recent reading: 2/3 of the Harper Hall trilogy
Jul. 10th, 2025 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
castironWhen I read a print book that I own, I write the date I finished the read inside the back cover. That's how I know it's been almost exactly 19 years since I last reread Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, the first two books in the Harper Hall trilogy in McCaffrey's Pern universe.
The story is about Menolly, a musically gifted girl from an isolated fishing village who escapes from her unsupportive family and through luck and her own talent ends up as a rare female apprentice in the Harper Hall (and forms a mental bond with nine fire lizards in the process). It's classic YA "misfit kid finds their place", "modest protag turns out to have superior abilities", and "girl proves she's just as good as the boys".
As a high school student immersed in band and orchestra, I adored these books. I reread them over and over and over. I took them with me to the music camp I went to for three summers; being at that camp felt like what I thought living in the Harper Hall must be like.
Decades later, I still enjoy them. It's nice to escape into a world where people love making music together and you might Impress a fire lizard as a bonus. The Suck Fairy's treated these well; they're not free of problematic aspects, but the books don't have the dubcon/noncon/draconids-made-me-do-it material that a lot of the other Pern books have (indeed, that Dragondrums, the third in the triology has). They're adolescent wish fulfilment, overall done well.
(I don't have a copy of Dragondrums that I know of; if I did, it got purged. Piemur's fun as a side character but isn't who I want to spend a book with.)
The story is about Menolly, a musically gifted girl from an isolated fishing village who escapes from her unsupportive family and through luck and her own talent ends up as a rare female apprentice in the Harper Hall (and forms a mental bond with nine fire lizards in the process). It's classic YA "misfit kid finds their place", "modest protag turns out to have superior abilities", and "girl proves she's just as good as the boys".
As a high school student immersed in band and orchestra, I adored these books. I reread them over and over and over. I took them with me to the music camp I went to for three summers; being at that camp felt like what I thought living in the Harper Hall must be like.
Decades later, I still enjoy them. It's nice to escape into a world where people love making music together and you might Impress a fire lizard as a bonus. The Suck Fairy's treated these well; they're not free of problematic aspects, but the books don't have the dubcon/noncon/draconids-made-me-do-it material that a lot of the other Pern books have (indeed, that Dragondrums, the third in the triology has). They're adolescent wish fulfilment, overall done well.
(I don't have a copy of Dragondrums that I know of; if I did, it got purged. Piemur's fun as a side character but isn't who I want to spend a book with.)
(no subject)
Jul. 8th, 2025 08:26 pmtwistedchickIn the category of continuing COVID side effects, add the inability to taste strawberries properly.
I realize the berries available locally or in the non-chain market where we shop aren't going to be the ones I used to eat up north, but the ones this year were so acidic and unsweet that I couldn't eat an entire bowl. They were making my stomach turn over. They weren't that way last year, so I can only assume it's another COVID side effect.
I used to eat a quart a day when I grew my own, up north.
This is just disappointing.
I realize the berries available locally or in the non-chain market where we shop aren't going to be the ones I used to eat up north, but the ones this year were so acidic and unsweet that I couldn't eat an entire bowl. They were making my stomach turn over. They weren't that way last year, so I can only assume it's another COVID side effect.
I used to eat a quart a day when I grew my own, up north.
This is just disappointing.
