Return to Pern: Dragonsong and Dragonsinger

Dragonsong: Volume One of the Harper Hall Trilogy
Dragonsinger: Volume Two of the Harper Hall Trilogy
by Anne McCaffrey

As I said in my introduction to this series of posts (see below), I read the original Dragonriders of Pern trilogy over fifteen years ago, though I have occasionally reread bits of it in anthologies. McCaffrey returned to Pern with the YA-focused Harper Hall Trilogy, which documented the struggles of young harpers Menolly and Piemur. The first two installments, Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, were actually published between books two and three of the original trilogy, and take place during the second. They make up one long story, and the third Harper Hall book is distinct from them, so I am going to tackle them together here.

Originally published: 1976
Acquired: January 2010
Read: March 2023

I can see why a certain type of person would love these books, but that certain type of person is not me. Specifically, that type of person is a teenage girl, ideally one who feels a bit like an outcast. Menolly lives in a Sea Hold on Pern, where her father is Lord Holder; she has a talent for music, but women on Pern cannot be harpers, and her father assiduously enforces these gender norms. Menolly is injured, and might never play again—and her family, in a pretty shocking moment of cruelty, allow her to believe this and don't treat her wound as well they might. This is all pretty well done stuff; my favorite part of the original Pern novels was the world that McCaffrey built up, getting to see the social structures oriented around the threat of the Thread, and Dragonsong expands that. Menolly navigating this world is tough and interesting reading.

Menolly ends up running away, and that was where the book began to lose my interest. The running away itself is fine, and Menolly shows some resourcefulness once she Impresses some fire lizards and saves them from a rising tide and keeps herself safe from Threadfall. (A fire lizard is a smaller cousin to a dragon; like a dragon, it can go between, but they can't talk.) But in the second half of the book, basically all conflict disappears. Once established in her fire lizard cave, Menolly doesn't really struggle anymore; then she gets rescued by a dragonrider and taken to a Weyr and the last quarter of the book is just people being terribly nice to her. No conflict, no climax. I can see why you would love this if you were an awkward, unusual-feeling teenage or preteen girl, but it was pretty boring to read as an adult.

Originally published: 1977
Acquired: July 2010
Read: April 2023

Dragonsinger moves Menolly into the Harper Hall, to be trained as a harper. It's a pretty typical boarding school story in many ways: Menolly must make friends, take lessons, and avoid the bullying of the worst students and school officials. It's fine, but again, it feels like Menolly never really does anything. It wants to be a coming-of-age story, but Menolly doesn't really grow or change; it's just that at the end of the book, everyone is like, "oh Menolly you're so awesome" and she becomes a journeyman. And she is indeed awesome: best at composing, best at singing, best at everything. A quick read, and it's interesting to delve into the mechanics of the Harper Hall, but again there was little to hold my interest.

This is the second installment in a series of posts about the Pern novels. The next covers Dragondrums. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Introduction