Dragon Harper Audiobook By Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey cover art

Dragon Harper

Dragonriders of Pern, Book 19

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Dragon Harper

By: Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey
Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
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Life in the Harper Hall is busy for best friends Kindan, Nonala, and Kelsa. As the only female apprentices, Nonala and Kelsa are the butt of jokes and easy targets for the bully Vaxoram and his cronies. But when Kindan springs to Kelsa's defense, he winds up in a fight for his life against the older, bigger Vaxoram - a fight that will lead to a surprising friendship.

Meanwhile, in nearby Fort Hold, a clutch of fire-lizard eggs is about to hatch, and Lord Bemin's beautiful young daughter, Koriana, is determined to Impress one of the delightful creatures. At the hatching, Kindan Impresses a fire-lizard of his own...and wins the heart of Koriana. But Lord Bemin mistrusts harpers and will not hear of a match between his daughter and the low-born Kindan.

Then fate intervenes in the form of a virulent plague as fast-spreading as it is deadly. Arising suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the contagion decimates hold after hold, paying no heed to distinctions of birth.

In this feverish crucible, friendship and love will be tested to the breaking point and beyond. For with Threadfall scant years away, the Dragonriders dare not expose themselves to infection, and it will fall to Kindan and his fellow apprentices to bravely search for a cure and save humanity.

The price of failure is unthinkable. But the price of success may be even harder to bear.

Pay another visit to Pern.©2007 Anne and Todd McCaffrey (P)2007 Brilliance Audio Adventure Epic Fantasy Science Fiction Space Opera

Critic reviews

"The McCaffreys depict the crisis vividly, with enough detail to make the tragedy all too real and with enough hope to keep fantasy fans happy." ( Publishers Weekly)

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Beautifully written and narrated, this novel of Pern covers one of the terrible plagues from the perspectives of the Harpers and Holders. Great story!

Mid-history Pern

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story was a bit mundane and the plot was too easy to see what was coming.

personal interactions

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I've connected with this book more then the others simply because I've lost family and friends to covid
I,myself have had "the killer flu" and almost died. For this to have been written on 2008 long before covid is scary accurate.

Breath taking.

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Loved the story when I first read it back in the day. Still love it now.... that said - The book was really rough after living through CoVID. I kept thinking of the images of the mass graves they were digging in the early days of the pandemic and the refrigeration trucks because the morgues were too full.

Hits Different After CoVID...

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Dragon harper was another book that was not out when I read this series the first couple of times. This was during the same time period as Dragon Kin and Dragon Fire. All of these have been exceptional reads.

There are some of the same characters in each of these books. Some of these characters are very likable. This one focuses on a plague that hits Pern. This a terrible plague and it takes the lives of so many. Kindan is an amazing character and he has been through all of these books. This one is mainly focused on him as a Harper apprentice and how he deals with so much.

This is just one more great addition to this wonderful collection of stories of Pern. I thoroughly enjoyed characters new and old. I wept for them and pulled for them. Another great work of art from Anne McCaffrey.

Dragon Harper

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Ok, I have to admit that Dragon Harper is not exactly the best book in the entire Dragon Riders of Pern series. But neither is it as bad as some of the other reviews would seem to indicate. I had to get somebody’s list of recommended reading order to figure out the best order to read these books. This is especially helpful when you are – as I am – listening to most of them on audio. The recommendation was to read the first three Pern books that were published first. These seem to give the best overview of the life and culture of Pern. Before getting the list I also read the three books of the Harper Hall Trilogy, which doesn’t seem to have hurt. The list then recommended continuing with the remainder of the books in chronological order relative to Pern time, beginning with Dragonsdawn which tells of the arrival of the original settlers on Pern and is, I think, my favorite in the series so far. Dragon Harper is the fifth book in chronological order, but the 19th book to be published.

Dragon Harper continues the story arc begun in Dragon’s Kin that follows Kindan, son of the watch-wher master at the mining settlement, Camp Natalon, and several of his friends and contemporaries. By the beginning of Dragon Harper, Kindan has already had an extensive career even though he isn’t fully grown yet. Like probably most teenagers, he has wanted to do everything – become a dragon rider, become a harper, save Pern . . . that sort of thing. One of the complaints about this book is the confusing number of unexplained character references. This is true; there is a lengthy section referring much too briefly to Kindan’s friends from his previous adventures to be of any use to anyone who hasn’t read the earlier books and doesn’t add to the story even for those who have. However, that part passes pretty quickly.

Anyway, Kindan has failed at least once, and maybe twice to impress a dragon. But due to his friendship with his mentor, Harper Zist, he is admitted (or perhaps re-admitted – I don’t really remember) to the Harper Hall. But, although he has done well in most of his endeavors so far (except for the impressing a dragon thing), he starts getting in trouble at Harper Hall. There are two female students in his section of the hall, and another, older student, Vaxoram, starts insulting them. (Mini-rant: what is it with the Pernese continuing prejudice against female harpers? Although most of the harpers do seem to be males, there have been many competent and even outstanding female harpers over the generations, including some of the founding harpers from the days when the whole concept of the teaching ballads was first being developed. And these people are descendants of people from Earth, hundreds of years in our future. So why does this animosity toward female harpers keep coming up generation after generation?) Anyway, Kindan, being a chivalrous kind of guy challenges Vaxoram to a duel over these young ladies’ honor. Vaxoram is bigger and badder. The harpers have to send Kindan to someone who can quickly teach him about fighting just so he isn’t killed right away. He wins the duel, and part of the deal is that Vaxoram becomes his slave until he says differently. They eventually become friends and Vaxoram remains loyal to Kindan to the end.

Meanwhile, Kindan gets mixed up with Koriana, the daughter of the hold to which the Harper Hall is attached. I found her highly annoying. She gets Kindan in all kinds of trouble, wanting to be with him when she shouldn’t.

Curiously, Koriana becomes much more sensible in the presence of the plague when it arrives. She, along with Kindan, Vaxoram, her father the lord holder, and a handful of the hold’s servants work themselves to exhaustion taking care of the hold’s people. In the Hall, a handful of apprentices are doing the same thing for the people of the hall. Since most of the technology the early settlers brought with them has failed by now, the people of Pern rely mostly on various herbal medicines for their healing. But these are woefully inadequate in the face of this plague, and well over half the people of the hold die. The death toll may be even higher in the Harper Hall. The same is true for much of the rest of the planet.

The whole plague scene reminded me of the Covid-19 pandemic a couple of years ago. But then, any time I read about a widespread illness of any kind these days, I can’t help thinking of the most recent one.

Not the best Pern novel, but not that bad

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loved it. yes yes yes yes . interesting tale of what Hyman are capable of

dragon harper

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What will be said of all Survivors of a Worldwide Illness that Kills?
Here is a 2007 audiobook by 2 grand writers of a stand-alone novel with an audio performance by another grandmaster to tell of a Planet healing occurance that helps all struggle through a forced maturities and goal centering survival.
They didn't know that 14 years later Earth would experience something very similar that would strike so many people regardless of birthskin.

A Pern Song to Tell of Character During Pandemic

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Love the Pern novels! And having these cherished books in audio format so I can enjoy them again and again while multitasking is wonderful!

Loved it!

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I really liked this one, though I was expecting a slightly different ending (not wanting to spoil the ending), but it was still a really good story overall.
It was nice to have some other characters from previous books make an appearance.

Two thumbs up

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