Dragon's Time

May 16, 2011
Mother and son team up again (after 2008's Dragon Harper) to extend Anne McCaffrey's long-running Dragonriders of Pern series. Smooth, clear writing allows the well-realized characters to resonate with the world of Pern, where heroic dragonriders telepathically bonded to their mounts fight against the voracious, all-devouring alien spores known as Thread. A shortage of dragons puts the planet at risk and golden dragon riders Fiona and Lorana, both of whom have no problem defending the planet while pregnant, decide that time travel may be the only way to get the resources they need. The concept of time travel via going "between" on giant flying dragons has always proved crucial to the survival of Pern's colonists, but in this book it becomes almost a character in its own right. With numerous characters from earlier works, this book will appeal most to longtime fans of Pern and its dragons.

June 15, 2011

Anne and Todd McCaffrey return once too often to the planet Pern, where humans ride telepathic dragons to fight a mindless alien menace.

Illness and accident has robbed Pern of many of the planet's people and dragons. Fiona, Weyrwoman of Telgar, her lovers, Weyrleader T'Mar and Harper Kindan, and Kindan's other lover, the ex-dragonrider Lorana, seek desperately for a way to get the Weyrs up to fighting strength against the threat of Thread, the devouring alien spores that periodically invade the planet. The solution involves riding the dragons backward and forward in time, so frequently that it's almost impossible to figure out just when anything is actually happening. Lorana, riding a borrowed dragon, even sacrifices her own unborn child on an apparently urgent mission to find help, a quest frequently interrupted by her meddling in the personal timelines of her friends. The best parts of the plot are pulled from previous, far superior books in the series. Small bits of action—devastating battles with Thread, a dragon-egg hatching gone drastically wrong—infrequently punctuate this histrionic soap opera, which, despite its incredibly relaxed attitude toward polyamory, is devoid of sex scenes. Readers may also question why they should bother trying to keep track of the interpersonal drama when the characters are so poorly sketched out that it's tough to understand why we should care for them.

A sadly inadequate exemplar of a beloved, classic series that is clearly long past its sell-by date.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from June 15, 2011

Though a cure has been found for the plague that affected the dragons of Pern during the Third Pass of Thread, the numbers of dragons and their riders are not enough to survive the remainder of Threadfall, leaving the future of life on Pern in question. The young weyrwoman Fiona and her devoted friends--dragonrider T'mar, former dragonrider Lorana, and harper Kindan--search desperately for answers in old records and across the borders of time, finally discovering secrets about the nature of time travel that could solve their troubles. VERDICT SF grand master McCaffrey and her son Todd combine their prodigious storytelling talents to craft a complex tale of desperation and sacrifice, love and loss. As always, the dragons themselves steal the limelight with their winsome personalities and implacable takes on life and love. Sure to be a winner with Pern's many fans, this title opens new possibilities for future novels.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2011
This latest installment set in the world of Pern and its dragonriders continues the story of the weyrwomen Fiona and Lorana. They have overcome the dragon plague, but Thread is falling and there arent enough dragons to fly. Lorana comes up with a daring idea, but it requires her to borrow anothers dragon and travel between times. The novel can be jarring to read, as the topic of time travel is key to the story line. Characters jump forward and backward in time, often overlapping themselves. It is sometimes difficult for the reader to keep track of which time the character is in and what has occurred in that time already. For those who are familiar with the Dragonriders of Pern books, this one continues that tradition faithfully. For those not as familiar, this book would be difficult to follow, as it builds on stories that preceded it. There is not much further character development, nor any great emotional depth to the story, but there are some poignant scenes. These scenes are not as fully drawn as in some past novels, but still pull at the readers heartstrings. That being said, this story has a satisfying ending that pulls together this particular sub-story arc. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This authors library readership is immense, for whom a new novel will be welcomed with jubilation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)