| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: High (expect to skip bits if you want to avoid pornography) Violence level: Medium-Low Back Cover: “After ten long Turns, Lessa was ready to come out of hiding, to reclaim her birthright...and to Impress the young dragon queen and become Weyrwoman of Benden. Suddenly the deadly silver Thread once again threatens all Pern with destruction. But the mighty telepathic dragons that had defended Pern for centuries are now few in number, not nearly enough to protect the planet in its hour of greatest peril. So Lessa hatches a daring and dangerous scheme: rally support from people who long ago ceased to exist...” |
This is where the story actually began—the very first book written. As a character to follow into a new fictional world, Lessa is kind of unexpected. She's not what I would call a sympathetic character—very prickly all around, and she thinks she knows better than anybody what ought to happen. And F'lar, while being charismatic and decisive and generally leader-like, really ought to learn that it isn't a good idea to shake people, no matter how upset you are. Still, having two characters like that fall hard for each other makes such a nice change from the typical romance. I don't know if it's any more real than the Hollywood version of love, but it's definitely different.
But the main event isn't the love story—as you might have guessed from the back cover. The real story is sort of a world-wide disaster story-line, and you get plenty of action from it...eventually, once F'lar becomes a leader in name as well as in fact. It's a bit of a slow build up to that point, and it takes a while because Lessa's dragon has to grow up. While that's happening, you get to learn a bunch of exposition, while Lessa is getting lessons in history (such as it is) and dragonrider culture (which she promptly changes). They also spend a good bit of time doing research to try and figure out how to stop the oncoming disaster—and convincing everyone else that it's actually coming.
My favorite part of the whole thing would have to be the dragons themselves. They're such awesome characters—and they are characters, not just big animals. They may have a slightly simple outlook on life, but they can also be rather philosophical about problems. The interaction between them and their riders is just wonderful—sweet and often kind of funny. They're most likely the real reason why I enjoyed these books so thoroughly.