Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

What's the book about?

This is a fantasy book with slight hints to Sci-Fi. The whole story begins with a prologue in which we learn that humans colonized other planets, including this one, Pern and that little by little the colony was somehow abandoned and left to prosper on its own. Pern's society, at least the way I pictured it in my head, is somehow a medieval society. It so happens that every certain amount of years (Turns) the planet gets closer to a sister planet, known as the Red Star and this causes "the Threads" to fall and destroy everything organic they touch, which is why every building must be in stone and basically "inert" materials. The only way they have to fight this Threads is using...Dragons!. However, several turns have past and no Threads have fallen so the people have become comfortable and deem the Dragonriders an useless group, but are they?

What was the thing I liked the most? 

The setting was there for a very good book. I loved the connection the riders have with their dragons, I thought that was a very nice constructed relation. I also liked (and I'm trying not give away anything here) how McCaffrey respects her own rules of time and space through the book, because one thing is to take the liberty to create a new universe but another is to do so and not even respect the rules in your own universe!

What about the main character?

Lessa is a teenage girl who can talk to any dragon related animal. She lost all her family in an attack when she was 11 years old and since then has been plotting to regain what is hers, except that bigger things are coming her way. She is depicted as smart and mischievous, but a lot of times she came through to me as just simply spoiled. People doubt her responsibility? What best way to prove them wrong than to do whatever the heck she wants? Things like that. I didn't love her but I didn't dislike her either.

Final thoughts

It was an interesting book, but I had some problems with it. First of all, the way Lessa and F'lar interact, and again, I'm trying to avoid spoilers here; the different stages of their relationship had no transition to me and both seemed to me more often than not like teens acting out. Second, it felt a bit crammed with all that happened in this first book, which leaves me scratching my head considering that it was not meant to be a solo book in the first place. I'm sad to say that this book did not leave me wanting to read the second one, but I'm glad I can now say I've read Anne McCaffrey.