Dragon's Fire

Written by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey

Narrated by Dick Hill

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A richly detailed story on a par with the rest of the Pern canon . . . another successful McCaffrey mother-and-son collaboration.”—Booklist

At Natalon’s mining camp, Pellar embarks on a secret mission to discover whether the condemned criminals known as the Shunned are stealing coal. But the gifted tracker discovers that a far more treacherous plot is unfolding. A heartless thief named Tenim has realized there is profit to be made from firestone, the volatile mineral that enables the dragons of Pern to burn the lethal Thread out of the sky. When the last remaining firestone mine explodes, a desperate race begins to find a new deposit of the deadly but essential mineral. Sure enough, Tenim has a murderous plan to turn tragedy to his own advantage. Now Pellar and his new friends—the kind and gentle Halla, a child of the Shunned, and Cristov, the son of a corrupt miner—must stop Tenim. If they fail, it will mean the end for Pern and its dragonriders.

“Grittier than the early parts of the series; Todd’s apparently brought a wider, more current worldview to Pern.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“These fabled dragons still cast a spell.”—Publishers Weekly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jul 11, 2006
• ISBN: 9781423314608

Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey, a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner, was one of the world's most beloved and bestselling science fiction and fantasy writers. She is known for her hugely successful Dragonriders of Pern books, as well as the fantasy series that she cowrote with Elizabeth A. Scarborough that began with Acorna: The Unicorn Girl.

Reviews for Dragon's Fire

[Amberly Brown · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

lots of lore that doesn't exist in later books. Adds to the narrative without contradicting later timeline (and earlier books).

[Malcolm Turner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

V good easy to listen to suitable for minors and sensitive audiences

[Bea · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The stories of Pern are intriguing and never disappoint me.

[eowyna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first new Pern book after many decades away. So I'm not sure if my rather luke-warm appreciation is the problem of the book or because I have gotten older. It is a story told in two parts: the first from Pellar's point of view, the second from Hella's PoV. Both are quite young, about 14 yrs old, at the beginning of the book, and it follows them, and their immediate neighbors for a year or two, with early chapters much younger, and some wrapup with them a bit older. There are a lot of characters, and I found myself setting the book down and forgetting to pick it up again.It is a fine story, focussing on the miners, traders, and Shunned, with bits of faction with the watch-whers, and guest appearances by dragons, dragon riders, and fire lizards. Other reviewers have mentioned some inconsistencies, and they are there, but didn't destroy the book for me. All and all, it was a fun read: not spectacular, not bad, and fun to return to the universe with Pern in it.

[kmartin802_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pern is going through some growing pains 490 years After Landing. The common punishment for lawbreaking is Shunning of the lawbreaker and his or her family leaving roving bands of lawbreakers wandering Pern. In many cases, this means roving bands of children who have committed no crime but who are in danger of starvation. It is also a time when mining for the firestone that the dragons need when Thread falls is at a low point. Any contact with water means the firestone explodes. When the story begins there is only one working mine.There are quite a few viewpoint characters. All of them are quite young and are all about 10 to 12 when the story begins. Pellar is a mute orphan taken in by Harpers and trained to gather information. He is a gifted tracker and has great survival skills. Halla is a child of the Shunned is is busy caring for other young orphans. Cristov is a young miner whose father has been Shunned because he was stealing from the mine for his own profit. His father's thefts and corner-cutting caused the deaths of a number of miners. Cristov is determined to make up for his father's crimes. We also see Kindan again though his role in this story is relatively minor. This story, along with many of the rest co-authored by Todd McCaffrey, takes place around the time of the Third Pass. The characters know that Threadfall is coming but it is still a number of years away.The main villain of this story is Tenim who was also the child of Shunned parents and who is living up to their evil. He is a thief and murderer. His major plot in this story is to gain great wealth by cornering the market on firestone. He is willing to destroy mines and kill miners to further his plans. I enjoyed the way the various plot threads were woven together in this one. I liked that a better solution for the Shunned was finally found because it never seemed fair to me that children should be punished for crimes their parents committed. I liked that all the Weyrleaders were not the same though I do wonder how D'gan of Telgar managed to impress his dragon. D'gan makes a fine secondary villain in this story because of his mistreatment of the Shunned and his single-minded pursuit of firestone no matter what it cost in lives. This was another great entry into the long-running Pern series. In the internal chronology of the series this is probably book five. Published in 2006, it appears 38 years after the first published Pern book.

[dragonasbreath · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just started - Todd has started writing in Pern with his mother Anne, they go into the past to a time when Firestone is not safe - like dynamite, you move it wrong, it explodes.The Fall is coming, Pern prepares... and one of the things that most be considered are The Shunned - holdless people who have been expelled from their home hold for serious and petty offenses, as well as the children and descendants of the Shunned.Have only just started, so this is all I can say for the moment.

[nm6sprin086a6palmer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As another joint venture between Anne McCaffery and her son that brings more light to the world of Pern.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

(review two books in one - but they're really one book from two perspectives)Ok, that's it. I'm done reading new Pern books. My lord! These books - Fire more than Kin, but both - were very obviously written in chunks and then stuck together, and nobody did a readthrough afterward to check continuity or sense. And since I create a universe inside my head when I read, that sort of thing drives me MAD. For instance, in an early chapter in Fire, Pellar is up in arms about Kindan being Master Zist's apprentice because HE's Zist's apprentice, and Master Zist says well, I can have two but normally the elder is jumped to Journeyman. Thinks a bit, then says OK, I'm raising you to journeyman (even though you're young for it), barring a few classes back at Harper Hall. Ok. So Pellar is a journeyman now. Much later in the book, he's intercepted by a dragonrider, collected and brought back to the minehold - and also given a suit of Harper blue, the proper _apprentice_ clothes. The dragonrider is worried he's mad about missing the proper ceremonies, but he's perfectly happy - now he's a proper Harper Apprentice! What? Now wait a minute.... There are a lot of things like that. And the solution to the problem became obvious several chapters before anybody in the book figured it out...it's the wrong kind of firestone. Now I knew that because it hurt the dragons to flame (and storage chambers tended to blow up)...do you mean that dragons just accepted that suddenly firestone hurt, when it hadn't before? There wasn't any crisis at the end of the Second Fall, they didn't lose dragons in any numbers...Todd does like to present enormous complications and solve them in enormously complicated ways. Kin was the first book, and it's pretty good. Some continuity errors, but not many, and only a few things that don't fit what I know of Pern. Dragonsblood, the second book, was just stupid - a disease of dragons that required cross-timing it over thousands of years to solve? Firelizards _accidentally_ doing that back-time trip? Bleah bleah blah. Fire is less bad than Blood but much worse than Kin, and they're all much worse than any of the real Pern books - well, Kin might be as good as MasterHarper or Skies, but I hate those anyway. Dragonriders trilogy, Harper Hall trilogy, Moreta & Nerilka, Dragonsdawn & Chronicles, Dolphins are very good. Renegades is necessary to set up Dolphins. Dragonseye is OK but has a blatant continuity error that annoys me every time I read it (AIVAS did _not_ shut itself off before Second Fall because people were being dependent on it!). Weyrs is...um. Actually I can't remember the story of Weyrs.I like Pern, can you tell? And because I like it, I feel protective and possessive. I was in a Pern fanfic group for a while - there were a lot of stupid stories written and a few good ones, and I liked most of them much more than Todd's stuff. Sorry, I think Anne should let Pern die rather than drag it out in new and ugly directions.

[dianes_54 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not the best Pern book, but still quite enjoyable.

[pdxwoman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they were an obsessive Pern completer (like me!).Good idea for a Pern plot, interesting (if under developed) characters, and nice cross over with already existing books. Unfortunately, something seems to be missing. I can't tell if something was taken out, if passages were rearranged but not edited to fit together correctly, or if the book is simply written in a disjointed fashion, but the flow of people and places doesn't always match up. It's very distracting; I had to decide to ignore it and keep reading. The tale is also anti-climactic; the coming together of plot lines is very heavy handed, the solution to everyone's problems literally falls all over the main character, and then the book takes a sharp turn and someone suddenly gets made a Dragonrider *almost* out of the blue (except that you saw it's forced inevitability coming 200 pages ago). Reading, it felt as if the McCaffrey clan had too many ideas and too many characters, and didn't bother with deciding which ideas and characters would make the *best* book.

[zanla · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good addition to the Pern saga. The story could have used just a bit more development. I felt like the editor had removed something that would have added in some greater depth to the tale.