This is the fourth Pern book I've read, the first three being Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon. I skipped Renegades of Pern on the advice of Amazon reviewers, and I was able to slip back into the Pern universe without any trouble at all. Really, the only thing I missed seemed to be the digging up of the nearly sentinent computer, Aivas, and within the first few pages of All the Weyrs of Pern McCaffrey begins to describe what this will mean for her planet of telepathic dragons and their riders.

Aivas is full of more knowledge than the people of Pern have held for a long time, and is more than willing to share it. Most importantly, he knows a way to eliminate Thread from Pern forever- a plan that will take nearly five Turns to play out. All the Weyrs of Pern tells the story of those five Turns. Some Holders and Craftsmen are hesitant to trust Aivas, even going so far as to refer to him as "the Abomination", and try and vandalise things the Craftsmen make as a result of Aivas's teaching.

Characters that were secondary, like Piemur and Sharra, grow in All the Weyrs of Pern, and some light is shed on some that we've known in the Pern universe for a long time, such as Masters Robinton and Fandarel. F'lessan also gets a brief chance to narrate, and his few chapters were one of my favorite parts of the entire book. Still, there was one character that continued to annoy me to no end- Jaxom.

He was spoiled and arrogant in The White Dragon, but that was easier to shrug off, as it didn't do anything to the plot. In All the Weyrs of Pern Jaxom gets even more spotlight, as his white dragon Ruth proves that his good qualities far outweigh the bad. Jaxom seems to take this as a reason to be openly haughty to characters like Lessa and F'lar, and you can't help but wonder how he gets away with it, especially when he turns around and orders Ruth not to "show off", exactly what he himself is doing. It's annoying the no one can seem to do anything without Jaxom and Ruth's help, and how Jaxom somehow ends up as the leader of sorts of Landing. What made him so much more capable than the other young characters that were also learning from Aivas? At least back in The White Dragon I didn't care about Sharra...now it seems that Jaxom doesn't even deserve her.

All the Weyrs of Pern leaned more closely towards science fiction than fantasy, unlike most of the Pern books before it. Since McCaffrey considers her works as science fiction, this is to be expected, and I didn't mind. Though this wasn't my favorite Pern book, it was a very nice closing to the former Pern era, with flying Threadfall as the main plot point. I'm looking forward to reading The Skies of Pern, and seeing what happens next.

I read this book right after Dragonsdown, and I found it really good. It shows you quite a different background from the Pern Series, but it is nevertheless a really good book in which old Pern and today Pern meet to give birth to a new Pern. I suggest it to every fan of the Dragonriders.

This is a better follow up to the Original Dragonrider series overall than the Renegades of Pern. It focuses on the attempts of most of the major characters from the original Dragonriderand Harper Hall series to alter the course of the red star to end the threat of thread for future generations with the help from AIVAS, the intelligent computer undearthed at the original settlers' landing area. It jumps around between characters a lot like Renegades, but it has a more cohesive story line. The ending is poignant and somehow fitting.

The only complaint is that there are some inconsistencies between this and the earlier books and also even within the books. For instance, Jancis and Piemur share their first passionate embrace (and perhaps a bit more) literally only a day or two before they help to unearth Aivas in Renegades. Yet in the opening scene of All the Weyrs (which is a continuation of the closing scene of Renegades), everyone knows them as a couple. Also, Jancis is a Journeywoman smith at the end of Renegades, but is introduced as a master in the opening chapter of All the Weyrs. Later people refer to her as a Journeywoman again and later again as a master. That seems like something that should have been caught by editing.

There are some other inconsistencies as well. In earlier books (Dragonquest and the White Dragon) it was impled that all dragons could travel in time if their riders knew when they were going and could visualize it (and the visualizations were often pretty vague like the rainforests of Nerat at Dawn in Dragonflight). Later it was suggested that some dragons (like Ruth) were better at doing it on their own intuition, but it was still implied that all dragons, even inexperienced ones, could do it if their riders knew when they were going. N'Ton even said in the White Dragon that "He didn't know of a weyrling who didn't use that trick occasionally to be on time somewhere." In All the Weyrs it is implied that only some of the bronzes and queens (and Ruth) could time it at all unless given very clear coordinates by another dragon with a good time sense and in fact, they were kept in the dark about the fact that they were timing it during some of their missions to the red star (even though this draconic ability was no secret thanks to Lessa's adventures in Dragonflight). Aside from this bing different from what was implied in earlier books, there is a bit of an elitist notion that crops up from time to time in these books of "only telling most people what they really need to know" that is a little irksome to me, but that is a personal bias. Interestingly, this societal predilection is also blamed in the books for the loss of so much of the ancients' knowledge, so maybe this dilemma is not lost on the author.

One question I have is that in the earlier books it was implied that the "red star" stayed in the inner soalr system (and was quite visible) spinning out thread for the entire 50 year pass. McCaffrey changed it so that the Red Star came in and out somewhat more quickly but left thread ovoids behind crossing Pern's orbit. Neither explanation is completely satisying from a astronomical view as comets and with siliar periods are in and out of the inner planetary area within a few months and Pern's orbit would only intersect the path of the red star a couple of times per year at most. But some scientific license is needed in most science fiction books.

Still it is a good book that should satisfy Pern fans. It is not a good book for someone who hasn't already read all or most of the earlier Pern books, however, but that is the case with later books in most series.

Another wonderful tale, continuing to enlarge the world of Pern. The characters are vivid, the story line holds true, and the saga continues.

I recommend this book to anyone who has read the first few books in the series, and I recommend the series to anyone who likes to read. McCaffrey's writing style is very unique, and she knows how to keep you interested. She will give seemingly minor details, and then tie them all together in the end. She talks about some person mixing glass and having it explode in his face. Later, he becomes one of the most experienced glassmakers. Minor characters that are mentioned once or twice can become key players within fifty pages. The book starts slowly, but once everything is in place it becomes impossible to put down.