What I'm Reading: Todd McCaffrey's Pern books

[almeda]

Yes, yes. Don't judge me. I've been in a trough lately, and when it came time to gather up book titles to put on hold at the library, I thought, "Y'know? I really feel like some Pern. Let's see how dire they are." Admittedly, the urge came up because I'd been wallowing in Lackey's more recent Valdemar and enjoying it (in the same way you can eat

Comments

[jinian]

I have read several of these and been highly annoyed with them, so I'm no longer willing to just jump in. Also, I can't tell the titles apart. Dragonthing. Could you point me at the poly/queer content more specifically?

[almeda]

The titles and covers are seriously generic; I have to constantly refer to an online publication-order list to make sure I'm progressing appropriately

[joecoustic]

Yeah I sort of stopped reading after the first couple of "collaborations". He does frustrate me, but I do appreciate reading the positives you note and might be willing to give his another try down the road. Thanks!

[almeda]

Dragonheart/Dragongirl are much less frustratingly first-novelly than the earlier ones, and his protagonists are getting less and less Mary-Sueish. So if that's what you were allergic to, you can start with them (and skim the infodumps for what you missed in the previous books) and not need to look backwards.

Honestly, in these latest two or three, his protagonists are much less annoyingly overpowered-and-the-world-adores them than Lackey protagonists. I mean, the world still adores them, but you see what they paid to get where they are, and they themselves know they're horribly flawed and fallible.