Monday, February 21, 2005

Dragon's Blood

I just finished reading the Dragon's Blood. Hmmm.

Well the first 5/6 ths of the book was very enjoyable. There were no jarring inconsistencies in style between the author (Todd McCaffrey) and his mother (Anne McCaffrey) who wrote all but one of the other books in the Pern universe. (Dragon's Kin, the previous book in the universe is credited to both of them) However.... the last 1/6th of the book seemed like it was rushed. The whole pace of the book changed, and not for the better. For instance, one of the ongoing subplots (Tullea's bad attitude) was essential thrown away in a two sentence resolution. It could have easily occupied 100 or more pages. In fact, I could see her story being told in a companion novel, similar to what his mother did with the Moreta/Nerilka books. At the very least the book should have been broken into two books or even three like The Harper Hall Trilogy. I don't know if he came up against a publishing deadline, and had to rush to finish the story; or a page count limit, and had to condense the story. But it was a shame. I'll still re-read the book at some point, and buy the next Pern novel he writes, but this was his first strike.

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