Thursday, 30 June 2011

FANTASY REVIEW: Dragon's Time - Anne and Todd McCaffrey

Release Date: 23/06/11

SYNOPSIS:

Although Lorana cured the dragons' sickness so many died from the disease that there are no longer enough dragons to fight the deadly Thread, and more dragons and their riders die each Threadfall. With their numbers dwindling, Lorana made the decision to fly forward in time in a desperate bid to bring dragons from the future to fight Thread. She knew that jumping so far in time would result in her losing her baby, but without her jump all life on Pern is doomed. Back at Telgar Weyr Fiona, Kindan and T'mar realise what Lorana has done. They are desperately sad, but two things give them hope. The first is that Fiona is expecting twins, and the second the fact that all the dragonriders are exhausted, a sign that they are Timing it - existing elsewhere in space and time - which gives them hope that Lorana has found a way through time to help them. Sure enough, led by messages left for them by Lorana, they fly through space to the Dawn Sisters, the ships hanging in space that brought their ancestors to Pern. From there they look down at the beautiful planet and see a previously undiscovered continent - this is where they are Timing it and where they are reunited with Lorana. Now they can increase the number and strength of the dragons before going back to their own time to fight Thread. Although Lorana found she couldn't break time, she has found a way to cheat it.


REVIEW:

Whilst this series is relatively new, to be honest I’m not the biggest fan of the McCaffrey’s style of storytelling, yes its an inventive land, yes it has all the right elements to keep fantasy readers happy on paper, but for me it’s still sticking within the original remit of the stories that were originally started back in the 60’s. Yes you get a sense of comfort from going back to basics buts that just it.

For me fantasy writing has moved on and rather than the plain a-b journey the reader likes something a little more complex these days, they love politics to confuse the issues, they love threats of life and limb and writers who play for keeps and whilst there will always be a place in many people’s hearts for the older tales, they need something to help keep them fresh for the readers memories, something that allows the reader to form new stronger bonds to the worlds in which they visit and to be honest that’s just not present in this series for me. Which sadly left me feeling slightly cheated which, all in, was a great shame as I really had hoped for something spectacular.

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