This tension comes to a head when F’nor stops an attempt at extortion by two thuggish dragonriders getting stabbed in the process, and though this does leave F’nor a chance to recover at southern weyr in the hands of the kindly Brekke, it also requires F’lar and Lessa to play a delicate political game balancing the arrogance of the old timers, and the simmering resentment of the lords holder who too rapidly forget the debt they owe the weyr folk, not to mention the political machinations of the ambitious Weyrwoman Kylara and her consort Lord Meron. Unfortunately, the Oldtimers as the dragonriders from the past are known, come from a Pern four hundred turns distant, a time when the weyrs commanded far more power and privilege than they do now and held themselves aloof from the rest of Pern society. The book takes place seven years/turns after Lessa’s Heroic journey through time to bring the five lost weyrs of dragonriders into Pern’s future to counter the alien thread. Note that if like my thirteen year old self you also stumble on this Dragonquest review unawares I will be discussing Dragonflight spoilers. Returning twenty two years and a lot of reading and life experience later, I hope to give it a fairer showing this time around. This is perhaps why it didn’t have as much of an impact upon me then as it might’ve done. Though I did then read Dragonflight, due to the vagaries of library services it was actually a few Pern books later that I got back to Dragonquest. Dragonquest was the first Dragonriders book I ever ran across, albeit not the first I ever read since only a glance at the introduction showed thirteen year old me that the book was part of a series.

The last thing he needs by jh knight