Dragonseye, Anne McCaffrey
Lately, I've noticed that a lot of writers who have been writing in the same world for a long time have let their worlds get stale. They use the same characters, in the same situations, with the same plots. I'm glad to say Anne McCaffrey has broken this pattern in her new novel Dragonseye, set on her best-known created world of Pern.
Most of the Pern novels have taken place in the same time period. McCaffrey has started to write the newer Pern novels in a more "historical" setting, far removed from the time of her best-known characters. This only makes the newer work better, as the reader is not preconditioned to expect the actions and reactions of the characters.
Dragonseye is set 200 years after the first fall of Thread on Pern. Thread is a destructive organism, and dragons have been engineered as the solution to this destruction. The entire population of Pern is preparing for Threadfall...except for the stubborn, disbelieving Lord Chalkin of Bitra. His obstinance could cause doom for his people and a shattering of the Pernese political structure. At the same time, a new clutch of dragons is hatching and a group of scholars is solving the problems of technological breakdown and educational reform.
This book should be on the wantlist of every Pern fan. It's a welcome change from the first books of the series, and it serves equally well as a political thriller. My only complaint is in the fact that even though some of the characters are very interesting, especially the teachers, the Weyrleaders are stereotypical. If you've seen one Weyrleader from a previous book, you've seen them all. Fortunately, the two major ones in Dragonseye are far from the only viewpoint characters.