Anne McCaffrey has a special place in my heart. Not just her books, but Anne herself. Her books saved me from myself when I was a teen, as I could escape into Pern when real life got to be too difficult. I dreamed of having a fire lizard, but worried that it would eat all the local cats. And Anne is the first author that I specifically went to a book signing to meet.
I still have my copy of Dragonflight, with the original green cover of Michael Whelan artwork, with her signature and "To Laura" on the title page. When she asked who to sign it to, I promptly replied with my full name, but she said, "Just your first name, I'm afraid. My hand doesn't get tired unless I do last names." She was tired, signing over and over, and I was a kid who was probably technically a little young to read her fiction, but there I was. I asked if I could hug her, and I got a hug from my favorite author right there in the store. It was nearly two decades ago.
I remember the length of the line. The man in front of us held a strange piece of cloth in his hands and no books. We got to talking with him. He said that he had been in Vietnam, and his unit had a reader in it who loved Dragonflight, and the unit took the name "Dragons" from the books, and each unit was a different color dragon from the books. He said every man in that unit made it home alive. He had come to thank Anne for giving them her luck.
Pern is still one of those series that I cannot resist. I hope Anne and her son continue to write more stories, and I hope Pern continues for a long time from now. I think my review of Dragon's Kin indicates that I'm still interested in returning to Pern. And now, some rapid reviewing.
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey: It's almost unimaginably difficult for me to review a book that I first read when I was 12 or 13 years old. I've heard that Pern is a series that you either hate or love. I've only met a few who would admit to being somewhere in between. I'm not sure where the hate comes from, but the love is from an amazingly planned out world with a long history. It's not fantasy, but it's not hard science fiction, either. I suppose science fantasy works, if you must give it a genre. The first book is about Lessa, a woman who's family was murdered when she was a girl, whose only goal in life was revenge on the murderer. To her surprise, once she's attained that revenge she finds that there is much more for her to do. Including solving a 400 year-old mystery. The story moves along impressively, hardly stopping for breath. Events tumble into events as problem after problem is met and dealt with. The characters grow in front of you. In short, it's just about everything you could want a book to be. 
Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey: The second book of Pern is a little more scattered than the first, introducing new problems and a whole bunch of new characters. While it's good enough for a sequel, it suffers a little from sequelitis as well as from the writer trying to cram as much information about the world in as possible. This book introduces fire lizards, the smaller cousins of dragons, and the grub, a second line of defense against the threats from the skies. The themes in the book are interesting, and it moves alone well enough, but it does cover a lot of territory. 
The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey: While technically the third book in the series, the reading order on Anne McCaffrey's website suggests that readers read the first two books of the Dragonsinger trilogy before starting this book, and the third book of that trilogy after reading the first two chapters. It's fairly important that you have an idea of the events in the trilogy before reading this book, although it's possible to read it without that knowledge. Like Dragonflight, this book focuses on one character, this time Jaxom of Ruatha who was born in the opening chapters of the first book. Jaxom is a lord, but he's also a dragonrider, and this book is about how he reconciles his dual standing, unique on Pern. This one is a good read because it also indicates where the series is going, as the events at the very end of the book show. Not as good as the first book, but certainly a strong story.
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