An insightful look at the non-Dragonriders of Pern

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series is my favorite series of books. Whenever we go to the Renaissance Faire not far from us, I like to interpose Ms. McCaffrey's dragons, riders and lifestyles with the Faire around us: it's Fall Gather, the Parade is for Lessa and Ramoth isn't with her because she's due to clutch soon. Over there would be the drumheights, that fellow slowly filling our order at the turkey legge stand could be Camo, the performers playing at the dinner pavilion are surely Menolly and Sebell. It's easy to draw images from Ms. McCaffrey's work because her characters are so richly written and well-rounded.

"Dragon's Kin" begins toward the end of the Second Interval. The miners of Pern are hit with a problem: the easy-to-reach coal that came to the surface of Pern was nearly all mined out. Pern's Mastersmith relied on coal, especially a hot-burning version called anthracite, to forge steel to make into plows, rim the wagonwheels for the Traders and join the leather riding gear used by the dragonriders when they flew against Thread. MasterMiner Britell of Crom realized his miners would have to learn the ancient ways of tunneling and shaft mining to dig into the mountains for new coal. He identified several promising seams, chose his most promising journeymen and set them to 'proving' new mines. If they succeeded, their Camps would become permanent Mines; the journeymen would be made Masters. He had a favorite journeyman, Natalon, both for his ability to get a group of hardworking miners to join his Camp and his willingness to be innovative, assets MasterMiner Crom believed to be necessary in this quest to master deep shaft mining.

Natalon used watch-whers, cousins to the more graceful and larger dragons, in the mining camp. He hoped to use their abilities to detect tunnel snakes, explosive gases and deadly carbon monoxide. Danil, a widowed father, is a particularly hardworking gentleman. He is not only a miner but is the handler of, and bonded to, the Camp's only watch-wher Dask.

Kindan, the youngest of Danil's sons, believes he has no greater calling in life than to finally be old enough to follow his father and brothers into the mines at Camp Natalon. Kindan has had some dealings with the care of Dask and appears to have a special affinity toward watch-whers because he's been around Dask as long as he's been alive. Kindan has no idea how important his knowledge of watch-whers will be to himself as well as the ultimate success, or ultimate failure, of the Camp.

Tragedy strikes--there is a cave-in at the mines! Even though he has sustained critical wounds at the cave-in site, Dask refuses to stop battering and digging at the barricade until he breaks through to the trapped miners. After Dask opens the barrier far enough for rescuers to get through, he collapses in exhaustion. Kindan tries to attend to his wounds, but he cannot save Dask's life.

Kindan's life is changed further because not all of the miners lived through the cave-in. Kindan's father and brothers had died probably long before Dask started digging. The rest of the book focuses on how Kindan's life moves forward from this horrid chain of events: he is taken in by the Harper, Natalon wagers a very hefty amount of coal on Kindan's abilities as a watch-wher handler, the wry humor as they attempt to secure and then hatch a watch-wher egg and care for the hatchling.

The characters are typical hard-working Pernese with a new perspective of how life from a mining camp would be. Particularly interesting was how only a few paragraphs were written on the classrooms and how the children reacted, but how much impact those paragraphs had while I was reading them. Haunting, given the settings. Very solid, believable characters.

There is also a secret twist about Natalon's family that becomes a major asset about two-thirds of the way through the book. In order to not spoil anyone's first reading of this book, I will stop there and not outline any additional details. Well, except to say that the book's final few paragraphs were trademark Anne McCaffrey. Sorry to be cryptic, but again I don't want to spoil the book for anyone.

"Dragon's Kin" is co-written by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey, her son. When I saw that Todd had begun working with her on the Pern novels, it was with a bit of hesitation that I borrowed my first copy from our library. I was soundly surprised by this novel. It was seamless writing between these two authors, and the soul of the series was not, in my honest opinion, compromised by bringing in another writer. I have since bought a hardback copy of the novel at Barnes & Noble for approximately $15, but it's been about 3 years ago. I'm thinking you could pick a hardback copy up for less now.