Darswords

Sky Dragons by Anne McCaffrey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a bittersweet book. Published after our Pern Queen, Anne McCaffrey passed. That acknowledgement is at the beginning of the book and set the tone. At least it did for me.

I already had the hardback so all I needed was the audio. I borrowed that from the library. Now I have this on my Audible wishlist. Once again, Emily Durante was the narrator. She is excellent! Her acting skills shine in this recording.

In this book, the McCaffrey’s join the 21st century breaking the dragon-glass ceiling for those who love differently, for women. Feminists erupted from Pern and showed they could do anything the guys could. With the framework set up by Fiona and Larana in the previous books Xhinna sets out to save Pern from total destruction by thread. Illnesses cut the human and dragon populations and in the following passes of thread all could die. Xhinna comes up with some solutions, much of it trial and error but she is strong and pushes the envelopes of what she should be able to do. Just as her ‘sisters’ before her, Xhinna loves deeply and uncommonly. From that love, she finds uncommon answers.

It makes me sad that this may be the last Pern novel. Of course, I still have a few in the middle that I haven’t read yet. But knowing the chronological ending of the series just makes me feel SO sad! I will have to make sure to reread all of these again later. Even still, it astonishes me at how much story Ms. McCaffrey was able to create from this one planet. The mass of world and personality maps and charts of information, she and Todd must have sitting around … well, it must be amazing!

If you get the chance to read the entire series, do so! If I had to narrow it down, I think these last three, starting with Stargirl written by both mother and son, with the narration of Emily Durante, are the best ones of all!

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