Dragon Harper
Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey
Del Rey. Dec 2007, $5.95, 320 pp.
ISBN 9780345480309
Although apprentice Harper Kindan is disappointed not to impress one of the eggs containing baby dragons on the hatching grounds of High Reaches Weyr, he knows there will be other chances. He returns to Harper Hall and finds himself protecting the Harper young women from the senior apprentice Vaxoram. After getting some special training, Kindan and Vaxoram duel with the former winning. According to the terms of the duel Vaxoram is Kindan’s servant and under his guidance. Vaxoram becomes a better person, genuinely glad when his friend impresses a fire lizard and worried what will happen when it is discovered that Kindan is in love with a Lord Holder’s daughter
These worries are swept aside when a new danger threatens Pern. A super flu starts spreading from hold to hold and nobody knows how to cure it. The records show a plague like this hit once before and it took twenty turns to recover from the aftereffects. With thread coming in twelve turns, the weyrs have to quarantine themselves so they will have enough people and dragons to fight thread. It is up to the Holds and the information gathering of the Harpers to find a way to have the plague burn itself out before the population will not be able to produce goods and grow crops because there won’t be enough people to do it. Kindan plays a big role in trying to stop the spread of the disease and caring for its victims.
Readers who have read any of the Pern books will find DRAGON HARPER just as exciting and enthralling as all the other books in the long running saga. . The collaboration between Anne McCaffrey and her son Todd McCaffrey creates the same voice as if mom wrote this alone. There is plenty of action in DRAGON HARPER but the heart of the books lies in the characters who come together during the crisis.
Harriet Klausner
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