Dragongirl by Todd McCaffrey

Dragongirl falls squarely into the category of "Books I Really Should Have Just DNF'd." It is truly the most boring Pern book I have ever read. The only reason it didn't end up in the DNF Pile was because I'm waiting for the next batch of Pern books to arrive. I am so very, very over the repetitious, uninteresting style Todd McCaffrey has adopted for telling this story. Seriously, my eyes should not glaze over while reading about how the dragons of Pern are in peril... again. I should not be over that, either... and yet... so over it.

Probably the only thing I liked about Dragongirl was the Polycule of Fiona, Kindan, Lorana, and T'mar. I like that it exists. More Poly representation is good. I'm did not, however, need to know the opinion of almost every Weyrwoman on Pern on the existence of said Polycule, but Fiona just seems to keep bringing it up at every opportunity. I mean, yes, it was incredibly weird how the whole thing came about... bordering on problematic, really... but I don't see why she felt the need to discuss it with every Weyrwoman she encountered.

There were also a couple of severe character assassinations here, in my opinion. Lorana went from "Reluctant Savior of Pern" to "Pregnant and Really Worried About It" to... well... spoiler spoiler spoiler. Kindan was severely one-note here. Reluctant Weyrling Master who keeps not Impressing and is just mad about it. I also found it really, deeply weird that Kindan is/was apparently so hung-up on Fiona's long-dead sister that he mistook Fiona for her and still thinks about her... That was barely a relationship and she's been dead for at least 12 years. I'm sorry, what?

Uh... let's see... There were also two pretty identical scenes of M'tal fighting Thread over Keroon. Apparently the wind being messy the first time did not stick in their heads for the second time. Nuella is barely a blip here, even though she really should have been at least slightly more involved. Apparently we're still not including the Wherhold in big, Pern-wide meetings concerning Thread despite Fiona having been close with Nuella previously and knowing how important Watch-Whers are, actually. And just to bring home how really mundane and in the weeds of running a Weyr Dragongirl got... one of the last discussions of the book was Fiona and T'mar discussing moving to the other side of Telgar's bowl. Seriously. Just a discussion about moving house.

I'm really dedicated to reading the Pern series all the way through, at least once. I want to see what I missed out on the first go-through and how the timeline goes. However, if any more of the books are like this, that's going out the window. Dragongirl was just dull for most of the "run time." Again, I should probably care that the dragons are in peril again, but I was driven into not caring at all by how many times it was brought up hopelessly and in the most boring manner possible here. Oh, and Dragongirl does another thing I hate: it doesn't really end, so much a peter out into an apparent, uninteresting cliff-hanger. So.. yeah.