Todd McCaffrey, Dragonsblood

Dragonsblood is a very good story, however, it's very complicated and there isn't a plot summary on the internet. Keep up the good work and please. Upload some plot summary.

Todd McCaffrey, in Dragon's Blood, makes his solo debut into his mother, Anne's, world of Pern. This novel is loosely a sequel to Dragon's Kin, a collaborative effort between mother and son. Todd does an excellent job of keeping to Anne's basic cannon. He keeps the basic tenets that Anne has set down in her numerous Pern novels. Todd's style, while darker than Anne's, is still readable and captivating. It would have been nice to see a stronger connection to Dragon's Kin as were fans received from Anne in her trilogies, but the story line is not adversely affected by this. The story line moves from the third pass to the end of the first pass connecting characters from Anne's Dragon's Dawn to new characters in Dragon's Blood. I rather enjoyed the time shifts and the interweaving of past and present. Todd is adept at delving into the psychological profiles of his many main characters. He reveals to the reader the full range of humanity through even minor characters.

This would have been a nearly perfect Pern novel, if not for one glaring error on Todd's part. The casual Pern fan will probably not notice, but for those of us who have read and reread every book Anne every gave us on Pern, this error just may drive you crazy. In Dragon's Dawn, Anne's clear states that Windblossom is Kitty Ping Yung's granddaughter, not her daughter. It was reiterated enough times by Anne to stick in the readers' minds. A large part of Todd's story line centers around Windblossom's relationship with her "mother" Kitty Ping. It makes a reader wonder if Todd has actually read all of his mother's Pern novels. In the forward to the book, Anne comments that Todd is the only person she would trust with her child-Pern. I think she might want to reevaluate his worthiness. On the other hand, if he can be bothered to take the time to read the books enough times to avoid such gross errors, then he will do really well with Pern and Pern fans all over the world will be thrilled.

Dragonsblood

Todd McCaffrey

Del Rey, Jan 2005, $24.95, 436 pp.

ISBN: 0345441249

When the colonists landed on Pern, they didn't know that the red star would align with the planet every two hundred and fifty years. When that event happens, spores from the red star fall onto Pern, destroying anything organic in its path. To combat this problem, geneticists changed fire lizards into telepathic dragons that bond with a human; together they unite to fight spores or thread as it is now called, 507 years after the initial landing of the spaceship.

In AL 507, Lorana sends her fire lizards away when she thinks she is dying, but she is saved and brought to Bendon Weyr where she bonds with a hatchling dragonet Arith. A plague infects the dragons, killing many, including Arith, just when thread is coming. Arith and Lorana's two fire lizards go back to 42 AL where geneticist Wind Blossom concludes that the three visitors come from Bendan Weyr in the future. She devises a plan to help her descendents battle the deadly dragon killer plague if the future people can interpret the clues she left behind to save them.

This is the first solo Pern story not written by the immortal Anne McCaffrey, but her son who obviously inherited the writing gene as readers will not be able to tell who wrote the novel without reading the cover. Two women living centuries apart work to find a cure to save the dragons and ultimately their world. There are plenty of action scenes, especially when dragons and their human riders battle thread, but it is the strong characterizations, especially the grieving Lorana, who can communicate with any dragon while reminded of the loss of her Arith to the plague that make this a worthy entry in the long running series.

Harriet Klausner