A Gift of Dragons, Anne McCaffrey
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language: English
country: USA
year: 2002
form: short fiction
genre(s): science fiction
series: Dragonriders of Pern
dates read: 24.7.24-8.8.25
Anne McCaffrey’s A Gift of Dragons is the last published Pern book (though one more short story-“novella”-“short novel”, “Beyond Between”, was published in 2003), collecting all of the Pern short fiction published to that point other aside from the stories in Chronicles of Pern: First Fall, as well as one new story, “Ever the Twain”.
it’s fine. the stories are all, you know, adequate. none are particularly interesting, and “Ever the Twain”, while fine in and of itself, has so many contradictory details that I don’t think it can convincingly fit anywhere in the timeline. all of the stories have young protagonists — the youngest is I believe twelve and the oldest perhaps twenty — and one was originally written for a collection of science fiction short stories for young readers, which is an interesting contrast with the novels, which since Dragondrums have mainly focused on protagonists in their twenties or older.
the stories:
- in “The Smallest Dragonboy”, a short boy worries about whether he’ll Impress a dragon his upcoming first Hatching and deals with some dramatic bullying. this is a perfectly pleasant story with some fun sexuality implications that it does not engage with at all.
- in “The Girl Who Heard Dragons”, Aramina — later the primary plot device of The Renegades of Pern — and her family, who are Holdless (aka homeless-stateless), flee a bandit effectively-queen who wants to use Aramina’s ability to hear dragons for her own advantage. takes a surprisingly dark turn in that Aramina is effectively kidnapped by the Weyr at the end, though everyone ostensibly consents.
- “Runner of Pern” introduces a new apparently core world-building element that is never previously portrayed, namely the existence of a dedicated community of long-distance message runners. the plot is…fine. a young Runner is run off the trace she’s traveling on by the son of a Lord Holder and decides to get her revenge. there’s some interesting politicking in terms of Hold-Craft relationships, but that’s about it. the timeline implications of this story in relation to Dragonflight and The Skies of Pern are also bonkers.
- “Ever the Twain” is about twins, one of whom desperately wants to Impress a dragon and the other of whom is shy but wants to support her brother, who come to the Weyr and Impress dragons. that’s it. that’s the story. feels frankly kind of just like a retread of the several Impression scenes we’ve already had.
so: it’s fine. nothing here I’d particularly recommend if you’re not already invested in a full Pern read.
moods: adventurous, lighthearted
webring >:-]
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