User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I am sympathetic towards taking up the mantle of a science fiction great, up to an extent. The legacy Anne McCaffrey left behind is immense- one of the first women to write science fiction, she created a rich world that readers have returned to again and again. On a purely personal note, I have many fond memories of reading the books as I went from middle school to high school and then beyond, up until McCaffrey’s death. There are so many tales that could still be told using that framework already established, and unfortunately, Anne McCaffrey’s daughter Gigi fails to live up to that sense of keen teenage nostalgia I hold.
The most glaring issue was one of canon. I believe Gigi wanted to make her mother’s world her own, which is fair. Again, big shoes to fill etc etc. Unfortunately, in doing so, she completely neglects the established canon, something that established fans of the series aren’t going to be happy with. It’s not little changes either- it’s adding extra limbs to horses, it’s changing the titles that are used in dozens of books before. And it’s taking beloved characters and rendering them flat and two-dimensional, so unlike her mother’s creations.
It’s a shame, because the story Gigi wants to tell is one that has a great deal of potential. The Oldtimers have leapt forward from the past to rescue the world of Pern, only to find themselves lacking as strong of a purpose as they thought they would hold. Once regarded as the rescuers, they and their dragons are now fading into a kind of twilight obscurity and they aren’t content to live out their lives that way. Were the story to create entirely new characters, I may have been on board, despite Gigi McCaffrey’s clumsy prose and tendency to tell, and not show details in long-winded paragraphs that stretch on for what seems like pages and pages.
In taking Robinton and Piemur as significant characters, she’s taking perhaps two of the most beloved characters in the series and not doing them any sense of justice. As I said above, they’re flat, lacking everything that made them so memorable before. It almost feels disrespectful to Anne’s memory.
That being said, I’m willing to read another book by Gigi if she’s willing to write her own characters and if the editors are willing to make her stick to the canon. There’s potential there, but extracting the full degree of it may be a difficult process. Time will tell, and I can only hope that Pern still has some tales left in it.
Thank you to NetGalley and to RandomHouse for giving me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
When Todd started writing with his mom, I was cautiously optimistic. I grew up on Pern, loved Pern, and re-read the series every couple years. I knew Anne was aging, and I was hopeful that Todd, having grown up with her and writing with her, would be able to take over and continue to tell stories in a world I loved. Like I said, I was optimistic. Right up until I read the first few books. Todd made radical changes to the canon, used the same repetitive plots over and over, and wrote the flattest, most Mary Sue-ish characters in the series.
Now I realize I was perhaps too hard on Todd. Gigi is by far the weaker of the two and Anne made do with what she had.
Todd played pretty much in his own timeline, picking a pass that wasn't used in his mother's stories. This gave him a lot of freedom while writing - freedom to make his own characters, plots, small adjustments to geography, etc. I thought that was respectful of his mother's creation. Don't get me wrong - he still fucked up canon in ways that didn't make sense (as opposed to the small errs that Anne made, which were largely typos in dragon names or colors), but it was at least temporally isolated from the rest of Pern.
Gigi just dives into some of the most popular, most well-established and well-loved characters of the series to reprise one of the biggest stories in the series. Its a super ballsy move that would take a lot of knowledge and skill to pull off, and Gigi, sadly, does not have either. There's multiple small issues with the canon. For example, Gigi seems to mistake the Terran horses for the Pandoran direhorse. Horses have 4 legs, not 6.
But I can almost, almost ignore those. Like I said, Anne made small typos too. Here, Gigi is writing about Piemur, Sebell, Menolly, and Robinton. None of their personality is captured. The dialogue is stilted and without any character voice (plenty of painful fake accents, though). There is no plot to speak of and what little plot there is is recycled from other Pern books and underdeveloped. Oh no, the dragons are sick again, oh wait here's a convenient, ancient cure. Oh no, we don't have enough dragons to fight Thread oh wait we convinced some to do a time jump. Todd overused these plots to death and Gigi appears to follow the trend.
Piemur lacks any real agency - he just wanders place to place as he's told reporting information people either already knew or don't care about. His biggest contribution is a half-page speech at the end that was painfully cliched and the resulting success doesn't feel earned.
At this point I think I'm done hoping that Pern will continue. Anne gave us over a dozen solid Pern stories. We should be content with that.
TL;DR: This is the Pern equivalent of Star Wars prequels, or the Twilight book Life and Death - a story that
could be told, but didn't
need to be told, wasn't told
well, and contributed
nothing to the established story/setting.
Rating: really liked it
Del Rey provided me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really wanted to like this. I wanted to
love it. I grew up devouring the Pern books. Menolly is one of my favorite characters of all time. Lessa isn't far behind her. I was vaguely disappointed by the Todd McCaffrey books, so I
really wanted this to be good.
It . . . was not. I didn't finish it.
The book suffers from showing instead of telling, infodumping, ridiculous dialogue, and shallow characterization. The prose feels very much like it was written for younger audiences (there's nothing wrong with that, but I expect adult novels from Pern). I cringed through the first few chapters and only made it past the first one because I felt like I owed it to Del Rey to
try. After a few more chapters, though, I gave myself permission not to finish it.
I suppose the only Anne McCaffrey was Anne McCaffrey, and we'll just have to be content with re-reading the original series 75 more times.
Rating: really liked it
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine - Del Rey for a digital galley of this novel.
I am proof that it can be done...….I have never read any of the Dragonriders of Pern novels, started with this book written by Anne McCaffrey's daughter Gigi and survived. Not just survived, but actually thrived and understood what was happening. If you are like me, in the evidently small group of fantasy novel readers who have never dipped their toe into a Pern book, take heart and start reading this one. Yes, there is a huge amount of backstory material but I prefer to look on that as an opportunity to read more about this interesting world instead of treating it as an impediment to enjoying this specific book.
I cannot compare the writing skills or fantasy world development skills of Gigi McCaffrey to Anne McCaffrey so I will dispense with that problem altogether. I definitely enjoyed the story of Piemur as he tries to find his place in this society since his voice has broken leaving him without the wonderful singing talent he had. Now Piemur is seeking his place by filling in time exploring and mapping the lands of Southern Weyr. At seventeen Turns and unable to continue his apprenticeship as a Harper he has no idea in what direction his future may go. This book has a Prologue which effectively encapsulates the main points of the world of Pern along with valuable information about the connections between dragons and humans as well as Thread and what dangers it poses. This was a very helpful section.
I enjoyed this book quite a lot. I would have liked to read more about the interactions between dragonriders and their dragons but with a main character not a dragonrider himself, that wasn't a focus of this book. I would quite like to read another book in this series written by Gigi McCaffrey because she has heightened my interest in the whole Pern subject.
Rating: really liked it
If you haven’t read any of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series, you really need to start at the beginning. But don’t worry, you don’t have to read all 20-something titles before you get to this one! Just six:
Dragonflight,
Dragonquest,
Dragonsong,
Dragonsinger,
The White Dragon, and
Dragondrums. (Links at the end of the full blog post.) There’s a bit of plot overlap between Gigi McCaffrey’s new one and the last couple, but if you’ve read the others, that’s part of the charm.
For those of you who have loved this series since it first came out (I’m not old enough to make that claim, but I’ve loved it since I first discovered it), you’ll feel the same way about this one that I do.
5 stars, for bringing me back home.Those six books are actually two different trilogies. My all-time favorites in the history of ever are
Dragonflight,
Dragonquest, and
The White Dragon, which make up The Dragonriders of Pern series. Read them. Read them all. They started me on the road to becoming a fantasy author. (The
Dragonflight ebook is just $2.99, by the way.)
My
second all-time favorites in the history of ever are
Dragonsong,
Dragonsinger, and
Dragondrums, which make up the Harper Hall of Pern series. They’re set in the same world, but there’s more contact with fire lizards than dragons. Still, I’d gladly take a fire lizard pet if I managed to Impress one. (That’s a Pern thing.) And any excuse to visit Pern is a worthwhile venture.
Go read them all. Yes, right now. The review will still be here, I promise.[The blog post has a gif here for waiting.]
Great! You’re back! BEST BOOKS EVER, RIGHT???Now that you’re as big a fan of the series as I am, you’ll understand me when I say (without any spoilers) that
Dragon’s Code is like coming back home. The book follows one of the harpers, and while I personally prefer the dragonrider books, I admit I screamed a little every time I saw a familiar name. Reading about these characters was like returning to that one perfect summer from your childhood and seeing all your old friends again.
The story is less traditional than you might expect, in that several scenes are more like side ventures that don’t really move the plot along. Normally, I’d dock a star for that, but in this case, they often involved a dragonrider fighting Thread, which made them my favorite chapters!!!! There are also several elements that rely on explanations found in those first six books, but since I’ve already mentioned that
you should read them all because they’re amazing, that falls in the plus column, too (for avoiding unnecessary infodumping.)
Like most of the harper series,
Dragon’s Code is about a character’s internal journey, and it left me profoundly satisfied (and a little teary-eyed.) I hated having to say goodbye all over again, but, hopefully, it won’t be too long before the next one. Maybe even about dragons?
Bottom line: Fans of the Harper Hall of Pern series will be delighted by the return of beloved characters in this paradoxically nostalgic story about the importance of letting go.My thanks to Random House for sending a galley. Receiving an advance copy did not in any way influence my review.
Rating: really liked it
The purpose for this book published in 2018, IMHO, is t0 make the Dragonrider of Pern series eligible for the Hugo award for best series in 2019. So let's do that! The series certainly deserves it. Unfortunately, this book does not deserve much praise otherwise.
The events in Dragon's Code occur concurrently with the events in The White Dragon. You don't really need to read this book to enjoy the series. Just read The White Dragon and you'll be fine.
Despite revisiting some of my favorite Harper Hall characters (and the 2 stars are for that), this book has many discrepancies between it and other books in the series, and also internally. These discrepancies prevented me from enjoying this book despite a fairly decent beginning. I have read those first books, the ones that this book is near to in time (Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums) many times over the years, and this book just did not line up very well, factually. I feel that I know the books better than the author does.
Just a few examples (which multiplied as I wrote this review):(view spoiler)
[ In the Harper Hall books, Master Shonagar was too fat to leave his quarters, and also seemed to suffer from a form of narcolepsy which caused him to fall asleep at random times. Yet in this book, he is downstairs at dinner in a Harper Hall dining room--a dining room that does not resemble the Harper Hall dining room from the three Harper Hall books very much. Plus, Lord Groghe is there eating, unusual. And the apprentice-->journeyman-->master progression seems to have changed. Sebell is a journeyman master? Something like that--I don't feel like looking it up. The implication is that he will be Masterharper one day, but that doesn't mean that he is not just a journeyman, and that there aren't other masters, which there were in the Harper Hall books. Plus, the way the Harper Hall, Fort Weyr and Fort Hold are laid out seems nothing like the descriptions in previous books. (hide spoiler)] .
Also, the plotting is not particularly well thought out as the story progresses. Characters do things that make no sense. Examples in just one small area of the story: (view spoiler)
[ Piemur, after a bad knock on the head that made a big lump on one side of it, regains consciousness, escapes from his captors--some disgruntled landless Nabolese--and finally makes his way out of the maze of the Nabol Hold basements. (And why were these Nabolese smuggling captives into the supposedly guarded Hold anyway? Take them out in the countryside! Everyone just seemed to walk right in and out of the hold proper with no questions asked!!) Anyway, back to the story, Piemer, with a throbbing head runs(!) for help. But as he is running with a throbbing head, he remembers that his and Sebell's (also captured but not escaped) contact is out of town. So he decides to run and get help from the ale/cider guy. On the way, he knocks himself out again by running into a tree for no good reason. He thought he heard/sensed something but it is never explained what. (I thought maybe this would be a big deal like he heard a dragon in his head, but no explanation.) So he knocks himself unconscious again, and now he has big lumps on both sides of his head, but when he finally gets to the ale/cider guy, he doesn't ask for help. Instead, after recovering a bit, he runs(!) back toward the hold--no explanation. (hide spoiler)] It continues being stupid after this, too. (view spoiler)
[Piemer finds Kimi, Sebell's gold queen fire lizard, freaking out right outside the front door of the hold. People are noticing, and two boys are staring. So Piemur backs up 12 steps to get out of traffic. It says so. 12 steps. He calms Kimi down, and sends her for help, but he is not sure she will get help since she is so afraid that she might think Sebell is dead. Then, apparently, he sits there, 12 steps outside the traffic at the Nabol main entrance, until most of Menolly's fire lizards show up and swarm around him, which apparently attracts no attention. Finally, a dragonrider and Menolly show up. Right outside the hold, I guess. Suspension of disbelief became impossible long before this point. (hide spoiler)] One of the silliest discrepancies was after (view spoiler)
[ Piemur and Sebell and others sought refuge with Piemur's original family in Crom. Some nice things happened there, but unfortunately, the woman who fostered him (his mom in this social system) coincidentally died while he was there. Having spent the entire book not being able to sing, he finally finds his new voice at her funeral, a nice touch--though I did wonder how the community buried people in such a small lake without ruining the water supply. Then later on, it turns out that Piemur had been teaching the kids in his hometown The Question Song before his mom died. How'd he do that when he wasn't singing yet? (hide spoiler)]OK, enough. There are more.
Acrually, the writing itself was not bad. Try again, please, Gigi.
So yes, this book qualifies the Pern books for "Best Series" this year. Let's just award the series the Hugo, and not bother to read this book. We don't need it. Just read The White Dragon.
Rating: really liked it
I was hopeful....but that hope died a slow, painful death by utter boredom and despair as I attempted to make my way through this bland and unoriginal attempt at resurrecting the world of Pern once again. If you absolutely must read it- because Pern (and I totally get that)- check it out of your local public library so at least you don't spend any of your own hard earned money on what is but a half-hearted attempt.
What really bothered me about this book (besides that it was so boring) was that the author had an entire planet full of people and dragons. Surely there are all sorts of new storylines that could be developed while keeping faith with her mother's creations. Instead, we revisit old ground and resolve situations with a lucky discovery made because one of the main characters just happens to be in the right place at the right time- but it reads like the author really didn't know how to finish the story, so hey, let's just find a tonic from the past and lo! problem solved! Stop it! If someone tries this again, I suggest one rule: No more sick dragons. Find something else.
About the only thing interesting was the twins presented at the Impression of the queen egg. That could be a little strange, seeing your identical twin sister Impress a queen dragon. But the dragon made another choice. So should you, unless you are an insomniac and your preferred remedy is reading boring things before bedtime.
Rating: really liked it
Having grown up reading about the dragons of Pern, Dragon's Code wasn't a tough sell. However, despite my familiarity with the characters and the background of the world, this book turned out to be one of perhaps 20 books in my life (I read between 200-300 books every year and have done so for the last 25 years) that I did not finish. The writing was so incredibly poor that I simply could not stand to read it after fighting through the first half. Honestly, it deserves less than a star and the publisher should be embarrassed to have this on their lists. Having an author for a mother does not an author make. The characterizations were half-formed at best and the plotting was absolutely plodding. It all comes back to poor writing skills. It felt like I was reading something written for a middle school or high school assignment. Completely missing soul and skill, Dragon's Code falls flat on all counts, and would need a complete overhaul by an exceptionally skilled editor (or even a ghost writer) to be at all worthy of the paper it's printed on.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC.
Rating: really liked it
It wouldn't be fair to compare Gigi McCaffrey with her mother and I will not be doing that. Of course there are little things that you could argue are not canon or should have been caught by a few good and knwoledgeable Pern fans. I would have been surprised if there hadn't been. But that isn't what a book review is about, shouldn't be about. Fact is, Dragon's Code is a good and finely crafted Pern book. And I, for one, loved being "back in Ninth Pass Pern". Gigi does her mother's legacy proud.
The book belongs right there with the other Pern books and the fact it touches something that has happened and been written about in an earlier Pern book should also furnish admiration for the courage to tackle that particular subject. But not even that is enough recommendation.
This book is about Piemur. Piemur coming of age. From more or less wallowing in self pity to finding his place in life and as a harper on Pern. And a darn good tale it is.
I've read the reviews people put in after reading the advanced readers copy and none of them mentioned the scene about the death and funeral of Piemur's foster mother, Ama. Yeah, Ama... Not ashamed to tell you I cried and I wondered. I wondered how much of it was based on a certain real passing of a loved one. Anne McCaffrey always used her life experiences in her books, obvious if you read about her life. And her daughter clearly has the ability to do the same and spin a a good Pernese yarn.
Bottom line: would I recommend this book. Oh yes, I would! I know some Pern fans will be irritated by small things but overall this is a good Pern book and a worthwhile read. Thank you Gigi for giving Ninth Pass Pern a deserved chance. You did well.
Rating: really liked it
I was surprised to come across this book at the library. Unfortunately, the author has nowhere near the talent of her mother, and the book comes over as badly-written fanfiction. The characters were flat, the dialogue stilted, and the prose awkward. I finished the book but only with great effort. If Anne McCaffrey's Pern books are a happy childhood memory for you, give this book a pass.
Rating: really liked it
I am having difficulty rating this book. I am a longtime fan of the Pern series. Rereading Anne's books are my book version of eating macaroni and cheese - comfort food. Reading Dragon's Code, I was frustrated and angry at the things that did not follow Anne's iconic series. I actually gained a new found appreciation of Todd's books in the series (despite his books being too sexualized IMO). Gigi giving nicknames of Pie and Lolly to two characters, Piemur and Menolly, that were so much a part of so many of the Pern books grated on me constantly.
The writing was ok. The 2nd half of the book was better story-telling, as to content, than the first. There was definitely too much information dump. The characters were flat. There was no emotional connection for me.
Reviews of this book were mixed from hated it to 5 stars. Therefore, I bought it in hard cover with hopes that the reality would be somewhere in the middle at a minimum. It wasn't. Anne's death made me sad that there would be no more Pern books. This book says that if there are more, they should be written by someone other than Gigi. It feels so rude to say that, but she doesn't have the depth of understanding of the history of the series and the characters. I am surprisingly wishing that Todd would write another Pern story. My hardcover copy will sit on my shelf with my collection, but I doubt I will ever read it again.
Rating: really liked it
Let me start out by saying that I have every book of Pern written by both Anne and Todd McCaffrey and have read the first 10 so many times that I had to replace my copy of Dragonriders of Pern because it fell to pieces from being read so many times. Yes, I am a huge fan!
It felt so good to be back in Anne McCaffrey’s world of the dragons, riders, and harpers of Pern.
In Dragon’s Code, Anne’s daughter Gigi takes over the reins from Anne’s son, Todd, and brings us Piemur’s story during the time of The White Dragon. We even get to see where Piemur came from and meet his family.
I fell back into Pern immediately and at times forgot this book was not written by Anne. (I mourned her passing greatly.) I found myself once again enthralled and teary eyed at an Impression, holding my breath during a journey Between, and on the edge of my seat when Thread fell.
I was so happy to be back with Piemur, Menolly, Masterharper Robinton, and their firelizards. I hope Gigi continues to give us more stories of Pern and the beloved characters I have loved for decades!
*Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for the advance copy!*
Rating: really liked it
So... extended fan-fiction, anyone?
Take an incident from The White Dragon, and give us an alternate point of view about what happened at the same time.
It's a nice story, it really is. It was nice to see Piemur again (since when do people call him Pie?) and Mennoly (Lolly???) again, and Masterharper Robinton is clever as usual.
Got to page 75 without any women but the old Weyrwoman, crazy about not having babies. Um. That never happened in the main books. Then Silvina is happy to have her wandering children come home to her table, hungry as ever. OK, that's 2 stereotypes until Menolly shows up again.
Way, way to many adjectives and doubled words, this book needed editing.
But I still enjoyed the story more than the series that focused on the watch-whers.
Rating: really liked it
It's been years since I read the original Pern books by Anne McCaffrey. I never really got into the ones written by her son, and I was completely unaware that her daughter was now continuing the family legacy. I read some other reviews that commented on how she didn't live up to her mother's reputation, but I decided to give Dragon's Code a go, anyway. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, it has been so long since I read the originals that if Gigi did take liberties with the characters, I probably wouldn't realize it. I did recognize the names, so it was nice to make their reacquaintance. And while the storyline maybe wasn't quite as polished as her mother's work, I think she shows some real potential here if given a chance. A couple of the scenes which I particularly enjoyed were the impressing of the dragon's egg and the musical gatherings in the evening. It was sad, but probably realistic that the "Oldtimers" would be feeling out of place, so I was pleased that she addressed that in her story and offered some redemption for them. All in all, I look forward to another book about Pern and the continuation of the weyrs and their stories!
Rating: really liked it
Dragons continue!
Seamless was the word that occurred to me. An avid reader of McCaffrey from when Dragonflight burst onto the scene I was so surprised and delighted by another Pern story told from the perspective of the once singer Piemur. His readjustment to life with the changes to his voice, his disappointments and quest to find a different place within the dragon halls form the background from which the action springs.
The time is in the now but the challenges face date back to the oldtimers living on the Southern continent. A situation is set in motion that could have dragon fighting dragon. Plots are hatched that arise from old situations.
We meet old friends and come more into step with the most recent characters and their doings on Pern. Masterharpers, singers, dragon riders are all represented.
Gigi McCaffrey has certainly echoes the voices of Pern without a hitch.
A pleasurable homecoming indeed!
A NetGalley ARC
