The Dolphins of Pern

After all the exciting things happen--after the settlers land on Pern, and are nearly destroyed by Thread, and discover dragons, and set up Weyrs and Holds and Halls, all the while devolving into a sexist&rigidly hierarchal medieval society, and eventually Jaxom bonds with Ruth, and Menolly finds her firelizards and transforms Harpers, and they rediscover their computer and figure out how to end Thread-fall once and for all, and all manner of social changes start being forced through--after all that, this incredibly prosaic, boring little story takes place.

A number of people realize (practically simultaneously) that the "shipfish" of Pern are actually dolphins who travelled from Earth with the first settlers. They were engineered to show more have human speech and increased intellects, and even generations after humans stopped remembering them, they still remember humans. They're thrilled to have contact with humans again. One boy, Readis, runs away from home to form a Dolphin Hall. Meanwhile, a Holder is plotting to settle the Southern Continent against the Weyr-leaders' advice. And there's a big storm that doesn't actually do anything. That's pretty much it! Even famous characters like Leesa, Menolly, Mirrim or Jaxom are colorless and personality-free here.

This was easily the most boring Pern book I have ever read in my life. I would much rather read another book about the brave-flame-haired-fiesty-girl fighting against sexist-evil-old-dude and psychically bonding with a dragon; as trite and wish-fullfillment-y as that is, at least there's something there. This was just empty of all inspiration, emotion, plot, or character. show less

When the first humans came to settle the planet Pern, they did not come alone: intelligence-enhanced dolphins also crossed the stars to colonize Pern's oceans while their human partners settled the vast continents. But then disaster struck.
The deadly silver spores called Thread fell like rain from the sky, and as human colonists' dreams of a new, idyllic life shattered into a desperate struggle for survival, the dolphins were forgotten.

Now, centuries later, as the dragonriders of Pern prepare to complete the momentus task of ridding their world of Thread forever, T'lion, a young bronze rider, and his friend Readis, son of the Lord Holder of Paradise River Hold, make contact with the legendary "shipfish." And as the dragonriders grapple show more with the end of an era, T'lion, Readis, and the dolphins face the start of a new one: reviving the bond between land- and ocean-dwellers - and resurrecting the dreams of the first colonists of Pern. show less

This book will always have a special place in my heart. It was my first introduction to Anne McCaffrey, probably when I was about 12 or 13. According to my mom, my grandpa called asking what I wanted for my birthday, and she said “Oh, any book with dragons or dolphins will make her happy.” How right she was! I didn’t get much out of it on my first read through, as you really need to have read the rest of the series first, but it stuck with me long enough that I picked up Dragonflight not too long afterward, and the rest, as they say, is history. I was pretty devastated last year when she passed :(

Not too long ago, I decided I wanted to start from the beginning and read the entire Pern series, picking up all the books I had missed show more in high school. This time I made sure to read them in the proper order – publication order is the recommended way to read them from the McCaffrey estate. (Link leads to a PDF of the suggested reading order) Every subsequent novel references the one directly before it so I highly recommend this order as well. No wonder The Dolphins of Pern made so little sense to me the first time through. I had no idea about impressions or fire lizards or harpers or any of that. Definitely do NOT accidentally start here like I did. Dragonflight is an amazing novel, start there.

The story of Readis being rescued by dolphins is briefly mentioned in a predecessor, I believe All the Weyrs of Pern, but it is much more fleshed out here. The dolphins are engaging and hilarious and plastered a big dumb smile on my face whenever they appeared. Unfortunately, the title belies their actual involvement in the story – there wasn’t nearly enough dolphin! But we had to get some good ol’ Pern politicking out of the way, and Menolly showing up is always a pleasure. The dragons are mostly in the background throughout this story, with a few exceptions. I think this is the first Pern installation without a hatching of any sort.

Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels unfortunately start showing a tendency towards sexism. The lady hated women I guess! The Dolphins of Pern is the worst yet. There’s not a single main character in this book who is a woman. Menolly shows up, but all we hear about is her pregnancy and how she really wants it to be a boy. There are a couple other pregnant women in Paradise River Hold, and THEY all want boys too. Aramina is a gigantic bitch for no apparent reason other than “motherly worry.” I seriously wanted to punch her, and I wanted Readis to run away and be with his damn dolphins. This really detracted from the novel for me.

For the first half, I thought this was going to be my first 4-star Pern review since The White Dragon (Dragonriders of Pern #6). There was a lot of Alemi, Readis, and T’lion for the first part, and it kept my avid interest. Pretty soon however, it got back to the exhausting Lord Toric, and boring councils with the weyrleaders. Sadly, it dropped back to 3-stars for me, as I really just wanted more dolphins! I enjoyed it more than some of the Pern books before this, namely, The Renegades of Pern. Yuck! Definitely read it if you love Pern and you want a complete history, but only lovers of the world would enjoy it, and it does not hold up on its own.

See this book and more on my blog, Stumptown Books: http://www.stumptownbookblog.com show less

Another view of Pern, starting around the middle of "All the Weyrs of Pern" and ending somewhat later. Short and simple compared to some of the other books, but advances the overall Pern plot. Definitely a rehash of the Menolly tale, but poorly motivated, showing the somewhat appealing protagonists of previous books to be real losers. Also, what all the women mostly seem to do, except for Lessa, is be pregnant, which is not really all that women should be doing in a novel like this. I'll keep on reading, though, just one more to go.

There was a little bit of the "same story from a different point of view" that she has been doing on and off - which irritates me. But, it went far beyond All The Wyers of Pern and had little to do with much that happened in the other book. I really liked it. I've ordered the rest of the series from Amazon as soon as I finished this book, so I would have to say that I am a "Pern fan".

This book advances the story of the Ninth Pass with the re-establishment of the relationship between humans and dolphins on Pern.

I thought this one was rather uneven. Too much time was spent on the machinations of Toric so that the end of the story when Readis leaves home to achieve his dream of becoming Pern's first dolphineer was rather rushed. Also it wasn't really clear why his mother was so dead set against his involvement with dolphins.

My first McCaffrey book, enjoyable, although feels like she had written a trilogy first and then this as a prequel to explain stuff.