by Alysa Dudley

Created on: November 05, 2010   Last Updated: November 06, 2010

Welcome to a world where people ride fire-breathing dragons to combat a deadly spore descending from the sky.  Pern, a planet settled by humans from Earth, is attacked by “thread” for 50 turns (years) out of every 250 turns.

Anne McCaffrey wrote the first book in the Dragonriders series, Dragonflight, in 1968.  (a list of the books in the series can be found on this

webpage.)  Anne has written 17 novels in the series as well as three  books in collaboration with her son Todd McCaffrey.  The most recent three books in the series, Dragonsblood, Dragonheart and Dragongirl are written by Todd McCaffrey.

Start any one of these books and you enter a new world.  The first human settlers of Pern did not know thread was coming, and had to find a solution to this deadly enemy.  A culture evolves where there are halls, holds and weyrs.  Halls house different crafts with craft masters teaching apprentices and journeymen.  The dragons and their riders live in the weyrs, and holds are self-contained communities governed by Lord Holders.

When a new author takes on an existing series, the result can often be jarring.  Todd McCaffrey’s writing is a seamless transition, and takes us to the same world created by his mother.  He has maintained a remarkable consistency in characters, culture and story-line.

The story in Dragongirl picks up where Dragonheart leaves off.  A plague has reduced the human population, and now a disease is affecting the dragons.  When an unexpected tragedy occurs, it looks like there may be too few dragonriders and dragons to fight the rest of this fall.  If thread reaches the planet, all life will be destroyed.

In Dragongirl, dragons mate, and relationships between people are made and strengthened.   Todd McCaffrey writes with a finesse which makes the book appropriate for a wide range of readers.  Since groups of people, adults and children, often sleep together for warmth and companionship, when two adults “sleep" together it is left to the reader’s knowledge to interpret the real meaning.

Todd McCaffrey gallantly tries to make some sense of time travel, although the complexities and seeming contradictions still remain a puzzle.  In addition, the number of characters and their changing relationships can be difficult to keep track of.  It would be easier to understand if there were an explanatory list of the major characters at the end of each chapter.

By the end of the novel, many questions regarding the future of the planet still hang in the air.  it does not make Dragongirl unsatisfying however, rather it leaves the reader with a desire to read the next book in the series.

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