It’s odd, Lessa began Dragonflight as a drudge (literally a slave), and though Lessa nominally had a worse life than Menolly, her constant pride and scheming never made her an easy character to like which lessened the impact of how hard Lessa’s life actually was. Menolly provides us not only a more immediate perspective, but also an extremely different, and far more human view of Pern, and what life in a hold, especially such a conservative one as Half Circle might be like. Where previously the Pern series had followed a wider perspective, skipping around many meetings and featuring a lot of byplay between characters (some of whom got lost in the mix), Dragonsong is a far more focused story. On Pern however, women are not permitted to join the harper guild or perform music and so Menolly’s father, the stern lord holder Yanus fears that a girl performing music in his hold would bring disgrace on him. Menolly has a gift for both composing and performing music and a beautiful singing voice, gifts which brought her to the attention of Half Circle’s harper, the aged Petiron. Taking place chronologically at the same time as Dragonquest, Dragonsong follows fifteen year old Menolly, a girl from the small and comparatively out of the way Half Circle Sea Hold. So, McCaffrey put aside the political byplay and macro world views to tell a rather more simple story set on Pern, the story of a young girl trying to pursue her passion for music despite the prejudices of those around her and the ill will of her family, a story which marks a turning point in how the Pern books were written, introduces one of the most beloved characters to the saga, and turned out to have a wide ranging appeal far beyond its target audience.

McCaffrey apparently was hard at work on the sequel to Dragonquest in the mid-seventies, when an editor asked her to put together a book which might encourage more young female readers to science fiction. The best answer I can give is to point to Dragonsong.

You might be wondering why, given my less than glowing reviews of the first two Dragonriders books I remember this series so fondly.

Dragonsong series