#tofire | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kariachi · 4 years ago

Text

This is it y’all, a day literal months in the coming- here and now I shall liveblog Dragon’s Kin, by Anne and Todd McCaffrey. By which I mean I will read Dragon’s Kin and take note of anything interesting, valuable, or just that comes to my mind. I have never read this book, it’s still in the plastic packaging it came in, I have never read a Todd book.

We’ll see if I survive.

Before I even open the damn thing, I am looking at the image of the McCaffreys on the back and let me say they look like they should be villains in a comedy western.

A Pass brings with it increased earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity, due to the whole ‘other celestial body coming in hot’ thing. Which actually makes a lot of sense, certainly more than anything else relating to Threadfall. (“charred bone” is this a fungus or a wildfire)

“Under the leadership of the Lord Holders and Weyrleaders-” *screams into aether*

It took until 16 years prior to the 3rd Pass for the Northern Continent to run out of surface coal and have to start actually digging for the shit

Everybody: Whers? Bah, not much to them, not good for much. Journeyman Miner Natalon: But consider, they might be awesome MasterMiner Britell: Hmmm, I’m keeping an eye on this one...

Chapter 1: “In early morning light I see: A distant dragon come to me”

We meet our main character, Kindan. His sister is getting married, good for her. Shame about the plot that’s going to happen later.

Having a watchwher gets you private housing. Also aw, the wher took their name from Kindan’s father that’s so sweet.

This just in, two boys can’t hang with dragons, settle instead for the simple pleasure of watchwher washing

Zenor: Dragons look like they’re soft, not like watchwhers Kindan: Bitch-

So our biggest asshole so far is a Tarik and honestly I’d be sending him back to the Hall with a nice long report of exactly how much of a fuckwit he is. And I’ve only known him a few pages.

And we meet the other major character- Nuella- who is apparently Somebody though who we have no idea

Oh gods Kindan’s mother is dead, his sister is marrying and leaving, and his father and Dask’s fates are in the fucking summary. Boy is about to have a time.

He has brothers! Well thank fuck.

Whers have external ears

Also I have only known Dask for two paragraphs but I love him

“Then Dask gave a little happy chirp, flapped his wings once, and vanished.” Whers can between, alone and from the ground. Apparently Dask does it all the time go he can avoid the lights from the camp.

Dask is brown, I was figuring but nice to know

Kindan, assuming dragons are harder to wash because they’re fucking massive and need oiling and shit (whers, the dragonkin for the common working fucker)

Chapter 2: “It’s skin is bronze, it’s eyes are green; It’s the loveliest dragon I’ve ever seen”

Damn Kindan’s family is a mess, his brothers are all dicks, his sisters are supposeldy dicks but we haven’t seen them, and the only decent fuckers are leaving or dying

Kindan’s Sister: Kaylek, my brother who loves to sing but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, you shall sing at my wedding Master Harper: Over my dead body he will!

Kindan’s siblings may be shit, but he’ll be damned if he allows them to talked bad about by some non-relative and he’s stubborn as a wher himself about it

Am I reading a fucking fairytale film? The new Harper is a dick until he realises ‘oh wait, this kid isn’t complete shit, I shouldn’t have said the seriously horrible things I did’

(Seriously “to think your mother died giving birth to you”, I want Dask to eat him too)

Well it’s nice to see that the ‘whers fly at night because the air is thicker’ thing is only speculation by people with no fucking teachings with regard to that shit. At least so far.

Kindan really just went on a paragraph long internal monologue about the value of miners to the function and survival of Pern and for all he doesn’t in his heart want to be one I kinda want to see him grow into it now. Stories of stepping away from what’s expected of you and forging your own path are great (I’ve been writing some) but stories of falling in love with what before looked like something to be avoided can also be nice.

And now we get a two paragraph internal monologue about how awesome whers are. Best miners ever.

“Traditionally, the marriage ceremony was performed in the morning, timed so that as the couple completed their marriage vows, the sun would rise, signifying the warmth of the new relationship and how it would lighten not only the bride and groom but also all those associated with them.” Awwww!!!!

“However, such a ceremony would mean Dask could not attend. So Jofri had come up with the idea of performing the ceremony with the setting sun, instead, and lighting a bonfire as the final vows were made.” Awwwwwww!!!!!!!

For all the shit you hear and see relating to whers in earlier and later periods (that they’re ugly, and disliked, and kept chained up) it’s so nice to see Dask truly be part of the family, so much so that they changed the fucking wedding to accommodate him. I want this to be the tradition of handler families now. And then we have to remember that one of the other handlers for the camp straight up fucking left because Tarik was being a dick to his wher and he wasn’t having it. Yes, give me wher love.

Oh my gods Dask flying about with a glow in his claws to act as a spotlight as his handler’s daughter walks down the aisle this is so sweet!

And he’s singing along to the music!

He’s doing the groom too! Dask is a gift!

“For now that these two are one, we are all more,“ Master Zist intoned. He placed Silstra’s hand in Terregar’s and kissed each lightly on the cheek. “To Terregar and Silstra!”

The crowd stood up and roared back: “To Terregar and Silstra!”

“Long life and happiness!” Master Zist intoned.

“Long life and happiness!” the crowd roared back.

Kindan and Nuella officially meet.

Nuella, taking advantage of Kindan not wanting to get given chores on this the night of his sister’s wedding and her own presumed misbehavior to get him to keep her well away from any authority.

Nuella is sheltered as fuck, she hasn’t even seen a mashed potato before

Ah, she’s the twin of the big boss’s son. Don’t know why she’s being so fucking hidden I mean good fuck, but, at least we know who she is.

Aw, Zenor is her bestfriend. Not that she has many options but still

Seven fucking brothers! And an unknown number of sisters! No wonder their mother died having the last one, she birthed at least nine surviving children! Do you know how many she’d have had to have to get those numbers? Was she born pregnant, wtf?

Chapter 3: “Watch-wher, whatch-wher in the night; Guard our Hold, keep it right; When the morning sun does come; Watch-wher, then you job is done”

Aw, Kindan’s relationship with the his brothers is healing

Also Zist is a fucking taskmaster. He gets results but damn, man, chill.

The big boss’s son is apparently a sickly child

Dask has been in A Mood which is a never a good sign when you’re talking about your security critter

Miners’ children all just ‘it’s too quiet, something is wrong’ like they’re fucking birds. Not that they’re wrong, mind, but still

Welp, bad air was released and sparked before Dask could warn the miners (I assume a pocket got opened as somebody else struck some stone) and now we’ve got a cave-in. Dask got out and is now killing himself trying to rescue the miners.

Damn his father and his brothers in one day. And Dask fucking dying in his arms after managing to save the survivors despite bleeding out with his handler dead (which, even if whers can outlive their handlers he had to have felt, he’s dragonkin he’d have noticed the bond breaking, he was doing this despite knowing that he wouldn’t find Danil alive on the other side. Was he this dedicated to his work, was he hoping to save Danil’s boys, we’ll never know).

Pour one out for Danil, who did his damnedest to take care of his children, and for Dask, who was too damn good for us.

Zenor survived, but his father is also dead. He and Kaylek saved the poor boy’s life in exchange for their own. Gods the last thoughts that must’ve been going through that man’s head, as he realized that the mine was collapsing and he had brought his son in with him despite him not being near old enough...

Seriously y’all I’m crying

Chapter 4: “I am too big to cry; And my voice is too shy; To sing my sad, sad song; Or say the words I long; To say to you- good-bye, good-bye.”

The book says Kindan is the youngest of nine. It also says he has seven brothers and plural sisters. And the sisters at least lasted long enough to give him shit growing up. The book lies to me.

Okay so, Kindan’s got two siblings remaining- Jakris and Tofir- one of whom has been fostered to I think a sister of theirs? Kindan doesn’t note who ‘Terra and her husband’ are otherwise so I assume it’s another older sister and another of which has been fostered to Crom Hold where he’ll be learning art and maybe someday mapmaking. Kindan is still in the camp.

Zenor wants to take over his dad’s role of miner like boy you are ten stop

Ah, Kindan wants to stay.

If somebody would light Tarik on fire please? Especially given that he’s sitting here claiming the mining will be better without them when it’s already been stated that the shift with a wher gets more ore out of the ground per shift than the the others because the wher itself is a fantastic digger.

Zist: We need someone to raise Kindan Natalon: So good of you to volunteer Zist: o.o

Nobody likes Tarik, good, send the man back to Crom, let them deal with his ass.

And more confirmation that Kindan has sisters, I really need this book to make up it’s mind

Nuella is upset she’ll have to avoid the Harper’s cottage with Kindan living in it

Zist: If I’m going to raise this child then damnit I’m making him a harper

We’re getting much character stuff but not much actually interesting

Chimney got clogged at the big boss’s house, Kindan managed to save the lot by coming by and noticing, the existence of Nuella is now known to him.

Kindan can keep a secret, he is taking to harpering well

Mine’s having a lot of minor accidents

And now big boss’s wife’s baby is coming early, these fuckers just cannot catch a break

Nuella and her brother switching places back and forth so she can be involved in shit. Also she has some mind for healing

Zist had a daughter at one point- Carissa. Nice name

Also the baby is fine, a month early but fine. She doesn’t have a name yet, I will keep y’all updated

Chapter 5: “A baby’s cry, a mother’s sigh; Sweet things make a day go by”

Zist, having Kindan run around the camp telling adults what they need to do: It’ll be an interesting challenge for you Kindan, Telling the big boss that Zist offered to do his administrative work: He said it would be an interesting challenge for him

Oh shit Nuella is blind! Honestly, fucking slow clap for not making a big deal of it so far

The Traders have women of rank. I know this is a second Interval story but still, worth noting. Shit hasn’t gone completely to shit for the women yet

Nuella is having a crisis because she has no information including on things like ‘women don’t have to bake or be mothers, there are in fact options’. All of this is not helped by her mother stressing out about whether little Larissa is going to go blind like her sister did. Apparently shit went downhill when she was three and now her life is stress and isolation.

Okay, so Natalon’s mother was blind, and now his daughter is blind, and he’s trying to hide it from everybody for fear people are going to think there’s something wrong with him and will stop working with them and that nobody will want to marry his son. He’s given up on Nuella marrying. I want to smack him and adopt his children out to good homes.

Kindan, age 11, starting to realize girls can in fact be cute

Also they’re disguising her so she can play at the ‘yay there’s finally some new company for a few days’ Gather

Even Tarik’s fucking cronies don’t like him!

Nuella’s parents and brother are aware she’s there. No scene will be made.

Nuella getting to dance while Zist chides Kindan about not setting up his also 11-yo friends. “They’re too young to match, and you’re too young to be a matchmaker.”

Ooo, the mysterious missing 8th apprentice was a wherhandler and decided fuck that noise. Can’t blame him, I wouldn’t want ot deal with Tarik either

The assumption is he’d rather face his master’s wrath than work there, which peeps nothign that they’d all rather die than face their own masters’ wraths, and the noting that he may well have been worried about losing his wher to all this shit. Which makes sense with how hostile Tarik has made the place for them

Chapter 6: “Cromcoal, Cromcoal, burning bright; Warm the cold of winter’s night; Cromcoal Cromcoal, underground; Where the best of all coal’s found”

They are calling a dragon to take them to someone called Aleesa for, presumably, a wher egg. We are nearly halfway through this book, by the way, which is a little fucking late to finally be bringing in the wher egg but sure, fine.

Aleesa is the handle or a gold wher. Apparently the title for that is Master. So you get Weyrwomen and Whermasters. That’s pretty cool.

Kindan sees a dragon take note of the ‘we need a dragon’ flag and “Zist listened appreciatively and guided him to crafting a better tale, so that by the end of a sevenday, Kindan’s story took a full fifteen minutes to tell and left all eyes peering up to the sky, hoping for a glimpse of their own.”

Zist has Timed It before. Apparently he accidentally spooked a dragon hatchling when he was younger and they Impressed his friend and at some point he timed it to go back and help himself fix the damage the panicked bronze did. A bronze whose rider is now a Weyrleader, by the by. He’s figuring if it seems like they’ll miss their meeting to get the egg then hopefully they can Time It to get there on time.

Telgar Weyrleader D’gan shows up a week late, bitches about it not being an emergency, talks shit about everybody and everything, is lucky to leave with his life (I’d have killed him). Zist is, I assume, about to call Benden to actually get shit done.

“So, Kindan, what did you think of your first look at a dragon?” “Oh, they’re pretty enough, but you’d never fit one in a mine.”

Benden Weyrleader M’tal, being a proper fucking dragonrider who understands what his fucking duties are, is going to get shit done

People out here respecting whers and their importance, you love to see it.

Chapter 7: “Watch-wher, watch-wher in the mine; Help save life, yours and mine; Guide us in the darkest night; With your keen unfailing sight”

Gaminth reassuring Kindan as they travel Between.

“-to keep the hatchling warm until it’s second, tougher coat came in” Do, do whers shed their skin like birds molt baby fluff? Start with soft wherlet skin and then shed that for tough wher skin? I am amazed and also that’s adorable.

So, you’ve gotta convince the gold to let you pick one of her eggs to take with you. I presume if she says no and you press the matter she eats you.

Oh gods wherhandlers blood their children to their whers! Oh my gods that’s adorable! Make the babies pack! Gods how strong is that did Dask now how many of them were dead dear gods now I’m sad again-

Talking to the queen wher, being polite, sending her mental images, Kindan is a Good Boy

Wher eggs glow! Dimly but they glow! Also good boy Kindan, compliment those eggs!

Also they are half the size of dragon eggs and have wrinkles. (I assume wher eggs are more like snake eggs at first...)

“Eeny, meeny, tipsy, teeny, ah vu bumberosha, nineteen hundred and two, I pick you.” And he gets one with a ring around it in wrinkle.

Aleesa is a fucking Queen, sending Kindan, Zist, a Weyrleader, and the big boss away with a simple “You bore me.” She does make sure to compliment Kindan on a job well done and to reinforce that she expects her payment (which she’d have gotten either way, by the way, wher eggs are pricey and you’re paying for a shot at being allowed to have one)

On the topic of feeding wherlets:

“We’ve been experimenting, actually, on the best post-hatching meal. Watch-whers are not as insatiable as dragons, but they will gulp down meat and sometimes choke, as you know.” She pinned Kindan with a fiery glare, and he nodded as if he knew exactly what she meant. “D’you have oats?”

Kindan nodded, glancing over at Natalon to be sure he was also listening to Aleesa.

“Then arrange to get fresh blood from whoever butchers at the camp. Make porridge of the oats, using water, and add the blood as the oats thicken in the pot. I’d say a half-pail a day should be sufficient. If you keep the blood cool, a pailful should last over a day or two, no trouble. Most camps or Holds slaughter every other day. Feed it was often as it wants, and some of the liver and lungs that might go to waste otherwise. Don’t start meat hunks until three months, when it has enough back teeth to chew with. You can continue with porridge feeds in the morning until the hatchling starts to coats out.”

So the fuckers don’t start with all their teeth on top of everything.

Chapter 8: “Watch-wher, watch-wher in the egg; Grant to me the boon I beg”

This delight of a child is making porridge constantly so that it’ll be ready when the bab hatches. And then when it starts hatching he immediately darts for the porridge.

Bab eats like a fucking garbage disposal

She is also currently assumed to be green and apparently whers have notable enough bits to tell sex even if you can’t be sure of color

Kindan do not call the bab ugly, she is doing her best

“Did it give you a name?” “I didn’t ask.” “It is enough like a dragon to know it’s own name?” “I don’t know.”

“She’s not as big as I thought she would be.“

“Big enough to have the appetite of nine dragons,“ Kindan, almost proudly.

This girl is adorable

The Harper followed him out to the shed and greeted Zenor, who hadn’t moved from the spot in which Kindan had left him. The hatchling had been trying to crawl up his legs, her hungry bleek more insistent.

She has been blooded but not named. Kindan is moving in with her.

Nuella you’re a doll but if you can not assume that a baby can eat whatever an adult can eat, especially when Kindan is working off the knowledge of someone who actually, ya know, has experience with this shit? It’d be great.

The bab is now named Kisk and it’s pretty apparent she named her own damn self, for all that she didn’t use words.

Kindan, in a very 11-yo moment, wonders whether the WherMaster actually knows anything about raising whers since weaning his early worked out fine

Wherlet playing, I repeat, wherlet playing, far too adorable

Kisk is going to be a good little guard, already rooting out people who are where they shouldn’t be

Tarik’s wife likes whers! And is teaching her children to like whers! As all good people should!

Cristov, son of Tarik the Dick, is trying to make up his own mind about whers and-

Kisk darted her tongue out and licked Cristov’s outstretched hand before he could pull it bac,k. She made a sad, don’t-you-like-me noise at Cristov

Tarik: *talks shit like he’s got anything going for him* His Wife: *is gonna fucking smack him if he doesn’t start with some basic decency*

Kisk keeping Kindan up all damn night

Chapter 9: “Walk, baby, walk, come to me; Soon, baby, soon, you’ll walk away from me”

And now they’re trying to say Zenor and Nuella were born and raised in the camp despite saying earlier in the book that they’d been there less than a year two years ago.

Also at 3 months Kisk is 12 hands high at the shoulder and 40 from nose to tail. Which is about 4 ft by 13 ft, and still growing.

Kindan, hit with the sudden realization that oh, yeah, being a wherhandler is going to mean not being a harper

Nuella if anything the fact Kindan can’t see in the dark and doesn’t know where he’s going is all the more reason it’d be better training for Kisk to lead him than you, who knows this tunnel like the back of her hand, blind or no

Ooo, Tarik the Dick had a camp the failed, so now he’s all sour because his nephew’s doing better than him.

M’tal is here, Telgar is still bitches (what is it with Telgar being assholes?) and whers apparently don’t have the same problems with oiling and shit dragons do despite growing far faster which makes no damn sense but sure

Whers and dragons can chat amongst themselves, to the surprise of noone, or at least not me.

Nuella’s sweet on Zenor and honestly, go for it kiddo

Kisk is starting to learn.

Chapter 10: Hot air rises, cold air falls; These are thermodynamic laws

(Fuckers expect me to believe the Pernese couldn’t keep the word ‘year’ but ‘thermodynamic’ survived)

Nuella theorizing that whers see heat because she can feel it. I want to say it’s because she’s twelve and, as kids do, thinks she knows everything, but the more I read the more I’m fairly sure it’s just that the McCaffrey’s want her to be Amazing and The Best (which, ugh) and so are just, doing this. It doesn’t work.

Dragonriders here looking for a potential goldrider (very clearly Nuella from the conversation) and lamenting that based on the dragon’s description she might be blind and therefor ‘unable to Impress’ and just- Shit that makes you wanna throw things

Ya know they did so good before they revealed Nuella is blind. She was just another kid then, it was nice, but now... I love her but my hackles are raising

Also can I just say that whers seeing heat is the stupidest thing I’ve heard yet, given everything we know about their anatomy leads to them seeing in the darkness like everything else with massive fucking eyes and a nocturnal disposition.

Operation: Teach Whers to Bespeak Dragons During Emergencies is a go

Nuella claiming that whers can’t be taught to Between because nobody can see heat like they (apparently) can and we’re to take this as gospel despite the like, second thing Dask ever did on-page being to Between on his lonesome. Did these people not have editors? It didn’t seem so bad at first but as time goes on and we get more shit that contradicts other shit (we got contradicting information within pages of each other for fuck’s sake) I am slowly losing my mind

Tarik continues to be a dick and refuses to shore up his tunnels correctly. And he wonders why he lost his fucking camp.

Kindan saw through Kisk’s eyes during hide-and-seek

Chapter 11: “Watch-wher, watch-wher, guard us all; With your dragon-summoning call”

Turns out wherhandlers don’t take well to some dragonrider coming by and trying to teach them about their whers.

Nuella is being offered the chance to go teach whers to chat with dragons.

Everyone is supportive even while she has a quick little existential breakdown that’s probably been building for a while

We skip forward to Nuella going via dragon to Lemos to start her work. Dragons like her and she takes well to Between

Wherhandlers really can’t do well learning from dragonriders because their critters are so different

Nuella is good at what she does.

There’s far too much of old men going ‘*gasp* this child suddenly reminds me of [blank] they are amazing’ though

Whers and their handlers are learning

Turns out, surprise surprise, whers are awesome

Chapter 12: “Harper, harper, sing me a song; Give me a tune that lasts all day long”

Feels like it’s trying too hard...

Tarik the Dick has caused a cave-in and now is refusing to do anything about it because he is, well, see above

There is a now a team of rescuers, mostly kids, out to save the day via secret passage and wher

Nuella: Lolanth, I need your rider to send word to the MasterMiner and also get the pumps pulling air out the mines Lolanth: I have told my rider, and called Gaminth, he and his are coming, and I’ve called Ista, they’re coming, and I’ve told the miners-

Lolanth is a Good Dragon who apparently does not go halfsies

Lolanth got everyone and their grandmother to this camp within thirty seconds

On the one hand, blind characters getting to be awesome, one the other, this is really leaning towards Magically Disabled. Nobody can hear things like Nuella can, nobody can work with whers like Nuella can, nobody is as smart as Nuella is, she’s 12 and better than the majority of the adults around her, just, if they could fucking chill for five minutes.

Also people are alive on the other side of the cave-in

Finally Kindan remembers that Dask could Between, and I promise you it’s going to turn out that he was a miracle and only Nuella (who has no idea what’s on the other side of the cave-in) can show Kisk where she needs to go

Wow, it’s like I’m magic

Chapter 13: “Watch-wher, watch-wher, do you know; All the places you can go?”

I’m glad everybody who survived the cave-in is saved but we just got a fucking paragraph “But it is I who have been blind” speech from Nuella’s father and just. Kill me, please.

And Kisk has decided to swap handlers and be Nuelsk now.

And Kindan is going off to become a Harper.

Okay, not the worst book I’ve read. There were places that needed editing, there was a lot of shit that contradicted each other (Kindan’s everchanging number of siblings just being one example), it had plenty of the McCaffrey’s trademark Totally Accurate Science, and the longer I spent reading it the more it felt like one of those ‘see, disabled people can also do things and be capable’ stories complete with a fucking “But it is I who have been blind” (literal quote, kill me now). And this shit is from 2003. On the plus side though, there’s plenty of quality wher content and the kids are fun when the writers aren’t on their little Not A Soapbox.

Overall, a 6/10, if someone wrote an anosmiac character this way I’d want their head on a stick no matter how badass they were.

#achi liveblogs #dragonriders of pern #whers #long as fuck

8 notes · View notes