watchwhers. ( )

Watch-whers, the misbegotten cousins of dragons. Did we really need a book about them? Especially a book where a large chunk out of the early and middle portions only mentions them in passing? Don't get me wrong, I would like to know more about how watch-whers play a part in the world of Pern, but this just didn't seem to be it. How does the story presented in this novel affect the future of Pern? It takes place in a very localized setting, compared to most of the other Pern books. The time period it is set in doesn't seem to have anything critical occuring. It does explain a few little details here and there that I didn't really have questions about, but it's not enough to justify the length of the story.

To me, this book does not feel like it slots in very well with the previously published Pern material out there. It may slot in better when I've had a chance to read some of the further Pern novels by Todd, but, in the meantime, I am rather disappointed. ( )

(review two books in one - but they're really one book from two perspectives)
Ok, that's it. I'm done reading new Pern books. My lord! These books - Fire more than Kin, but both - were very obviously written in chunks and then stuck together, and nobody did a readthrough afterward to check continuity or sense. And since I create a universe inside my head when I read, that sort of thing drives me MAD. For instance, in an early chapter in Fire, Pellar is up in arms about Kindan being Master Zist's apprentice because HE's Zist's apprentice, and Master Zist says well, I can have two but normally the elder is jumped to Journeyman. Thinks a bit, then says OK, I'm raising you to journeyman (even though you're young for it), barring a few classes back at Harper Hall. Ok. So Pellar is a journeyman now. Much later in the book, he's intercepted by a dragonrider, collected and brought back to the minehold - and also given a suit of Harper blue, the proper _apprentice_ clothes. The dragonrider is worried he's mad about missing the proper ceremonies, but he's perfectly happy - now he's a proper Harper Apprentice! What? Now wait a minute.... There are a lot of things like that. And the solution to the problem became obvious several chapters before anybody in the book figured it out...it's the wrong kind of firestone. Now I knew that because it hurt the dragons to flame (and storage chambers tended to blow up)...do you mean that dragons just accepted that suddenly firestone hurt, when it hadn't before? There wasn't any crisis at the end of the Second Fall, they didn't lose dragons in any numbers...Todd does like to present enormous complications and solve them in enormously complicated ways. Kin was the first book, and it's pretty good. Some continuity errors, but not many, and only a few things that don't fit what I know of Pern. Dragonsblood, the second book, was just stupid - a disease of dragons that required cross-timing it over thousands of years to solve? Firelizards _accidentally_ doing that back-time trip? Bleah bleah blah. Fire is less bad than Blood but much worse than Kin, and they're all much worse than any of the real Pern books - well, Kin might be as good as MasterHarper or Skies, but I hate those anyway. Dragonriders trilogy, Harper Hall trilogy, Moreta & Nerilka, Dragonsdawn & Chronicles, Dolphins are very good. Renegades is necessary to set up Dolphins. Dragonseye is OK but has a blatant continuity error that annoys me every time I read it (AIVAS did _not_ shut itself off before Second Fall because people were being dependent on it!). Weyrs is...um. Actually I can't remember the story of Weyrs.
I like Pern, can you tell? And because I like it, I feel protective and possessive. I was in a Pern fanfic group for a while - there were a lot of stupid stories written and a few good ones, and I liked most of them much more than Todd's stuff. Sorry, I think Anne should let Pern die rather than drag it out in new and ugly directions. ( )

A moving story of finding your purpose in life. ( )