The best I can say about this is that I felt it was better than DragonGirl.
Probably just because it focused more on Lorana which meant less focus on the increasingly annoying Fiona. ( )

Another middle book of the arc of this multi-book tale of early Pern. This was a book that filled many of the gaps that the previous books had left space for in the time-traveling up till this book. We knew that the authors would eventually reveal who and what and why, and so they do. There is a lot of time travel.

And, well, as my newspaper reporter friend says so often about my own writing - the authors buried the lede. After building up and building up, they solve the central problem of the book in a throwaway line. I reread that chapter twice to see if I had somehow skipped something. Everywhere else, we get detailed descriptions of who is doing what, and the dangers involved. But here - the pivotal moment for Fiona just happens, seen from Lorana's viewpoint. We don't get to see what led Fiona to do what she did.

If you haven't read the book, you absolutely must read the books leading up to it, or it won't make sense. And pay attention at Chapter 9. If you have read the book, I'll bet you were confused there, too.

The plot all works, but this time I am left saying, "Give me more detail about why Fiona risked her unborn children in that way."

The plot works. The characters are true to what we've seen of them up till now. There are too many names to keep straight without a Dramatis Personae list. The crux of the central-problem's solution was not clearly introduced. ( )

This wasn't my favorite of the Pern books - too much time travel for me. It is closely linked to the others that I have been reading lately in my quest to finally finish reading this whole series which I began reading in 1968.

The plague killing the dragons has been cured but it has left too few dragons to fight Thread which will be falling for many years. Our main characters are all busy trying to find solutions to the problem which is requiring that they have their dragons travel back into time. One character - Lorana - travels to multiple times. I got confused about where she had been and when.

I do like the characters in the story. It was nice to reconnect with Fiona, Lorana, Kindan, and other favorites. There were a number of new characters introduced too. Tenniz was an especially interesting one because of his gift of visions. I couldn't imagine seeing my own death and was enthralled by his reaction to the vision. I also liked F'jian who promised his love that he would never leave her and kept his promise in a very interesting way.

Given that this group of books takes place in an earlier time period than other novels in the series, I shouldn't have felt the tension I did wondering if they were going to survive. It is a credit to the author that I was still worried.

Fans of stories with lots of time travel will enjoy this one more than I did but I am glad I read the story ( )

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Nice visiting with Fiona and Lorana and another trip to Pern. Looking forward to the next visit soon. ( )