Find The White Dragon: Volume III Of The Dragonriders Of Pern Constructed By Anne McCaffrey Accessible In Publication
runt, white dragon Ruth, being raised by Jaxom at Ruatha Hold, surpasses the expectations of the all by surviving, Jaxom ready to take over leadership of his Hold must wait because of the uncertainties of the time, Old time dragon riders are unable to adapt to the societal changes, which have occurred during the four hundred years since the last pass, Tension increases between current population and old timers, Jaxom is finally allowed to begin training Ruth to fight thread, but can't do it where ground crews might see him, When a queen egg is stolen from Benden Weyr, it appears that dragons might fight the old timers dragons, Jaxom secretly returns the queen dragon to prevent this from occurring, One of Anne McCaffery's best books in the Dragonrider series, Many twists of plot and surprising discoveries, Winner of the Ditmar International Science Fiction Award
Finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel
Let Anne McCaffrey, storyteller extraordinare and New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author, take you on a journey to a whole new world: Pern and discover not only its flora, fauna, population and cultural hierarchy, but the history of an entire civilization.
If you like David Eddings, David Gemmell and Douglas Adams, you will love this,
Anne McCaffrey, one of the queens of science fiction, knows exactly how to give her public what it wants THE TIMES
One of McCaffreys best! Reader review
You cannot fail to be totally immersed in this fantastic story, thrilling to the extreme.
Reader review
If you have never tried the series, do, You wont regret it. Reader review
A BOND IS FORMED THAT CANNOT BE BROKEN
Never had there been as close a bonding as the one that existed between the young Lord Jaxom and
his extraordinary white dragon, Ruth.
Pure white and incredibly agile, Ruth possessed remarkable qualities, Not only could he communicate with the iridescent, fluttering fire lizards, but he could fly, Back in time to any WHEN with unfailing accuracy,
Nearly everyone else on Pern thought Ruth was a runt who would never amount to anything, but Jaxom knew his dragon was special, In secret they trained to fight against the burning threads from the Red Planet, to fly Back in time as well as Between, and finally their close and special union was to result in the most startling and breathtaking discovery of all
THE WHITE DRAGON is one of the most unforgettable episodes in Anne McCaffreys world famous Chronicles of Pern
The Dragonriders of Pern series continues in Dragondrums.
I've read most of the Pern novels since they first came out, along with a number of McCaffrey's other series, Love her work, which is a cross between sci for and fantasy, Her world building is very realistic and based on natural scientific ideas with a magical/supernatural twist, Love that her dragons are a natural defense against the invasive spores that periodically bombard the planet of Pern, destroying all life they touch, The relationships between the dragons and their riders are wonderful and deep, and the greatest dangers they face together during Threadfall the spores stem as much from centuries of lost lore as the actual Threads themselves.
Ruth, the White Dragon, becomes a pivotal champion is this tale, despite being considered by the other dragons and their riders as a freak, I highly recommend the entire series for anyone who likes sci go, fantasy and especially dragons, Regarding Perm and its holds, weyrs, dragons, lords, craftmasters and fire lizards I tried to follow canon by reading the Harper Hall Collection first, This trilogy, even though the writing seemed to be leaning too much on the young side of young adults, was actually a pleasurable experience, with a proper fleshing out of the characters Menolly, Piemur and their various music teachers.
Imagine something like a Fame series on another planet, Fun!
The White dragon Not so much, This is a novel where, literally, nothing really important happens until pageof apages book and when that something important finally happens, it is buried under an avalanche of winks, smiles, smirks, sneers and laughter by every major and minor character.
I understand that authors have tropes, but this constant winking is enough to drive a reader mad, Add to these a character coming of age clumsily, the unexploited idea at the end of the novel and the very tired entourage of Masterharper Robinton et al and all you have is a story with an one trick pony.
This pony happens to be a dragon: Dragon Ruth whose curt one liners save this book from astar rating, One of Anne's best, at least I think so, She seemed to get into the skin of her characters as she wrote about them, for instance, in this book, concentrating as it does on Jaxom and Ruth, we see Lessa in an entirely different light.
As always, there are quibbles, in a specific instance Meron, a very nasty and unpleasant bit of work, has managed to acquire, and keep, a fire lizard, while a mildly grumpy holder had his fire lizard go 'between' on hatching and never return, which doesn't really add up.
However, these inconsistencies appear in every book ever written, so no problem, Third, or fifth, in series depending how you count, and last of those really worth reading, as the fifteen or so volumes to follow weren't really up to standard, as always happens in extended works.
Even this one begins to suffer a little from overblown petty dialogue and self indulgent whimsy, but is important for the way it pushes the original story concept on to a conclusion.
After this it's all downhill, I read these books many years ago, the the earlys, I fell in love with the world of Pern and the unique and talented writing of Anne McCaffrey, I am so glad I bought all the books and theillustration reference books, It is such a joy to return to Pern, I am listening and reading the books, Audio adds much definition and emergence in the stories, Excellent reading for all, who are interested in fantasy, I admit, I got confused when I was looking at the order to read these books in and picked this up instead of Dragonsong, so I suspect I have missed some of the character development given if you read in publication order.
But I have to admit to being disappointed in this book, I loved the Pern series as a teenager and wanted to come back to it as an adult, Unfortunately, whilst some books stand the test of time, I'm not sure this one does,
This is partly because I really ended up disliking the main character, now I'm all for judging the morality of the book on the time in which it was written, so perhaps Jaxom's frankly appalling attitude towards various females in the book can be excused.
What I don't think can be excused so easily is that he is whiny, bratty, throws his toys in the air and demands respect and is somehow given it.
He's had everything handed to him on a plate he's a dragon rider, a Lord of Pern and a generally coddled youngster and he's a pain in the proverbial.
He uses and discards girls with no thought or consideration to their feelings, he does stupidly reckless things and gets praised for them, It's never enough for him, he always wants , needs and is never pulled on his serious attitude problem,
McCaffrey is writing a highly patriarchal society, which is fine, But in the earlier books she makes at some effort at least to challenge the status quo as she goes along, Here we are meant to root for a kid who takes what he wants both materialistically and sexually and I just couldn't do it, One of the stronger female characters, the first woman to ride a green dragon in fact, is written off as being selfish, unpredictable and 'proddy' whilst Jaxom gets away with blue murder yet is brave and adventurous.
Maybe I'm being harsh, maybe it is me judging a book by current expectations despite my own belief that this is unjust, but the character just got on my nerves and some of his actions made me deeply uncomfortable there's a throwaway rape scene in here for instance that was completely unnecessary regardless of time period or societal norms.
Even if you take out the troubling characters though, this book has a somewhat larger issue and that's in the distinctly noticeable lack of plot.
Things happen and characters muddle around, but it's all very relaxed and with no overarching conflict or main narrative thread to resolve, There are perhaps a handful of sub plots that you might at a stretch call a narrative, but they are very weakly linked together and nothing much interesting happens in any of them.
There's a reasonable amount of world building and that kept me interested enough, but it is deeply lacking in a strong narrative or resolution, Things happen for no real reason, Jaxom gets into various scrapes and throws various fits, he has sex a bunch of times and that's kind of about it.
Events that could have been pulled into a grand narrative are all but forgotten once they're done,
That said, there are some definite mitigating factors here the Harpers are brilliant characters and I loved having them along for the ride, It suggests I'll enjoy the Harper Hall trilogy and Dragonsong is the next on my list, I loved Jaxom's dragon Ruth and felt McCaffrey did excellently at utilising this strange little dragon throughout the novel, I really enjoyed the escapades with the fire lizards they are wonderful little creatures and made me smile every time I came across them, And I felt the additional world building here was well done, both with the Old Timers and the discovery of artefacts from the first landing on Pern.
I'm interested enough to continue my re read and just hope that Jaxom isn't a key character in any of the future novels, Either i have aged, or this texti loved the pern series, read the books as they came off the pressesnow The school mistress attitude, of directing and correcting, of explaining and urging everyone and everything, i now find intensely irritatingall the bullies, all the little dictators, are annoyingthe male superiority attitudes, the female submissiveness, are sickeningdid i not see this, years ago No, i went for the adventures, the excitement, the plot, which is quite intricatenow this text is like re visiting an echoing, empty, cobweb filled attic roomsorryi am a grown up now, a boring adultnot a fierce youngsterho hum.
tempus fugit Rereading the Dragon Books as I am, the story unfolds as rivetingly as on my first reading it decades ago, More of the important and complex characters are developed, Both human and dragonkind including their small cousins the fire dragons, I know there is so much to come as the books untangle the story of Pern and its inhabitants, Knowing will in no way spoil the depth of my enjoyment, The original books in the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, of which The White Dragon is one, are enjoyable trips to an interesting other world with likable characters, interesting issues and conflicts, and good storytelling.
At the time the Dragonriders tales were first introduced, the Pern stories were a refreshing change from the typical sword and sorceress tales that were being published.
Later volumes, co authored with her son before her death and then after her death written under her son's name, lost the freshness and read like formula novels.
The White Dragon, one of the first, is a good ride, I truly love the Pern series and I wish she had done with it before she died, The White Dragon is an integral part of the story of theth pass of the Red Star and introduces us to Ruth, the white dragon, arguably the most important dragon on Pern.
One thing that is glossed over is that Ruth is a hermaphrodite, The dragon is referred to as 'he' but it is brought to our attention that 'he' is all the colors, including gold and green, which means 'he' is both male and female and is probably why 'he' is not interested in mating.
'He' is also 'she. ' ' We are also given a clue when 'he' tells Jaxom 'his' name Ruth, which is a female, not a male name, As 'he' is golden, Ruth is a queen, 'He' is also a bronze, a brown, a blue, and a green, 'He' is all the colors, which is why the fire lizards find 'him' so fascinating, I find it interesting that McCaffrey brought this to our attention then immediately diverted our attention from it, by focusing on how 'he' was not interested in mating.
It is interesting that in the story a dragon rider brings it to Jaxom's attention that Ruth is ALL colors, yet no one makes the connection that that means 'he' is also 'she', and a queen dragon.
.