Though I think this is not as good as Anne's previous novels but it's not by much! THis novel takes you back in time to an earlier Pern to tell you the story of one of Pern's great heroine, Moreta. She is mentioned in Dragonflight as a weyrwoman from Ruatha and could speak to all dragons. But in this book she is from Keroon and she could only speak to 3 dragons- her queen dragon Orlith, and the two queens Holth and Tamianth. This is in fact a tragic and romantic story about Fort Weyr's weyrwoman. She is brave and daring.

She was not as fortunate as Lessa for her weyrmate, Fort's weyrleader, Sh'gall does not love her the way F'lar loves Lessa. At that time Pern is attacked by a deadly plague, which is the flu, as well as thread. Moreta does her best in organize her weyr to fight against the sickness. She also heals injured dragons along the way. This book introduces a new set of characters, including the Masterhealer Campiam, Masterharper Tirone, lord holder Alessan, Oklina, Leri, Sh'gall and more wyerleaders craftsman and of course dragons. Moreta developes a relationship with Alessan and helps with vaccinating human and runnerbeasts alike.

This is a touching, romantic story with a somewhat sad ending to this great tale of Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern.

Or maybe "Dragonflight"? It's really close, either way. This is a beautiful book! Interesting, tragic, epic, romantic, beautiful, it's a nice breather from the escapades of F'lar and Lessa and really adds depth to the whole series. It's like an historical novel, in a sense. Moreta is an awesome heroine. Wow--a McCaffrey heroine who's blonde and is neither drippy nor evil! In just one novel, McCaffrey brings a lot of characters to life. Alessan, Moreta, Capiam, Leri, K'lon, (especially) B'lerion, and the dragons themselves are very real, without being retreads of old characters as McCaffrey has a tendency toward. A plague ravages Pern...an interesting and unusual gimmick for a sci-fi. At it's heart I think this book is a sweet, poignant, tragic love story on several levels: between Moreta and Lord Alessan, between a Weyrwoman and her dragon, between readers and a fascinating and beautiful world and its denizens. Recommended highly!!

I found Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern a nice change from the other Dragonrider novels. Moreta is not stunningly beautiful like Lessa, and she's not a Benden Weyrwoman. She's from Fort, and she doesn't like her weyrmate, she respects him, but does not consider him a possible soulmate. And the fact that Leri was a competent Weyrwoman and feisty even in what seem to be the last few years of her life, is a delightfuly different situation. Lessa and F'lar (much as I love them) seemed annoyingly perfect, and Moreta is very different. I liked the minor characters here too, Oklina was enjoyable, and MasterHealer Capiam was quite interesting as well, B'lerion and Desdra were amusing, as were the different stages of harpering-very funny. I think one of my favorite characters in this particular book was K'lon, because we so rarely see any of the less important riders, seeing bits of the story through a bluerider's eyes is very refreshing. The only thing I didn't like was the rather predictable romace between Moreta and Alessan, frankly, that annoyed me. Though the fact that Moreta had the bad taste to fall in love with a Lord Holder was another nice change from Anne McCaffrey's typical Weyrwoman. And the book had me in tears at the end, it was so sad!
I strongly suggest you read it, Pern fan or not. Though obviously, a member of the latter category wont enjoy it nearly as much as a member of the former. ^_^

This book is superficial and sometimes downright silly. Hart devotes an entire chapter to "understanding your writing style" with the pop-psychology Myers-Briggs personality types.

This is the best book I've read on how to match your personality preferences for a comfortable fit to the character of any job within the computer industry. I rate this book a #10, the best, if you're trying to match your deep feelings of comfort to the job duties in any niche of the computer industry.I loved the book and highly recommend it to my students who must make career decisions based on comfortable fit of their feelings and comfort level into the exacting job task niches in the wide computer industry. V. Sharma Calcutta

This is a good book that I definitely needed to read! Here was I...downsized out the door...two journalism degrees...feeling trashed...in my forties...licking my burnt paws...Ouch! Today I am pumped up because this book confirms that I truly do have a journalistic future, and, more importantly, as a wise, loyal advisor, it blueprints for me the way in which I should go. Now it's steady on course, full speed ahead!

--Rox Vanguard, freelance scriptwriter/producer

This book is filled with purposely precocious poetic imagery in what appears to be an overt attempt to create a "Great Novel" in the guise of a fantasy motif. In actuality, the dialogue is disjointed and meaningless. Sentence structures and historical realities are fractured with reckless abandon on almost every page. Anacronisms abound, even to the alarm of casual readers who would expect a work of historical fiction from the title. The vague and wandering thematic content never took any discernable direction. Frankly, this book caused me, a life-long book lover, to do something I've never done before: I threw it in the trash after reading only 50 pages (out of 175). The fictional potential of the unique Dark Ages empire of the Khazars deserves much better. Is there any way I can give this book NO stars?

I couldn't put this thriller down. I had to read it all night long. What an adventure in time. Great novel.

This novel is terrific, a great book and a feminist classic. It is not for men, for it empowers women with immortality against the tides of time, and allows strong women, powerful heroines to take part in the founding and running of their country against the anti-feminist backlash of their men. I rate this book highest, and of interest to women seeking power over their powerlessness in a society that traded in bartered brides, disallowed women to preach spirituality, and set women free as widows of war to absorb their loss or take their slaps like a soldier and never make a sound.

I highly recommend this book to women as a feminist classic, about women who seek power through immortality and time travel and who seek to do something about their losses beyond assuaging by seeking righteouness. The book is about young women born of royalty that is sent into exile who when going back in time can rule their lands and go out to teach rather than to preach and who become healers of the mind, body, and soul. It is a wonderful but, for women. I doubt men would see the depth in it, but it is a feminist classic set in the 10th century and moving by time travel into the present day and into the WW Two era, and back again to medieval times when women had little say, except for the two heroines in this book and the men in their lives from whom they seek acceptance . A wonderful book, again, for women, but most likely to be torn down by men. This book is a breath of fresh air and inspiration for all women who have been beaten down by men and who need to take charge of their lives and move forward--in this case--through time, war, to the freedom to heal the wounds of the world. A wonderful book for young women.

Just a heads-up warning: Anne Hart makes her living by writing "books that sell" not by writing on topics about which she is an expert, or even about topics with which she has sufficient experience. She lists her 30 most recent self-published books in the back of this one--and one of her titles was "Writing Books that Sell." Does this sound like a credible author to you?!

The title of this book is grossly misleading and in fact barely one page in 10 makes reference to legitimate scientific data--or even to the scientists who supposedly "speak out". Her research was poorly conducted and even more poorly analyzed. She spends several chapters on topics which have no business being including in this book--namely, "creating a scrapbook" (where one sentence out of pages of text refers to DNA), and "beginning genealogy research." In the latter, she repeatedly does those readers who haven't done any genealogy reserach, a great disservice by misdirecting them on methods of locating a woman's maiden name. She suggests ordering birth records. How, pray tell, does one order a birth record for a person whose maiden name is unknown?! Ask the county clerk for copies of every record of a child born on a given date? Please!

While I applaud the use of the Internet as a means of self-publishing, one should not use it as a shortcut around publishing in a professional manner. Within the first seven pages of text, I found a dozen errors (typographical, spelling, grammar, and punctuation), which even a blind (but not deaf) editor would catch. Ms. Hart's writing style leads one to believe she published the book as it was first written--a draft version in which no thought was given to logical chapter order (definitions and explanations of DNA and genes can be found somewhere around page 110). She spends five pages telling you, disjointedly, four different times how she was beaten up on a train just for her "ethnic appearance"--uh, why would readers care? We DON'T!

Please, do not ... [buy] this book. There is so little of value in it, and very little of use from the actual scientists, for whom I have the greatest respect. Instead, buy a book written by the actual scientists themselves--or at least someone with scientific credentials. Ms. Hart graciously states at one point that, "being 61 years old, I had choice of either spending my days crocheting at the senior center, or writing a book about DNA." She writes DNA detective stories--again self-published through iUniverse press. I'm sorry, but that's certainly not enough credentials for me! I plan to ask [Amazon.com] for refund.

I agree with the previous reviewer. More information is need in this book to match the title. Information about STRs and DNA techniques for the non-specialist is given in "How to DNA test our family relationships." ISBN 0966402715 This book explains in detail how to read an STR report for genealogy/paternity testing purposes.

This is by far the best book on how to interpret DNA test results for family history and ancestry. Also see the author's other books on various ethnic DNA, such as Ashkenazi and other groups. I use this book with my students because it has a dictionary of DNA terms at the back and a whole section on ancestry and DNA. This is part of a four-book series on DNA for beginners by the author and is outstandingly the best book on the subject because it goes into detail on ethnic DNA. I highly recommend it to my beginning students in molecular genealogy, oral history, genealogy, and DNA/human genetics studies as well as anthropology. A book understandable by all ages and levels of background.

A biography of Agatha Christie's female lead, Jane Marple. Fairly well written, as far as it goes, which is, naturally, no further than Christie went. Hart does not invent anything, barely speculates on the information we don't have given in the canon of half a dozen novels and a dozen or more short stories. Rather than a biography, even one of a fictional character, this is more of a systematisation (is that the word i want?) of the given information. As such, it is interesting to learn how unsystematic Christie was; Miss Marple changed over the years, and i had never previously realised just how much, how inconsistent some of the stories are. If i want information about Miss Marple ~ or St. Mary Mead ~ this is the book to turn to (other than reading blindly in the canon); if i'm looking for interesting speculations or character development on Christie's invention, this is not it.

This book, originally published in 1976 is just to dated I.M.O. for anybody looking to cruise the caribbean. I must admit I don't know of any other book that covers all of the carribean the way this one does, but I would rather spend my money on more up to date guides. Would I buy again? NO.