Dragonfire: McCaffrey's Pern

Crossroads Adventure #12

by Jody Lynn Nye

Paperback, pages tanned, some edge wear to cover

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dragons, Fiction, Gamebooks, Games

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1988

About the author

Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as ‘spoiling cats.’ When not engaged upon this worthy occupation, she writes fantasy and science fiction books and short stories.

Before breaking away from gainful employment to write full time, Jody worked as a file clerk, book-keeper at a small publishing house, freelance journalist and photographer, accounting assistant and costume maker.

For four years, she was on the technical operations staff of a local Chicago television station, WFBN (WGBO), serving the last year as Technical Operations Manager. During her time at WFBN, she was part of the engineering team that built the station, acted as Technical Director during live sports broadcasts, and worked to produce in-house spots and public service announcements.

Over the last twenty-five or so years, Jody has taught in numerous writing workshops and participated on hundreds of panels covering the subjects of writing and being published at science-fiction conventions. She has also spoken in schools and libraries around the north and northwest suburbs. In 2007 she taught fantasy writing at Columbia College Chicago. She also runs the two-day writers workshop at DragonCon, and is a judge for the Writers of the Future contest, the largest speculative fiction contest in the world.

Jody lives in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, with her husband Bill Fawcett, a writer, game designer, military historian and book packager, and three feline overlords, Athena, Minx, and Marmalade.

Reviews

[Cary Spratt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this 'crossroads adventure' considerably more than "Dragonharper", although I would still probably recommend it only for the serious/collector McCaffrey fan.

This one is set sometime during "Renegades of Pern", and centers on the adventures (or misadventures, depending on the roll of the dice) of Mirrim and her green dragon, Path. It makes very good use of the established characters, and even references the events of the short story "The Smallest Dragonboy". I worried that the Thread-fighting sequences might be boring/repetitive (each Fall involves several 'encounters' and there are 2 Falls), but I ended up coming away from it with a better understanding of how dragonriders prepare for and fight a Threadfall, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Some of the transitions between sections could have been a little smoother and there were a fair number of typos, but on the whole I'm happy to have added this to my collection.

[Scot Eaton · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was really nice to have Mirrim as a main character, and I feel that Jody Lynn Nye sometimes understood her better than Anne McCaffery did. Mirrim is abrasive, but she's not mean. Unfortunately, the story itself is meandering and not all that interesting. Like Dragonharper, it also suffers from the weird mismatch of dice rolling and choose your own adventure that seems to be the backbone of the Crossroads series. This system drags the entire book down, and ruins what could be a fun side-story in the Pern universe.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

As if I didn't have a radar for anything labelled "Pern" throughout middle- and high school. This book delighted me; I've always been fond of Mirrim and enjoyed seeing her as the main character rather than as Menolly's-best-friend or sharp-tongued-background-character. Also an excellent callback to the short story "The Smallest Dragonboy", showing thorough knowledge of Pernese canon.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dragonfire
Nye, Jody Lynn

a quick related story that you can choose your own adventure