If you're looking to read all the classic "Dragonriders of Pern" stories, then I'd suggest reading up to this point, and no further. Some authors wouldn't be able to do such a complete shift in their writing, from a fantasy-medieval-type setting into a futuristic technological utopia, but McCaffrey manages to pull it off. You have all the characters you've grown familiar with from the previous seven books, and you get to see them adapt to all the changes that are coming into this world.

Are there problems? Sure. Things do seem to move a tad quickly, and you would expect that a society with no electronics of any kind would have JUST a bit more trouble handling technologies like space travel and gene-tinkering. Plus, I suspect that the scene with all the dragons of Pern moving a ship through space was written for the express purpose of...having a scene with all the dragons of Pern moving a ship through space. However, it's a FANTASTIC image, and the whole book is good fun.

I'm not sure why the quality drops off so fast after "All the Weyrs of Pern", but I'm happy with leaving this a my final image of one of my favorite series.