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Dragonflight
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DF: What's your first memory of this book?
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The Pern books were the ones that taught me to love reading as a kid. My friend Jessica had the first few and we laid in her bed all one summer reading them on after another. It's actually a really strong memory for me. My first memory from the actual books is racing the 'rain' and raw feet. (I tried to make that obvious to people who had read it, but not enough to spoil for people who didn't. Hope that worked out.)
It was raining.I was seven years old. My mom had just dropped me off at the public library while she went to a class. It was how I spent most of my afternoons after school, growing up in a little town in northern California.
The rain was really coming down, and as a result the library was practically empty. Normally, I would do my homework, but that was the day I'd learned that I could ask for the homework early and just get it done in class. Was I precocious? Probably.
I would have gone hunting for bison on the Oregon Trail, but one can only die of dysentery so often. And so I found myself wandering the dimly lit rows of the library, peering at strange and fantastic covers, looking for the kinds of things that seven-year-old boys are wont to look for. Dragons were, of course, high on that list, so when I found a book about people riding dragons, well, you can imagine that I put aside all thoughts of keeping my oxen alive. I settled down, the rain pounding on the windows high up on the walls, and took my first steps into the world of Pern.
My family read together long after we could each read on our own. Mom read me the Harper Hall trilogy when I was 9 or so. My uncle parted with his original 60s-era paperbacks of Dragonflight and Dragonquest soon after, much to my delight. I was obsessed throughout my pre-teens and teens; in 6th grade art class I spent a good chunk of one semester making a clay dragon and dragonrider that still live in a box in the attic. In my high school Speculative Fiction class I wrote on how the just-published DragonsDawn shifted the series from Fantasy to SF. I was listening to the podcast in the car with my partner, and found myself shouting "Mycorrhizoid!" Anne McCaffrey is substantially responsible for my introduction to the world of adult SFF, and I'll always be grateful for that.
My first memory of Pern is:"Menolly bowed her head and let drum and stick slide from her fingers into the sea."
I always misremember this as the first line of the book.
I don't have vivid memories of Dragonflight; all I'm sure of is that I read it a couple of times before I bought the White Dragon as my first hardcover purchase and how expensive $7 was for me at the time.
I remember finding it in the YA section at my library, sitting on the floor to read and not getting up until about an hour later when I heard my name on the speaker...my dad couldn't find me. I checked it out.
I'm about 9, curled up in the crook of the big tree in the back yard, sheltered from the summer rain by the leaves, reading about Lessa crawling into the watch-wher's den to hide. I still get goosebumps thinking about that. When later in the book the watch-wher died because it thought she needed protection, I cried. My first Pern novel was actually White Dragon, which I had picked up earlier that same year for a quarter at the library book sale. I enjoyed it so very, very much. Discovering that there were MORE stories in that same world absolutely made my summer vacation. And even better? My mother (who made a valiant, if somewhat vain, effort to keep abreast of everything I was reading) enjoyed them just as much, and kept asking when I'd be checking out the next one from the library. We ended up read through them all, together! and then the Ship Who books... and then the Planet Pirates... and then the Pegasus books...
Anne McCaffrey was not only my main introduction to non-kid-lit, but was also the source of many shared family reads and memories. There are not that many authors who can appeal to an entire family's diverse reading preferences like she did.
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My dad insisted I read this series, but I instantly disliked it because of the cover that he had for Dragonflight, which I thought was ugly. I read the first chapter in loathing, because I didn't want to like it, and that's how it ended up under my bed neglected for a whole year. Poor sad book.Luckily I must have run out of other books to read, because I unearthed it, and fell in love :)
I read the Harper Hall trilogy 5, maybe 7 years ago, so no memories of this book, since I thought Pern was only that one trilogy alone... Silly child!
I had just changed schools, to do my final two years with complete strangers. One of the only girls who was initially friendly mentioned an interest in the Pern books. I read them and loved them. She and I were friends for the two years I was there, and stayed in touch afterward. It's been 25 years, and I still love McCaffrey's work - except I tend to prefer her Talent stuff.
I used to go straight to the young adult fantasy section in the library. My mom and I would take almost weekly trips there.I'm guessing the cover/title drew me to it, but I vividly remember sitting out on the deck, by myself in a hot Virginia summer evening reading it and blushing/feeling adventurous by the sex scenes. I had never read anything with sex in it before so I remember getting worried that my parents would notice and take it away (not that I really think they would have, looking back on it.)
I also remember reading these books from worn versions from the library. Years later I remembered no plot other than the thread and dragons, but I do remember being completely drawn in by the close relationships of the humans and dragons.
I read the Pern books (well, a lot of them, proably not all) in middle school, once I had finished the published books in the Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey. A friend of my sister recommended both series to her (and, indirectly, to me, we read the same books back then).
I read this series of book in the summer holidays when I was just finishing secondary school i must have been about 15, I borrowed them off of my brother, forgot to give them back though.
This was my first fantasy series, my mom gave it to me when I was 11 years old, and I ran with it. I love Lessa, and her determination. I love the series And DragonFlight is my second Favorite in the series after the DragonsDawn the prequel book which tells you how they came to the planet of Pern in the first place.
I got this in middle school as a christmas gift that I was able to pick out in a now defunct department store in New York. Got is as a boxed set. One of my earliest sf+f trilogies and really got me started on my SF reading adventures. I remember really being captivated by the imagination of the story then, though having just reread it I can see it's flaws. The kernel of imagination is still there though. White Dragon remains my favorite bok of the trilogy though.
My first introduction to Pern was the story "Weyr Search" in Analog magazine when I was a teen, lo these many years ago.
My introduction to Pern was the Harper Hall trilogy when I was 12. My mom knew I'd love it so she forced me to read Dragonsong. She laid down on the bed next to me and read the first chapter out loud to me until I was interested enough to continue myself. It was all downhill from there and I read every Pern book I could get my hands on.
Dragonflight and Dragonquest were two of the first books I can remember that were actually mine. They both came from a library sale and still had the Austin (Minnesota) Public Library stickers on them. I'm sure they came to me (or I picked them out, whatever the case was) because of the Whelan covers. I don't remember how old I was, exactly, when I read them, but I assume fairly young because all of the "adult" content must've just gleeped right past me.
I remember seeing The White Dragon on a display of paperbacks when my family and I were on the road during a vacation. The cover instantly hooked me, and I recall grabbing it up. I read it while camping in the woods, and came home determined to find the rest of the series listed in the book.
What's your first memory?