First line:
~ Drummer, beat, and piper, blow
Harper, strike, and soldier, go
Free the flame and sear the grasses.
Till the dawning Red Star passes.

Almost as if the elements, too, mourned the death of the gentle old Harper, a southeaster blew in for three days, walking, even the burial barge in the safety of the Dock Cavern ( )

I can see why a certain type of person would love these books, but that certain type of person is not me. Specifically, that type of person is a teenage girl, ideally one who feels a bit like an outcast. Menolly lives in a Sea Hold on Pern, where her father is Lord Holder; she has a talent for music, but women on Pern cannot be harpers, and her father assiduously enforces these gender norms. Menolly is injured, and might never play again—and her family, in a pretty shocking moment of cruelty, allow her to believe this and don't treat her wound as well they might. This is all pretty well done stuff; my favorite part of the original Pern novels was the world that McCaffrey built up, getting to see the social structures oriented around the threat of the Thread, and Dragonsong expands that. Menolly navigating this world is tough and interesting reading.

Menolly ends up running away, and that was where the book began to lose my interest. The running away itself is fine, and Menolly shows some resourcefulness once she Impresses some fire lizards and saves them from a rising tide and keeps herself safe from Threadfall. (A fire lizard is a smaller cousin to a dragon; like a dragon, it can go between, but they can't talk.) But in the second half of the book, basically all conflict disappears. Once established in her fire lizard cave, Menolly doesn't really struggle anymore; then she gets rescued by a dragonrider and taken to a Weyr and the last quarter of the book is just people being terribly nice to her. No conflict, no climax. I can see why you would love this if you were an awkward, unusual-feeling teenage or preteen girl, but it was pretty boring to read as an adult.

This was the first Anne McCaffery book I read and I loved her dragon rider books so much. Reading this aloud with my daughter the story doesn't quite come across as strong as I remember, but my daughter did enjoy it and it brings back fond memories. ( )

(see Harper Hall of Pern)

(see Harper Hall of Pern)