DragonFlight -- Final Thoughts (Part 2)

Walle:
I enjoyed the book a lot, because it was very interesting. Even though it used stuff like dragons, and mythological creatures that we know about, I think she gave it her own twist. It was pretty unique. I liked the entire idea of the threads. The way she used the little details.

Dande:
This time around reading it, I didn't like it as much, but I still liked it and I still like so many things about it. I have such a soft spot in my heart for Pern, the world, and all the stories there. I obviously enjoyed it and it's obvious—I obviously—

Newhope:
It's obvious.

[laughs]

Newhope:
You don't have to say anything.

Dande:
I would recommend this book, and obviously I have—[she cracks up]

Smiley:
No, no, don't be self-conscious.

Dande:
No, I'm freaking out about the obvious thing. Wvskier: said "obviously."

Newhope:
What? No, she didn't.

[laughs]

Wvskier:
You're trying to put the blame on me?

Newhope:
Obviously!

[laughs]

Dande:
Okay! I love the world, and it's one of my favorite series. I mean, I have a lot of favorites, but it's definitely up there, and I think that's it's just really good fantasy.

Wvskier:
Even though it's old.

Dande:
Even though it's old, yeah. Well, it's forty years old.

Newhope:
It's really, really old.

Walle:
Oh, wow, I didn't realize.

Dande:
So . . . are we done?

Wvskier:
The only thing I have to say is that as soon as you get through the first book it gets a lot better.

Jolly:
Well, I would hope so.

Dande:
Keep reading.

DragonFlight -- Final Thoughts (Part 1)

Dande:
So I think we should go around and have final thoughts.

Newhope:
In general, the book was okay. It had a shaky start, but it had great plot twists, in my opinion. I really liked where it went with the whole book, where it started out being with the one plot, and it switched completely, and it ended up being a book where I actually enjoyed it. I actually wanted to find out what happened at the end. It left it off to a sequel, and I know how many books there are that have been written for it, and I enjoyed the ending.

Jolly:
I read ten pages, and I was confused.

[laughs]

Jolly:
I have no idea what you guys have been saying this entire time.

Lasagna:
Me too.

Chair:
I didn't read any of it.

Smiley:
Well, I—I don't know. Like I said, I read it really fast, and I haven't read the end yet, so I don't know if it's going to be really good at the end, but I agree with Newhope: the beginning was really not inviting to read the entire novel, and the middle was kind of boring.

[laughs]

Smiley:
But maybe if I read the end, and maybe if I read it slower and at my own pace, I will like it. But I did like the plot, and I did like the whole between times thing, even though I didn't get the between thing until later on. It was a good book.

Wvskier:
I obviously love the series. I actually find her writing style very similar to J. R. R. Tolkien's. Basically it sort of draws out, not the boring stuff, but the stuff you wouldn't really read about, not the action.

Newhope:
Like J. R. R. Tolkien's description of the darkness of a cave that goes on for pages . . .

Wvskier:
It basically shows the minor things in the book, and I find that pretty interesting, because basically you don't normally read about every single little detail. And that's what I like about her, basically.

DragonFlight -- Bloopers: When You're Not in The Room

[Dande,blogmaster, recorder, and transcriber extraordinaire, is about to leave the room to find a wayward book clubber.]

Dande:
You know, the last time I left for a little bit too, and I got to hear your whole conversation when I was gone, when I was listening to the tape. Just so you know.

[laughs]

Dande:
You guys were good. You didn't say anything mean or anything.

Jolly:
That you know of . . .

Dande:
I have good friends! Okay, I'll leave now.

[she leaves]

Chair:
Dande's gone! Party!

[laughs]

Smiley:
She does realize we can turn it off and say things about her that she doesn't know . . .

Newhope:
Well, she realizes it now!

[laughs]

Newhope:
No, I don't want to touch it, because I don't want to accidentally erase anything.

Smiley:
Just kidding, Dande!

DragonFlight -- The Rest of the Series (Part 2)

Dande:
Overall, I liked it. I mean, there were problems with it, but there are so many books that have problems like that and it is so boring it is not worth it. But I think this book was worth it, especially since it is the start of such a great series.

Newhope:
I really like the whole time thing. I did not know that the plot would revolve around time travel like that.

Walle:
Sometimes it felt like the book is not really supposed to be a book. It's just a set up for books to follow.

Smiley:
Like a prologue-book.

Walle:
And then every time we would talk about something it's like, "It's explained in a later book! It's explained in a later book!"

Dande:
I just made this up in my head, but I could imagine that the author knew about this whole world, and this is just the introduction.

Smiley:
Maybe she wanted it to go slow. Compared to The Hunger Games, this went by really slow. Like Newhope said, in the middle it was really dull. Maybe that's just because she wanted it to be slow.

Dande:
I think that certain things about the book would have been lost if she—

Smiley:
Went faster?

Dande:
Yeah, you definitely did feel that it was a world.

DragonFlight -- The Rest of the Series (Part 1)

Dande:
I encourage anyone who liked this book to go read the rest of the series, because they just get better from here.

Wvskier:
Definitely. Dragonflight is not the greatest book in the series.

Dande:
Well, I didn't know which one to start with, except for the first one, you know?

Wvskier:
Dragonflight is just information. Basically, they are introducing you to the characters, they are introducing you to the plot.

Newhope:
Well every last paragraph basically sets it up for a sequel. It totally does.

Lasagna:
Are all of the other ones good?

Wvskier:
Oh, yeah. They're a lot better.

Dande:
They're really different. She doesn't get stuck in a series thing where she is writing the same books over and over again. She writes them in the same world, but they're really different books.

Wvskier:
Because there's also this Harper trilogy where it goes on mainly in the Harper Hall—it's corresponding with this timeline, but it's a completely different point of view.

Walle:
So are there other books that include these characters from their point of views? Or do they keep switching?

Wvskier:
They are actually minor characters in other books. It's pretty interesting.

Walle:
But does it still stick to Lessa's and F'lar's perspectives sometimes?

Dande:
I don't think so . . .

Wvskier:
Lessa and F'lar are important characters, but you're not following their plotline specifically anymore.

DragonFlight -- The Between, The End, & A Paradox

Newhope:
A massive plot hole to me was the between. They never explained the between.

Smiley:
Yeah, they never did.

Newhope:
I felt like they just made it up because they wanted something to guide the story along.

Wvskier:
The between is nothing. In one of the other books they go on with that.

* * *

Dande:
I thought that that was such a cool way to end it and tie it all together, that solution that they found. I thought that was unique. I didn't see it coming at all, that they'd go back and bring the Weyrs forward.

Newhope:
I did not know that the book would go back in time.

Smiley:
I did like that too, how she mentioned things in the beginning of the book and how it affected things later in the end. Like, the between time thing? I knew that was coming, I knew they would go to the south continent.

Newhope:
But the going back four hundred years thing is what you don't predict. I'm kinda wondering how that cycle started. If you think about it, it has to start somewhere. It makes sense that she goes back in time because they're not there, but it's a circle.

Dande:
It's a paradox.

Newhope:
It can't happen!

Dande:
It doesn't matter!

Newhope:
They should have been there, they should have had no need to go back. That's why I'm like, "Oh, wow, that hurts."

Wvskier:
Well, I think why they went back—yes, it is a paradox—but one of the main things, I guess the reason why they did that, is that over the four hundred years, since there are so many doubts, maybe all five Weyrs would have diminished. So bringing forward four Weyrs all trained in fighting the Thread would help with this current Pass.

DragonFlight -- Politics (Part 2) & Population Control

Walle:
They said that there are records that show the path of the red planet, so why couldn't they need to determine their breeding on that? Once the Thread has passed, let the dragons decline a bit, but not let them die out? And then once the Threads start coming back, or when there's imminent danger, they could always start breeding.

Wvskier:
Well, during a Threadfall, dragons do start breeding more, and after a Threadfall they don't lay as many eggs, so that is one of the factors.

Newhope:
Speed up right before it.

Dande:
But they didn't do that this time, because the Queen was so bad.

Wvskier:
I think the reason why people were so resentful was there was only one Weyr left and they were so pitiful at that point. There were hardly any supplies going to the Weyr because the four other Weyrs came to the future. I think that is the turning point. Yes, they are that strong. They have more than one Queen; they have multiple Queens now. They can basically hold their own planet as long as they get the supplies and stuff.

Dande:
Yeah, the little Weyr wasn't as impressive anymore, it didn't inspire any awe anymore. So people didn't care. But definitely you see in other books, books that go to the past where the dragons are in their prime, and you see how the dragonriders are like, "Ahhh! Dragonriders!" In earlier times, that was the way it was.

Wvskier:
In earlier times people always wanted to be dragonriders, it was their dream. Now that they're back, it's probably going to start happing again. "They're the saviors of our world!"

DragonFlight -- Politics (Part 1)

Dande:
Something I really liked, and I just want to know if anybody is thinking about this too, is the way she described the political systems of Pern, how they interact and stuff. It really made sense to me. If for four hundred years, people had to support these dragons who did nothing, I could really understand how they could end up not caring about them anymore. They used to care about them so much they would die for them and they had these rules to help them, but over time they could grow to resent them. It really made sense to me, and I loved that, because it's such an interesting idea, because you never see anything like that in real life. It was totally unique, out of her head, but it makes sense.

Wvskier:
I think that's also really cool because they actually lasted four hundred years with these people believing they are something, even though two hundred years have already gone by, no Thread has fallen. There's this huge break, Long Interval I think it's called? But what's really cool about this Thread is that in the first book, it's like a cliffhanger, what is going to happen now? And it's just interesting how the plot progresses and how Thread is always in the background, but more important things always seem to come up.

* * *

Walle:
You mentioned about the politcal system? There was a part of that that I didn't get. Technically, the job of the dragonriders was to protect the land from Thread, but the Thread came every two hundred years, so in the middle, the Weyrpeople demanded food from the Holds to sustain themselves, yet they did nothing? I don't get it.

Dande:
I think they were more happy to do that when it was just two hundred years and they remembered how bad the Thread was. The dragons had to be kept alive, and the generations had to be kept going, between that, and they kept having to have that many dragons or else when the Thread would come they wouldn't have enough dragons. So they probably didn't have to give every scrap and morsel they could to the Weyr, because the Weyr didn't need to be at such high capacity and deal with injuries and all that stuff, but they needed to keep feeding the dragons, and keep people living in the Weyr, and keep the knowledge and the skills up or else they would be lost for the next time. So they had to give the food, even though they'd never see anything good out of it, but so their great-grandchildren could live through the Pass.

DragonFlight -- Colors & Eggs

Dande:
So anything else people wanted to talk about with the book?

Walle:
I wanted to talk about the entire dragon heirarchy, where green is the lowest, and then blue, and then brown, then bronze, and then gold. So there were no gold males, or something?

Dande:
No, golds were just queens.

Wvskier:
Golds are always female, bronzes are always male, blues and browns are always male, and greens are female. Though greens don't normally mate, and they can't if they breathe firestone.

Lasagna:
So they're color-coded?

Newhope:
Color-coded for your convenience, yes.

* * *

Walle:
So it takes two years for a queen dragon to mature?

Dande:
I think she was growing even faster than usual because she's so awesome.

Walle:
But then why did they send them back ten years—or Turns—if it only takes two years?

Dande:
I think that they weren't supposed to be there the whole ten years. I think they were supposed to be there for a couple years, and then come back.

Newhope:
No, no no no. It wasn't that they just wanted her to mature. They wanted to keep pumping out the eggs.

Dande:
Pumping?

[laughs]

Dande:
Yeah, okay.

Newhope:
They needed to be fully mature enough to fly, the hatchlings.

DragonFlight -- Thread & Title

Dande:
When you read about the world in the rest of the series, it definitely seems like a good place. You get to care about Pern as a world.

Wvskier:
You understand more. You understand why they're there, how they deal with their problems, and how other people, the antagonists, try to stop them, but the protagonists always pull through.

Dande:
Mm-hmm. And I like the idea—the Threads were really so dangerous. If one little Thread got in the ground it would destroy a whole area. And so everything was so important, they really had to work together so well. During that fifty years when it was a Pass, every single day, every single time they went out, was so important.

Wvskier:
Yeah, but it's just a daily job, just like a firefighter or something. They go out to fire's all the time, and it is really dangerous.

* * *

Newhope:
What do you think about the title? DragonFlight? Why do you think she chose it?

Dande:
I don't know. Because there are dragons?

Lasagna:
And they're flying?

Newhope:
It's a pretty bad title.

Walle:
I think the idea of flying between was so important, it comes to do with the main plot of what happens and allows them to save their land, so that's why I think she chose the flight part of DragonFlight.

DragonFlight -- Lessa and F’lar & Power

Dande:
When you're talking about Lessa and F'lar—I remember when I first read it, I was totally into it and everything. But when I was rereading it, I just didn't get their relationship at all.

Smiley:
Yeah, it was somewhat weird. There was this part in the middle of the novel when they were having dinner together or whatever, and—I kind of didn't get it, in the beginning. Are they together, or are they not? Do they like each other?

Walle:
It felt like they were forced together because of their dragons.

Dande:
It's amazing, because I remembered it making so much sense— laughs

Dande:
—but as I was reading it, it was like, what in the world is going on here? The characters, I got them as individual characters, but how they related to each other followed no logic whatsoever. No development at all.

Wvskier:
Their relationship is sort of tough in the beginning, because they both obviously have a station of power, and they both want to control each other. That's sort of how they come together, because they understand that with each other they can become more powerful than when they're separate.

Dande:
I mean, she's riding the golden dragon, the most important dragon in the Weyr, but the person that her dragon mates with is the leader of the Weyr? How does that make any sense? It was written in 1968, so I guess feminism wasn't important then? Maybe that was part of it. There were just a lot of things that seemed strange to me.

Walle:
I didn't understand whether Weyrwoman or Weyrleader was the higher post.

Dande:
Exactly!

Wvskier:
Weyrleader is the highest. It's sort of like, not dictator—

[laughs]

Wvskier:
—but he basically is the president.

Newhope:
It's a monarchy.

Dande:
Well, if you put it in that way, it makes more sense to me. I guess I can't really compare it to this world and what makes sense here.

DragonFlight -- Middle Muddle (Part 2)

Newhope:
I actually have some questions about the lapses in the storyline, where the action stopped and it felt like nothing would happen. It was after Fax died, and that little track right there, with the impression. After that, it kinda fell flat, there was nothing really to do.

Walle:
I think they skipped two years.

Newhope:
It was just a description of daily life, and I was like, "What am I reading?" After that, it started to pick up with the Threads, but it didn't really start until the battle of Nerat. It was flat for the entire middle of the book. I was kinda depressed.

Dande:
When I was first reading the book, I think you're right that there was no real conflict in that little bit, but I was so interested in the world and the life of this character that I just kept going through it. I wanted to find out what happened next.

Newhope:
The one conflict that you could argue would be the Hold army coming up, but that was resolved in seconds, literally. It was almost thrown in there just to have something to keep your attention. I thought that that was kind of shady story writing.

DragonFlight -- Middle Muddle (Part 1)

Walle:
I think also that who the antagonist was was sort of unclear in the middle of the book.

Newhope:
Yeah, because in the beginning it was Fax, so I thought, "Oh, he's probably the antagonist. Oh, he's dead!"

Walle:
Yeah!

[laughs]

Walle:
And then the Threads. So I was kind of confused about who the antagonist was. Who are they fighting against?

Newhope:
The entire intro of the book with Fax seemed like it could be left out.

Wvskier:
Well the point of an antagonist in this book, it's really different than most books we've probably read, because the point of antagonist always changes. First Fax, then the Lords of the Holds who don't believe in Thread, then it's not really anything after that because Thread is falling and it's just a point of emergency.

Dande:
I know we're probably going to learn this year in English about this stuff, but I think it ends up being Man vs. Nature as a theme. And not all the books are about that. This trilogy is mostly about fighting the Thread, but other books have people as the antagonists, or even disease. But even in that one, I think there were people that were the problem too. Her writing style changed, and is more what we think of as normal in the later books.

DragonFlight -- Firestone & Games

Dande:
But what things did people like about the book?

Smiley:
I liked the plot. The storyline was definitely good. I know dragons are very repetitive in fantasy, but I thought the storyline was somewhat unique.

Dande:
Yeah, and she definitely was pioneering a lot of those dragon things that we think of as so cliché now, but she was the first.

Walle:
I liked the fact that her dragons weren't usual mythological dragons. Like, with the entire eye thing, she tried to go for something different, so I liked that a lot.

Dande:
I remember when first read it being so interested by the fact that they couldn't just breathe fire, they had to eat rock and belch out fire.

Newhope:
I'm wondering how they learned that.

Dande:
Well, it's explained in later books.

Newhope:
That's what I would expect.

Wvskier:
It was genetically engineered.

* * *

Dande:
I did like the fact that she explained—there are little things in the book that explain questions I hadn't even asked yet. Like the thing about how they do the games. They never really even focus on it or talk about it, but then you get it. "Oh, they must do those game things every year to keep the dragons in shape between two Passes!"

Newhope:
Practice.

Dande:
Yeah, keep them practicing, keep them still able to fly and do maneuvers and stuff. They must have invented that just to keep them doing stuff. And then people got into it, I guess, and made it important.

Walle:
It said that some dragon died because of firestone. Does that mean that they feed them firestone in the games?

Newhope:
Yes.

Walle:
But isn't that dangerous?

Newhope:
Yes.

[laughs]

Wvskier:
It is, but it keeps them trained, even though they don't understand it at this point.

Newhope:
During a Thread attack shouldn't be the first time they try it out.

Walle:
But breathing flame at each other?

Wvskier:
That was an accident.

Walle:
Oh, okay. I was scared. I was like, "Do they want to kill each other?"

DragonFlight -- Thrown In & Style (Part 2) & Threadfall

Walle:
It said that the Thread eats or whatever, burns up, any organic thing it finds, so if there was a Threadfall in the beginning, how did anything survive at all?

Newhope:

That's what I want to know. How did this whole thing start?

Wvskier:
When humans came, they were in the middle of an Interval.

Dande:

The reason there was an ecosystem at all was because they thought it was a planet that was mostly barren, but had a few good spots. They didn't realize that there was Thread.

Walle:
But if it kills everything that's organic then the humans should have died out too.

Wvskier:

Well, they almost did. They managed to find shelter under stone. That's what the holds are made of, they're made of stone in cliff faces in the north. Thread does not go through stone.

Lasagna:
Oh, that's what they were talking about in the beginning of the book! I get it now. She's like, "They don't even make their things out of stone anymore." I'm like, "So? Why does that matter?"

Walle:

Yeah, in the beginning they spent so much time focusing on how there was so much greenery growing everywhere, and I wasn't sure what that meant because it seemed so random to notice weeds.

Dande:
I kind of like that. I didn't like that because it was confusing, but at the end of the book, once you understand it, it makes sense. She just threw you into the world, and she didn't try to talk down to you. So it's confusing but once you get it, everything falls into place, and all their little pieces of conversation have a place. 

Lasagna:

But I just don't think it's good for a book to just start out throwing you into it, all these weird names, stuff you don't get.

Wvskier:
That's what's unique about her style.