All the Weyrs of Pern, By Anne McCaffrey

At the end of the Renegades of Pern, Jaxom, Piemur, and Jancis discovered the Aivas building in Landing, and despite what else was lacking in the abandoned settlement, Aivas more than made up for it. Aivas is the Artificial Intelligence Voice Address System of the settlers, and contains their total knowledge and history. Now Pern finally has access to it’s denied and forgotten past, and maybe even a chance to rid Pern of Thread, once and for all. But that promise will take a lot of work to fulfill, and not all appreciate what Aivas is doing for Pern. Some are just frightened of this ‘talking wall’ because it is strange, others fear it because of the change it brings. But the Weyrs approve of whatever Aivas tells them to do, because he may help them complete their prime purpose: to destroy Thread for all time.

Okay, I’m just going to geek out for a minute. I absolutely love this book! It is most definitely my favorite of all the Pern novels. I thought before that it was pretty much on level with the White Dragon, but after my reread I have to reassess that. All the Weyrs is so much better! It is definitely some of McCaffrey’s best writing work, showing the culmination of her Pern efforts, without being slightly stale as the later books are. But oh! What happiness is held therein. This really combines the best of science fiction and fantasy. I mean, of course it’s science fiction because of all the technology etc, but it borders on fantasy because of the dragons. It’s just great! A well written world always needs a sense of history behind it to back it up, and as we’re discovering Pern’s, it just gets more and more exciting.

Plot spoilers are going to ensue for a bit, just because I can’t not talk about them. Okay, the blowing up of the Red Star is really cool, but talk about a sad ending. I mean, the death of Master Robinton? He’s one of the best characters, aside from Jaxom. Now there’s a character I don’t want to die. But in a way it makes sense, from all that McCaffrey did to lead up to this. Aside from that, dragons in space is one of the funniest ideas if you think about it. It really sounds like a bad B-science fiction movie, one that couldn’t make up it’s mind, ‘Now tune in for Dragons in Space!’ But the talents of dragons make EV walks even safer. All they have to do is hop between. And I think that was a great twist, making Jaxom have to jump back between times to deliver the engines. Makes things much more dramatic.

I’m going to unashamedly proclaim this the peak of McCaffrey’s Pern series. There are other good ones, but this is the best. All the Weyrs of Pern delivers good characters, good plot, all in an exciting package. A happy read for any who pick it up.