Flight Of The White

Hello All.  Last week was a good one for me as far as finishing books go, so many a ramble is in our future.  Let's start with The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey, the third book in the Dragonriders of Pern series.  This finishes the first trilogy in the series and sets up a lot of the future books.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

This book mostly follows young Lord Holder Jaxom and his unusual white dragon Ruth.  Jaxom is frustrated, he and Ruth are not allowed to train as a normal dragon and rider team as he cannot be risked in Thread fall as this would put his Hold in contention and possibly cause more war.  He also is not actually in charge of his own Hold, as his guardian the Warder Lytol is acting as steward until Jaxom is confirmed...which seems to be a really long way off.  After a bit of an outburst, Jaxom is given more responsibility and starts to attend classes outside of his hold.  In frustration Jaxom starts to sneak off under the pretense of visiting a girl (which he does as well) to try and teach Ruth to chew firestone and breathe fire.  He along with ever other dragon are summoned to Benden Weyr when it is discovered that the queen egg has been stolen by the Oldtimers who have been banished to Southern Weyr.  This obviously makes everybody upset, but the angriest is the Weyrwoman Lessa, who vows to get the egg back, even if it means dragon against dragon violence, which is unthinkable.  Jaxom gets a visual of where the egg is from the firelizards and times it to get the egg back to Benden, getting Lessa to calm down a wee bit. Jaxom is allowed to train with the other Werylings and learn to fight Thread...as long as nobody realizes he is actually fighting Thread.   Jaxom and his harper friend 

Menolly are assigned various tasks, some which take them to the Southern continent, where they realize that a trio of stars called the Dawn Sisters do not follow normal star patterns. Jaxom falls ill with a Southern illness and is forced to a long recovery, lucky for him he fell ill at what becomes Cove Hold, a beautiful little bit of land on the Southern Continent.  While he is sick, a mating flight at Ista Weyr almost goes horribly wrong when a couple of the Oldtimers bring their old bronzes to try and fly the new queen dragon.  One of the old bronzes dies in flight and his rider goes mad and is killed by the Benden weyrleader F'lar.  D'ram, one of the reasonable Oldtimers takes over Southern Weyr and restores it to true dragonrider standards.  During this whole mess, Masterharper Robinton suffers a heart attack, and is ordered to rest.  Back at the cove, Jaxom has fallen in love with Shara, the younger sister of the only Holder on Southern, and one of the people to nurse him back to health. A proper hold is built in the cove and Master Robinton is brought down to recover and live in the newly dubbed Cove Hold.  While everybody is down there, they decide to survey the continent on dragon back.  They discover a mountain that shows evidence of being a volcano, and many regular mounds that they assume cover old holds.  They also observe the Dawn Sisters with what they call a far viewer and discover that they are actually metal ships, not stars.  After much digging they discover what is probably the original landing spot of their ancestors before the volcanic activity and Thread drove them to the rockier, stabler and more easily protected North.  The dragon riders secure half the continent for themselves to farm and sustain themselves during intervals, and open the rest for settling.  Jaxom is confirmed as Lord Holder, marrying Shara and letting Lytol go to Cove Hold to help with the excavation project.  Everybody is very hopeful for the future and they all live ever after.

So that was a really long synopsis and I only hit on the big major points.  I think that may be one of my favorite things about these books is the sheer amount of story that is packed in.  Ms. McCaffrey does not spend to much time on angst or lengthy introspection, but keeps the rich story moving.  That is not to say there is not emotion, or growth or introspection, it just means that it happens along with the story instead of grinding it to a halt as we read a chapter on how lonely so and so is.  In this book in particular I like how the personal growth and maturation of Jaxom and Ruth mirror the growth of Pern.  We get a personal story, one we are invested in and tie it into the bigger world history and growth that the author started back in the first book.  I feel this is a good way to tell a big sweeping planet wide story, while still keeping the reader 

invested in a smaller personal story.  I do get a bit sad when they talk of not needing dragon riders anymore, because I feel they are such an integral part of Pern's culture...but I guess eliminating, or at least lessening a deadly menace is a good thing :-)  I also felt that Jaxom and Ruth had a bit of special snowflake syndrome, which is to say, they get to be everything, Lord Holder, dragonrider, favorites of the ruling Weyr, favorites of the Masterharper, friends with all the important people, they are the fastest, the best at timing it, and Ruth is just the most intelligent, well spoken dragon out there.  This is tempered a bit by not having Jaxom, actually be in charge of his own life for most of the book, he is only allowed to do what Lytol  and N'ton, the High Reaches weyrleader allow him to do.  The discovery of the Original Landing, really brings this series into a more sci-fi type of story and less of a pure fantasy one.  I love this rediscovering of Pern's history and the stories that follow.  Again this book sets up more discoveries in future books, and is confirmed in really cool ways in a couple of the authors "prequal" type stories.  Overall this book is a solid entry in the dragonrider series, I give the book 7 out of 10 redfruits.  

What do you think makes a successful blend of sci-fi and fantasy?  Do you prefer epic stories, or more personal stories?  Are you a special snowflake?