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The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall (Pern (Publication Order) #12)
Travel back to the earliest days of Pernese history in this first-ever Dragonriders of Pern short-story collection!
Join the original survey team as they explore Pern and decide to recommend it for colonization.
Share the terror of the evacuation from the Southern Continent as a flotilla of ships, aided by intelligent, talking dolphins, braves the dreadful currents of the Pe...more
Join the original survey team as they explore Pern and decide to recommend it for colonization.
Share the terror of the evacuation from the Southern Continent as a flotilla of ships, aided by intelligent, talking dolphins, braves the dreadful currents of the Pe...more
Mass Market Paperback, 305 pages
Published
October 1994
by Del Rey/Ballantine Books
(first published October 1993)
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Unlike many other creators of alternate worlds, Anne McCaffery continues to mine fresh ore from the soil of her imagined reality. Her storytelling is good, too.
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From Publishers Weekly
...more
A quarter century after Dragonflight , the novel that introduced the vastly popular dragon planet of Pern, McCaffrey details the difficult yet exhilarating early years of the Pernese settlers in five highly readable tales. Trouble starts early when the original landing site is threatened by volcanic action, forcing the human settlers to ring "The Dolphin's Bell" in a plea for help from the intelligent sea mammals who migrated with them from Earth. Then there is the First
It was when I read this collection of stories right on the heels of re-reading Dragonsdawn that I started to understand how much Anne McCaffrey loves logistics.
Seriously. She loves to give her characters a huge urgent practical problem, and then set the most practical among them to solving it. Whether it's dramatic or not. She wants to tell you all about how they dug the caves with rock-cutters to make Holds and Weyrs and they had to make the cutters last as long as they could, how they made hyp...more
Seriously. She loves to give her characters a huge urgent practical problem, and then set the most practical among them to solving it. Whether it's dramatic or not. She wants to tell you all about how they dug the caves with rock-cutters to make Holds and Weyrs and they had to make the cutters last as long as they could, how they made hyp...more
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As this is another book of short stories, I will do a review of each story.
1. THE SURVEY: P.E.R.N. (2 stars)
This is the story of the survey team that first evaluated the planet
now known as Pern for human colonization. It explains how such a
major threat (thread) was missed. Not bad. Not good either.
2. THE DOLPHIN'S BELL (1 star)
This was over 40 pages of an incredibly slow moving and boring story. It chronicles the sea voyage to move people and supplies from the southern continent to the nor...more
1. THE SURVEY: P.E.R.N. (2 stars)
This is the story of the survey team that first evaluated the planet
now known as Pern for human colonization. It explains how such a
major threat (thread) was missed. Not bad. Not good either.
2. THE DOLPHIN'S BELL (1 star)
This was over 40 pages of an incredibly slow moving and boring story. It chronicles the sea voyage to move people and supplies from the southern continent to the nor...more
I read most of the Dragon books as they were being written in the late 60', and early 70's and I remember it as being very frustrating having to wait an entire year for the next one though incredibly exciting when they were published. If I remember correctly the Merlin series (Mary Stewart) was being written about the same time and equally as frustrating waiting for them too, though worth the wait. Then my life changed and I missed about a decade of everyone's books. Thankfully, I can now go bac...more
I really enjoy the Dragonriders of Pern books. Some of the later books get into some homosexual references, which I don't enjoy reading about. It is a side element and not a main plot line. But because of this I would caution the young reader from getting into this series, until they can clearly think through this issue.
Pretty fairly decent collection of longish short stories. Wha? I mean that there's only 4 stories, so a couple of them are more like novellas. Main criticism is that if you haven't already read a ton of the books in the series, you'll be pretty lost here. (Minor criticism is a boring love story that hijacks an otherwise interesting story about fleeing a massive volcanic eruption.) The stories do technically stand on their own, but if you don't realize what kind of context they're supposed to fit...more
One of McCaffrey's later Pern additions, this is a set of short stories based around the founding of the planet Pern. Most of these are decent additions to the novel Dragonsdawn, in which she shows long-time fans the early days on Pern before the dragons came to be. "Second Weyr", the foundation story of Benden Weyr, is probably the best thing in here. The dolphin story bored me to tears, I'm afraid, and "The Ford of Red Hanrahan" was only a little bit better in that it was also a foundation sto...more
• This was sort of a support book for the first book in the timeline, Dragonsdawn. It was interesting to see how the people of Pern grew with their planet. Each story seems like setup for things that happen later. Overall, it was a very quick read, but definitely worth it. As the series continues, however, I do hope that the books get more in depth. These books were hailed as early science-fiction masterpieces. While both of the books in the series I’ve read thus far have been thoroughly enterta...more
I may be rethinking my strategy of reading the books in Pern chronological order. This was a series of short stories set on Pern during the initial discovery and colonization. I feel like it might have been better if I was more well-versed in the Pern universe. I couldn't tell if lack of explanation for some of the technology was just the author assuming the reader should know from reading other books or just technology being indistinguishable from fairy tale magic for the sake of expedient sto...more
I remember loving the Anne McCaffrey's Pern books when I was in my early teen-age years. It's great escapist fiction that's simply fun to read. Perhaps I'm just going through a phase, but I'm loving juvenile fiction again! There's nothing particularly deep in a Pern book--the characters, while well-drawn, tend to be either good or bad, and good things always seem to happen to the good people while bad things happen to the bad ones. Sometimes that sort of wish-fulfillment is just what satisfies....more
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This is a collection of short stories about the early days of Pern and its colonization. I only liked one of the stories. The one about how they established more weyrs. The rest were boring, more detailed than they needed to be, and anti-climactic. Do I really care about every single little process that these settlers do, from exactly what they eat at every meal to how they built their homes down to every last detail? No. I want story. Not something that reads like a history textbook. Disappoint...more
I got a hankering to read/listen to the Pern books in order. I've never read them all. However, this one is an audio and the narrator is ruining the book! She is dreadfully boring. I didn't realize it was a collection of short-stories so I think I'll give it up and move on to "Dragonsdawn". Not sure how to rate this one.
I'm sure the book is perfectly fine, but the audio version is terrible.
I'm sure the book is perfectly fine, but the audio version is terrible.
Jun 22, 2009
Hannah
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
science-fiction
Amazingly fun; loved the stories about early Pern! Particularly exciting to read about the beginning and growth of the different weyrs that we already know and love, and the combination of technology with the new way of life that the early settlers strugged with. The story covering the beginning of Benden weyr and the first leaders was probably the highlight of the collection.
I love and reread regularly the story of the founding of the second weyr, and the founding of Red Hanrahan's hold. The other three short stories are interesting enough the first time, but I've never felt compelled to read them again, since. Not that I didn't enjoy them, because I did, absolutely -- just they weren't the characters I loved the most.
The first and last story were just okay, and interesting insomuch as they fill in some history (the exploration team who first visited Pern, whatever happened with the emergency beacon that got sent out in Dragonsdawn). The other two stories were pretty boring and lifeless. Overall, I recommend skipping this one.
I enjoyed the early stories as it gave a feal of where the current stories characters get their strengths from. Also leaves a few openings for new stories, so that is exciting. Got me eager to read more on the beginning of the world & its fledging dragons. I was told to read Dragon's Dawn for that, so off to find it.
Anne McCaffrey is probably my all time favorite author. I've read almost all of her PERN series. This book gives you the back story of how things started on PERN or rather how it was colonized. And it's done in the classic Anne way. Anyone who has read any of the PERN books should read this one. Love it.
Great adventure within a very interesting reality of a planet with dragons--of many sizes. Watch out for the sensuality in some of these books. However, they're still worth reading--well written fantasy adventure with positive characters and decisions, with the ultimate triumph of the noble and good.
This is a great collection of short stories that fills in some blanks in the Pern saga. The details of the finding and founding of the original colony meld seamlessly with stories that occur chronologically later. A must read for any Dragonriders of Pern fan.
I liked this better than most Pern books. I think McCaffrey is in her best form when she writes short stories.
As an aside, a previous reviewer mentioned warnings for younger readers because the book has homosexual references. I think there was one sentence that off-handedly mentioned that blue (or green?) male riders had a preference for partners of a same-sex orientation. It was definitely not any more specific than that. I think the public receives more exposure to gay relationships in the ave...more
As an aside, a previous reviewer mentioned warnings for younger readers because the book has homosexual references. I think there was one sentence that off-handedly mentioned that blue (or green?) male riders had a preference for partners of a same-sex orientation. It was definitely not any more specific than that. I think the public receives more exposure to gay relationships in the ave...more
This would be 4 stars except for all the weird couplings that went on. Every story had a romantic tilt on it, which normally I like from Anne McCaffrey, but when you only have 75 pages from beginning to end, something is really lost in the romance there.
I particularly liked the final story, although it was sad that the truth was never known. I liked the way that some gaps were filled in, and things like the naming of Ruatha hold were so clever - that must have been thought up when she wrote the first book.
The McCaffreys have got to be my favorite science fiction authors ever. I got hooked on Pern during high school when I read the Harper Hall Trilogy, and then I went on to explore the rest of the world with Anne and Todd in the book adventures of a lifetime. I highly recommend any of the Dragonriders of Pern book series for any science fiction lover.
I enjoyed this book of short stories about the beginning of PERN. P.E.R.N means Parallel Earth, resources negligible. I have been piecing together much of the history of Pern from clues in the first four Dragonrider books. This is quite a saga.
I could see many of my Odyssey of the Mind students and some of my Science Olympiad students absolutely loving the challenges of Pern. At first you think, no way but then as you read the Chronicles of Pern, you begin to see how it would be possible for th...more
I could see many of my Odyssey of the Mind students and some of my Science Olympiad students absolutely loving the challenges of Pern. At first you think, no way but then as you read the Chronicles of Pern, you begin to see how it would be possible for th...more
The second book in the Pern series, it's a collection of short stories that fill in some of the gaps and varying view points in the first book. The book covers the discovery of Pern, the evacuation of Landing and transport to the northern continent, the first stake holders making claims in the northern continent among others. Like the first one, a little dry but it gives all the details of life on Pern and how the traditions of the later descendents of the colonists will evolve.
Some of these are better than others. I really like The Dolphin's Bell and The Second Weyr. The Ford of Red Hanrahan made me a little teary at the end. The Survey and Rescue Run are kind of meh.
Dec 08, 2011
Erinn
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
science-fiction
It's funny, but I had forgotten which stories were in this book. When I picked it up it was because I couldn't find my copy of "The Girl Who Heard Dragons." When I started reading, I realized that the two stories I wanted to read were in this book. This was the perfect read following "Dragonsdawn."
c1993. Courtesy of amazon "Five episodes in the history of Pern, from the very first space survey recommending colonization, to the last, where the early world, its young dragon culture undetected, is condemned to be isolated in space. Anne McCaffrey has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards."
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Anne McCaffrey was born on April 1st, 1926, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 1:30 p.m., in the hour of the Sheep, year of the Fire Tiger, sun sign Aries with Taurus rising and Leo mid-heaven (which seems to suggest an early interest in the stars).
Her parents were George Herbert McCaffrey, BA, MA PhD (Harvard), Colonel USA Army (retired), and Anne Dorothy McElroy McCaffrey, estate agent. She had two...more
More about Anne McCaffrey...
Her parents were George Herbert McCaffrey, BA, MA PhD (Harvard), Colonel USA Army (retired), and Anne Dorothy McElroy McCaffrey, estate agent. She had two...more
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