The discovery of an Artificial Intelligence the original colonists of Pern had at their disposal astonishes the majority of the planet's leadership. It also upsets a conservative traditional faction that view an intelligent machine as an Abomination with a capital A.

The dragons and fire lizards, are, as usual, pretty cool with cool new stuff, as long as they get enough to eat, sunshine to sleep in, and people or other critters to wash their assorted hides.

The new technology gives them the ability to understand enough to utilise the ships that have been left in orbit to attempt to do something audacious about the menace of Thread once and for all.

All done in McCaffrey's charming but bloodless style. So pretty fluffy, and does suffer at times from that very common 21st century author and publisher bloat disease.

But, well, dragons on spaceships, or in space. Gotta be fun.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/04... ( )

Merideth says: After the discovery of an advanced Artificial Intelligence created by the original space-fairing colonists of Pern, the members of the present feudal-style society must relearn lost scientific skills in order to remove the threat of Thread from Pern forever. The 11th book in the Pern series.

It has been a very long time since I've read any Pern novels, although I used to be a devotee of the series. I re-read this one this weekend, because I forgot to bring another book to my Mom's house with me. As I recall, this was the last Pern book I read, and it nicely wrapped up the series for me, although more books have been published. It holds up, although I remember being upset about the 'dragons from space' aspect that pushed my favorite fantasy series over into sci-fi. Since it's probably been at least 10 years since my last Pern book, I had a hard time remembering why some of these people are important, but I remembered the main characters well enough that the details didn't matter. (cross posted from MeriJenBen) ( )

The leaders of Pern have discovered an artificial intelligence from their past, a machine they call Aivas. With Aivas' help, they work towards eradicating the life-devouring Thread that plagues their planet once and for all. Jaxom and Ruth, the unique white dragon, have the biggest role of all in making this happen.
I thought this was one of the most enjoyable books of this series. It is of course very satisfying to see our heroes find a way to get rid of the Thread, and also get a glimpse into the kind of society Pern is going to evolve into. ( )

Absolutely loved this book. I've read it dozens of times and I still always cry at the end when... ah, but I won't spoil it. This one brings the people of Pern back into contact with their past and leads to a final solution for the problem of Thread and the Red Star. ( )

After the discovery of an advanced Artificial Intelligence created by the original space-fairing colonists of Pern, the members of the present feudal-style society must relearn lost scientific skills in order to remove the threat of Thread from Pern forever. The 11th book in the Pern series.

It has been a very long time since I've read any Pern novels, although I used to be a devotee of the series. I re-read this one this weekend, because I forgot to bring another book to my Mom's house with me. As I recall, this was the last Pern book I read, and it nicely wrapped up the series for me, although more books have been published. It holds up, although I remember being upset about the "dragons from space" aspect that pushed my favorite fantasy series over into sci-fi. Since it's probably been at least 10 years since my last Pern book, I had a hard time remembering why some of these people are important, but I remembered the main characters well enough that the details didn't matter. ( )