The Dolphins of Pern

This is one of my preferred Dragonriders Of Pern entries, though it’s not specifically about the dragons. However, bronze Gadareth and his young rider, T’Lion, are an integral part of the story of Readis and the dolphins the Humans have mislabeled ‘shipfish.’ That’s an error the dolphins who rescue Readis and his uncle quickly correct politely, yet firmly. They are ‘mammals’ the dolphins tell them, not fish, and they have waited a long, long, long time for Humans to remember their old partnership.

I really enjoyed this book. I’ve been reading the Pern series for (literally) decades, but in re-reading the entire series in sequence, I’ve found some real delights. This is one. Picking up the story with the southern land holders and the dolphins that defended from the original pod from Earth, we get to meet these dolphins, and their reunion with men. The dolphins are lots of fun and this is a great addition to the Pern series.

I read this long ago. I recently picked up a large collection of McCaffrey hardback (many first edition) novels. I felt somehow in Her presence as I was about halfway through this book when she passed to ‘between.’

This is not my favorite book of the Pern novels, but it ranks very high. I am passionate about dolphins and swimming… and dragons. But at times I wished for more of Readis’s life than the life of the ‘politicians’ of the planet. I wished for more science discovery. There was a lot of that, but I wanted more. But I know these are the threads of the next books and the evolving of Pern, so I shouldn’t complain.

Though I have the hardback, I now prefer to read on Kindle where it doesn’t hurt my eyes. And at times I need the audio version to listen to when my eyes get tired. Since the text to speech tool didn’t work on this novel I downloaded the Audible version. Hearing a human voice narrating is always preferable to the computerized versions, anyway.

Mel Foster’s interpretation was different than what I expected. I think, knowing that Anne McCaffrey is of Irish descent, I expected a brogue to come from the sea holds rather than what sounded a southern drawl. But that was Mel’s interpretation and I soon adjusted. He did a decent job keeping the character’s voices dissimilar enough to know who was talking when.

I look forward to ‘worming’ my way through all of Anne’s books, those I have read and those I haven’t yet. I hope I can afford to use Audible/Kindle help to do this. R.I.P. to my most favorite author.

Let the all humans, firelizards, dolphins and dragons keen:

Drummer, beat and Piper, blow
Harper, strike and Soldier, go
Free the flame and sear the grasses
As the dawning Red Star passes…

Until eternity passes

For Anne McCaffrey

There was a little bit of the “same story from a different point of view” that she has been doing on and off – which irritates me. But, it went far beyond All The Wyers of Pern and had little to do with much that happened in the other book. I really liked it. I’ve ordered the rest of the series from Amazon as soon as I finished this book, so I would have to say that I am a “Pern fan”.

Ara & Jayge left the northern continent because Ara no longer wanted to hear dragons. They became ship wrecked on the southern continent closer to where Cove Hold was set up than to Southern Hold with Toric. Alemi & Readis are ship wrecked in a storm and they are saved by shipfish that talk to them. Alemi learns from AIVAS tells him they are dolphins and came with the founders, they can talk and there use to be a Dolphin Hall. Readis wants to play with the dolphins but Ara refuses to let him.

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