I think this was the very first Pern book I ever read. A friend let me borrow it during our required reading hour in school (maybe middle school?), and I was hooked. No wonder: the Harper Hall trilogy had a lot of features that I tended to gravitate towards.

In this first book, Menolly is a nearly 15-year-old girl living is an isolated fishing village on the planet Pern. Harper Petiron, her friend, teacher, and the one who most understood her love of music, has just died. Her parents grudgingly allow her to continue teaching the village's children, at least until the new Harper arrives, but they absolutely forbid her to create or sing any of her own songs, fearing that she will disgrace the village and confuse the children into thinking they're real Harper-composed songs. Although Menolly has been told her whole life that girls can't be Harpers, music is so much a part of her that she can't bear to let it go, and life at Half-Circle Sea Hold starts to become more and more unbearable.

I had forgotten that this book began with a foreword explaining the colonization of Pern and the existence of the Thread-producing Red Star. I'm almost certain that Teen Me completely dismissed it and approached several of the Pern books, including this one, as though they were fantasy, rather than sci-fi. At any rate, this was a good book for me at the time, since I was still primarily a fantasy reader and had only recently and warily started reading sci-fi.

Nostalgia rereads don't always work out well for me, but thankfully that wasn't the case here. I enjoyed Dragonsong just as much as I remembered enjoying it when I first read it. I sympathized with Menolly, who managed to come across as being stifled without being annoying about it. I could also understand Menolly's parents' perspectives, even though I didn't agree with their actions. The village's survival depended upon everyone pulling their own weight. Although Harpers were important (they didn't just entertain, they carried news and new teachings, acted as judges when necessary, and more), there had never been a female Harper that they knew of, so Menolly's focus on music seemed like a waste of time and effort to them.

The thing I was really looking forward to was the fire lizards (tiny dragons). They took a bit to show up, which is one of the reasons why I've reread Dragonsinger more than Dragonsong, but they were still just as wonderful as I remembered. I loved reading about Menolly's efforts to try to make a life for herself and her fire lizards outside the Sea Hold, but it was her reentry into civilization that really brought a smile to my face. It was lovely to see her finally get to be around people who didn't constantly dismiss her and tell her that her dreams were both worthless and actively harmful to the people around her. And her first conversations with Master Robinton! I had forgotten how charming he was.

Although this would be a pretty good starting point for Pern newbies, there were a few things that would be confusing: Brekke's situation, and the uproar surrounding Jaxom's Impression of Ruth. Menolly learned some of the background info, but further details weren't really important to her story. To newbie readers whose interest was piqued, I'd say either start from the beginning and read Dragonflight, or try the books that deal more directly with Brekke and Jaxom (I think Dragonquest and The White Dragon, respectively), keeping in mind that those are books 2 and 3 and might bring up further questions. But hey, that's the fun thing about reading a series.

Back to Dragonsong: all in all, this was a quick and enjoyable read that reminded me of what I loved about this series. It could have used more fire lizard scenes and Master Robinton appearances, but that's what Dragonsinger is for. On to the next book!

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Warning: this book contains some torture. Although I didn't consider the physical aspects to be very graphic, the emotional aspects are awful, and the book ends without giving readers a chance to see how well the character manages to recover.

Although most of Fletcher's Celaeno series could be read in any order, I would advise newbies not to start with Shadow of the Knife, even though it's chronologically the first book (it takes place 14 years before Rangers at Roadsend). While the overall story would probably make sense, I think this is the only book in the series that doesn't explain why there are no men on Celaeno, and how reproduction works there.

This was my last unread Celaeno book. I was both looking forward to it and dreading it, because, once I finished it, that would be it – I haven't been able to find any signs that Fletcher is still writing, much less that she plans to write more in this series. Okay, so the world-building has serious problems, the pacing often isn't very good, and the books tend to end too suddenly. I know all of that, and yet something about this series really works well for me. Rangers at Roadsend and The Walls of Westernfort were my favorites, and I was hoping Shadow of the Knife would be as good or better.

Shadow of the Knife stars Ellen Mittal, a rookie in the Roadsend Militia. Farmers in the area have had hundreds of sheep stolen from them, and the Militia hasn't managed to find a single one. Ellen, increasingly frustrated with the uselessness of the Militia's efforts, talks to a Ranger friend of hers and ends up becoming involved in a deeper investigation into the thefts, which may have something to do with a gang in Eastford led by a woman known as the Mad Butcher. Ellen's life is further complicated by Hal, a new farmer in Roadsend who is either genuinely interested in her or somehow involved in the sheep thefts.

I'll start by saying that I think this might be the best-written Celaeno book. There were still some issues with the pacing, but thankfully they were due more to Fletcher's choice of protagonist than to world-building infodumping. Ellen's status as a rookie meant that she missed out on a lot of the action and strategic planning in the first half of the book, which in turn made me feel like I was missing out on the most exciting parts of the story. Things got better later on, after Ellen was promoted and given more freedom to investigate on her own. It made me wish Fletcher had chosen to write her as an older and more experienced member of the Militia.

Of course, if Fletcher had done that she would have also had to rework a few of her other choices. Not that I would have minded. Ellen seemed painfully young compared to Hal, and their romance rubbed me the wrong way right from the start. I couldn't quite get a handle on Hal, who seemed like she should have had her pick of potential lovers and yet for some reason was drawn to easily flustered Ellen. I ignored my misgivings, however, because I figured that this would be a fantasy with romantic aspects, like the other Celaeno books. Ellen would doubt Hal's intentions and suspect her of being involved in the thefts, Hal would prove her trustworthiness, and together they'd foil the villains and find love.

Sometimes when things go the way you expect them to, it's boring. It can be nice when a story shakes things up a bit. It can also be horrible. My review is going to include some spoilers from here on out, because I can't figure out how to write about this without revealing too much.

Of all the Celaeno books, this one is hands down the darkest and most depressing. After four books worth of SFF with romantic aspects, I don't think it was out of line to expect that this one would give me something similar. I'm incredibly sad and upset that my last unread Celaeno book turned out to be such an enormous betrayal of expectations.

Rating Note:

How am I supposed to rate something like this? On the one hand, part of me regrets reading this book, and I doubt I'll ever want to reread it. Just putting my thoughts in order so that I could write this review was draining enough. On the other hand, I really do think Fletcher's writing has gotten better, and Ellen's confused emotions during and after her captivity felt believable. Horrible, but believable.

I'm so deeply disappointed in this book that part of me thinks it deserves a half-star rating. Another part of me thinks I should rate it a bit higher than I am, because it packed such a serious emotional punch, even if those emotions were not the ones I wanted or expected. I settled on 1.5-stars. I feel like I might as well have thrown a dart at the entire 3-stars-and-less range.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)