Good Books - Pern

In junior high, I was obsessed with the world of Anne McCaffrey's Pern. I was introduced to her books by my mother who gave me the first book of the Harper Hall series. And to this day her books are among my favorites.

This trilogy focuses on the life and adventures of a young girl named Menolly. She was raised in a small town or hold. Where her father is the leader. In their society, harpers, or musician, are the  teachers not just entertainers. She is instructed to take care of the hold's elderly harper. He discovers that she has a great talent for music and composing. So he sends a few of her songs on to the Harper Hall, located half a world away. Sadly he dies before any response is received. The custom believed at her hold is that only men become harpers. So when the new harper arrives everyone tries to hide her talents, to the point she runs away.

On the planet Pern, there is a horrible menace that comes every other millennium. When a "Red Star" passes close to their world, it drops "Thread" onto them. The Thread are mindless parasites which fall from the sky and burn and consume everything it touches, except metal and rocks. The only way to stop them is with fire.

 So they have dragonriders that fly and burn down the Thread before it can do any harm to the land below.

  

 When Menolly runs away from the safety of her Hold, she is caught out in a Threadfall. Using quick thinking she finds a cave to hide in. Inside the cave she discovers some "Fire Lizards" hatching. The fire lizards are minature dragons. She saves nine of them from the Thread and they become her pets so to speak. 

Many things happen and she is finally discovered by the Master Harper himself and taken to Harper Hall to live.

I love this world, when I was reading about it I always wanted to visit it. One of my favorite assignments during eighth grade was that we were asked to write to someone famous and try and get their autograph. I chose to write Anne McCaffrey, who was in Ireland. I was tickled to receive not only a sighed book cover but also a really nice letter from her.

Sadly I've learned that she has recently passed away but she will always be one of my favorite authors because she took the time to write to a little 14 year old. I own a lot of her books and my favorites are the ones that are contemporary to Menolly's time period on Pern.

But she also has stories from earlier time periods on the planet. One of the saddest is the story of Moreta, the Queen Dragon rider that gives her life to save the world from a flu epidemic.

And also love the story of the first settlers on Pern and how the dragon riders started.

When you start reading about this world, you will want to learn all about it. And I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have.