I used to own a bunch of them, but haven't read them in a while, and none of the ones written since Anne McCaffrey died. Or a while before then, since Todd started writing/co-writing them.
What prompts the question?
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I read some a long time ago. I remember giving up roughly halfway through the third book when I realized the awesome "relativistic dragons used in a hybrid sifi-fantasy setting to fight off a truly bizarre 'alien invasion'" story was gradually being replaced by more and more romance between the characters. I don't know if this is really how it was but I have a strong memory of stopping to read in order to go to bed one night and thinking to myself that nothing that I actually cared about happened in the last couple hundred pages nor was it seeming about to happen. Next morning I just started another book.
Then again I was like 11 at the time, so it may have been the impatience of a child rather than an actual fault of the book itself.
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We've just weeded a bunch of Pern books from my library's collection. No one checks them out anymore. Changing dynamics in the community + low circulation of sci-fi anyway. I'd LOVE to see higher figures for classic/older sci-fi, but only the current bestsellers circulate, or titles that get assigned in a classroom. Surprisingly, Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel was on our local school's summer reading list. Very few kids chose to check it out compared to the better-known & more recent titles. I was quite happy when a patron came in yesterday and checked out Scalzi's Lock In.
With all the emphasis on STEM in America, you'd think sci-fi would be doing better, but it seems like only fantasy holds much mainstream appeal (e.g. Game of Thrones), and even that is more among the cultural elite, not the working-class people I see at my library who want books about how to pass the trades exams, beginning children's books, and DVDs.
The first two trilogies are still in my collection. Apart from the pseudo-rape/technically rape elements (which was a cultural thing in the 60s/70s, I think) in the Dragonrider trilogy and the "young adult" vibe in the Harper Hall trilogy, they're still good reads.
Most of the prequels/sequels to "fill in" the entire arc from colonization to "defeating" the thread were OK, but not as good (IMO).
Part of the issue with sci-fi's decline in the U.S. (again, IMO) has to do with the de-emphasis on the social exploration aspect: how technology affects cultural and social attitudes/organizations. Or even the classic "Star Trek" re-imagining of current cultures/societies in a "simpler" form to make them easier to "understand."
Fantasy seems to have also de-emphasized this. There is little to no exploration of non-human societies (either they're "ugly bad guys, just because" or they're "attractive allies, just because;" or worse, "bit part" window dressing) and the interaction with human societies (this was actually one of the themes that Tolkien explored in his books that got removed from the movies). Even human societies are given little attention: either it's "magic in a modern(-ish) setting" (i.e., Harry Potter) or a stereotypical Medievalism (as long as there are castles, heroes, and nobles/royalty, the rest of the social details can be undefined).
I liked the first book, can't recall if I read any others.
I will admit that I named a Terraria map "Pern", then was disappointed when I considered that there was no equivalent to thread.
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I read some a long time ago. I remember giving up roughly halfway through the third book when I realized the awesome "relativistic dragons used in a hybrid sifi-fantasy setting to fight off a truly bizarre 'alien invasion'" story was gradually being replaced by more and more romance between the characters. I don't know if this is really how it was but I have a strong memory of stopping to read in order to go to bed one night and thinking to myself that nothing that I actually cared about happened in the last couple hundred pages nor was it seeming about to happen. Next morning I just started another book.
Then again I was like 11 at the time, so it may have been the impatience of a child rather than an actual fault of the book itself.
"Is this a kissing book?"
I know this reference :D
We've just weeded a bunch of Pern books from my library's collection. No one checks them out anymore. Changing dynamics in the community + low circulation of sci-fi anyway. I'd LOVE to see higher figures for classic/older sci-fi, but only the current bestsellers circulate, or titles that get assigned in a classroom. Surprisingly, Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel was on our local school's summer reading list. Very few kids chose to check it out compared to the better-known & more recent titles. I was quite happy when a patron came in yesterday and checked out Scalzi's Lock In.
With all the emphasis on STEM in America, you'd think sci-fi would be doing better, but it seems like only fantasy holds much mainstream appeal (e.g. Game of Thrones), and even that is more among the cultural elite, not the working-class people I see at my library who want books about how to pass the trades exams, beginning children's books, and DVDs.
I learned more about science, math, and dare I say, LIFE from sci-fi than I did in the classroom. It's a shame that we keep forgetting that the most important part of the roadmap to the future is having ideas of what it is going to be like...
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Personally, I really, honestly, think that, if Anathem was more culturally present than, say Twilight or the The Hunger Games, the world would be a experientially better place, at least for me on an individual level.
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I'm all for Anathem being more culturally present, but phrasing it like that makes it seem that Twilight or The Hunger Games ought to be less culturally present. That troubles me because those books have gotten tween/teen girls to read who might not otherwise. I'd rather see a girl pick up Twilight than be part of the non-reading statistic. 20% of Americans don't read a single book in a year! Are these books great literature? No. But most of what people read isn't. Do you know how many Robert Ludlum books my library has, and "oh no, we can't discard those because they circulate!" but our last copy of The Pickwick Papers? "Go ahead and toss it, because no one reads the classics!"
Truthfully, they don't. They just don't.
Pern was discounted too, back in the day. There were whole "you've got fantasy in my sci-fi" arguments about it. The kid who read Pern books at my high school got beat on for it (probably also a matter of sexism, since he was a guy and there was a girl on the cover, and "oh look, that guy over there is reading a book. This calls for a beat-down" mentality).
On a lighter note: yes, I'd love to live in a culture that valued Anathem more than Twilight; where teen girls would write fanfic about quantum physics and not get sneered at for it. But we don't live in that culture.
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Because sci-fi never had really stupid "Science" before Pern amirite?
I still enjoy reading them from time to time. There's a few I never managed to track down to add to my collection, but I've read most of them at one point or another. From a quick look at the series list, I've read everything up to (and including) The Masterharper of Pern. Haven't read the last couple of solo works she did, or the stuff that Todd has written on his own since then.
I pretty much loved all of her work though. The Crystal Singer trilogy, The Dragon Riders of Pern, The Talents, The Tower and the Hive, The Catteni Sequence. I grew up reading them.
And yeah, it's not hard SF. So what? It's science fantasy. Pretty common subgenre back in the day and even now. Doesn't make it bad in and of itself.
That's what I actually love about them. I enjoy hard SF as well, but science fantasy is what I go to when I want something fun to read. That or Urban Fantasy.
The dragonkin of Triaxus are openly inspired by Dragonriders of Pern.
I enjoyed the books, but I stopped getting them after the dolphins one.
All the Weyrs of Pern is the end of the story, and everything after that's just filler =P
(Though I also remember Renegades of Pern being a very weak book. Dragondawn was just cool, though.)
I honestly enjoyed how "the dragons can do what" was just sort of a running theme for the whole series.
I have read the books. Just because they called the power "going between" doesn't change what I said. The books went from one implausibility after another... including starships and shuttle craft which somehow remained fully operational after centuries of abandonment. and magical dragons, it was poorly written fantasy trying to disguise itself with sci-fi trappings.
This may be a sore topic for some sci-fi fans, but you do realize sci-fi is considered a sub-genre of fantasy, right?
This is just a series that falls much closer to the fantasy end of the spectrum. Like Star Wars.
A.k.a., soft Sci-Fi.
I think the "disguising itself as sci-fi" comment may come from reading the books in chronological order, rather than order of release. I used to think Dragonsdawn(?) was the 1st book, since it was a prequel and it explained the premise of the series very well, and whowed the creation of the dragons and all.
Then I realized it wasn't, and the actual 1st book had zero hintings of sci-fi that I recall. IIRC the first time spaceships and whatnot are even mentioned is after that Albino runt dragon showed up and they found the buried ship.
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Although I'm not the OP, I'll go ahead and say if you aren't a Pern fan, you really oughtn't to post in the "Dragon riders of Pern fans?" thread and hate on McCaffrey. I'm sure the OP would appreciate constructive opinions of the series, but "it would be better off if it didn't exist" isn't constructive.