Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Order for McCaffery's Dragon books (or, figuring out how to not read 25 books when only 4 are on the list!)

This is too long, sorry . . . I have a plumber coming. It is harder for me to be concise than it is to just blurb everything out on the page . . .

The reason the reading order I suggest below works is because the characters have lost recollection of their ancient history in a way that makes total sense when you read the books (and becomes obvious early on.) Starting with book 1, Dragonflight, and reading the first three is the way to go because your knowledge of the world will grow along with the characters' knowledge. I will say no more for fear of spoilers.

This also means we start where Ms. McCaffery starts.

Per Bryan’s list there are 4 McCaffery books:

book 2 1972 McCaffrey, Anne Dragonquest
book 3 1979 McCaffrey, Anne The White Dragon
Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
All the Weyrs of Pern


Before we can read Dragonquest, we must read book 1. (Sorry, I voted for it to be the book this month and I retract that now.) The first book is Dragonflight, which consists of three parts according to Wikipedia, one part a Hugo winning novella and another part a Nebula winning novella.

So that works!

Here’s the Wikipedia cite where I got info about the first book, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Mc... but maybe don’t read it because there are spoilers. The article does say that, because of the novellas in Dragonflight, McCaffery "was the first woman to win a Hugo for fiction and the first to win a Nebula."

So you want to read them in publication order at least for the first three.

I suggest we might just read one a month for three months. And as far as I’m concerned, this is all you ever need to read.

Why? I got tired of them long ago and quit.

As to the rest:

First, there’s a chronological list at https://www.goodreads.com/series/4933... (referred to as "GR chonology”). But we can’t follow it blindly. For example, The Smallest Dragonboy listed right after book 1, "Dragonflight," is not a novel, it’s a short story. Although it is charming, it is not necessary to our purpose.

Note also the division of the dragon books into three different series at https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/an...

First, it lists the series "Dragonwriters of Pern" as being 4 books, the three discussed above, plus a fourth, Dragonseye, not written until 1996.

Second, it lists the "Harper Hall” series, three related YA stories, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums. They occur during the middle of “The White Dragon,” not before it as the GR chronology states. I love them, but they are not necessary to read. The White Dragon can stand without them. Plus, it’s really hard to try to read them in chronological order because they occur in the middle of “The White Dragon.” (If anyone is really a purist, I can try to figure out the point(s) in “The White Dragon” where they fall.)

Then, https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/an... lists a series, “The Renegades of Pern."

"Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern" is listed as part of this series. It can be read fourth. It is the recounting of what was an historical legend referred to in the first three books. Fantastic Fiction lists it as being part of that third series “The Renegades of Pern.” You can read it right after the first three books. That’s when I read it. It makes sense then. Or it did to me. I just didn’t like it nearly as well as the books discussed above.

Please note that I have never read most of the books in the series, nor do I wish to. I tried to read some of the chronologically early books and quit. I also read “The Masterharper of Pern," but wasn’t that crazy about it. (Also, I think the GR chronology is wrong because I think it happens soon after the White Dragon, but it’s been years, so I could be wrong. Maybe it is his whole life and is before and after the 1st three books. I can't remember.)

But the ones on the list are fine to read in the order above.

Except for All the Weyrs of Pern. I am unsure when this falls in the chronology, except that https://www.goodreads.com/series/4933... lists it as happening after our three main books listed above.

Looking back at the GR chronology, the Wikipedia article states that “A Time When” is parts of what became “The White Dragon.” So not necessary. And I read The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern." It’s not a novel and it’s not by McCaffery. I don’t really remember it well, but I had it out from the library years ago, and it’s like a guidebook to the other books.

So then we’ve got The Renegades of Pern which I started to read years ago and didn’t like. Then there’s The Girl Who Heard Dragons. It’s a short story that you can find, alone with “The Smallest Dragonboy” in A Gift of Dragons. 9.99 Kindle version. I have no recollection of whether it is needed, although I think I read it.

Finally, we come to “All the Weyrs of Pern,” the last nominated. I am just going to read it by itself if we choose it because I won’t read “Renegades” without a recommendation.

So to sum up, order should be:

Dragonflight
Dragonquest
The White Dragon
Moreta
All the Weirs of Pern—discussion of this one?

This looks like a recommendation I could go for, I have little faith in series that contain 7398 volumes so it's nice to have it all narrowed down to 4-5 books. The idea of picking series and reading them one book a month is also very appealing to me, we can still vote an extra standalone book in between without getting too stressed out reading 5 or 6 of them in a row.

Moreta's pretty short, I think. I thought it was a novella before I saw it on this list, actually. I remember the library book was big print with wide margins.