What a delight! This has been on my shelf for two years and I finally read it (mostly on a plane). The prose gently calls back to fairytale language while remaining eminently readable. I love a puzzle story. Love the characters, especially Calcifer. So glad I finally picked it up.

I finally got my hands on The Prisoner‘s Throne and read it so fast I didn‘t even have time to update any of my various book related social media. But don‘t these all look beautiful on the shelf together?

The good: World Building and Plot! McCaffrey is a master.
The bad: Outdated understanding of consent. F'lar can also be very 1960s sometimes.
The GREAT: DRAGONS. They're the voices of reason and the emotional anchors that keep the humans from becoming at times irredeemable. Pernese dragons are the platonic ideal for human-dragon bonding and set the template for all the future variations thereof in fiction.
(see long winded review on LT)

Revisiting Pern via audiobook. Aside from some of the marked blind spots of 1960s second wave feminism, the world building and writerly craftmanship still hold up. I read the #Harperhall trilogy first, then #Dragonflight, #Dragonquest, and #TheWhiteDragon when I was still in elementary school and they got me into sci fi as a lifelong reader. Coming back decades later is eye opening, sometimes alarming, and yet still vindicating.

I‘m a sucker for a special edition cover and this Christmas gift from my sister is going a long way towards curing the sour feeling I‘ve had from muscling through two different books that I ultimately did not enjoy for various reasons. The setting is richly developed and the characterizations are deep. So far so good! #oliveedition

I so thought I‘d love this book but sadly just couldn‘t buy in. Ever have that complete disconnect between all the reviews and recommendations and the actual reading experience? Will give her Bone Season series a try though.