Dragons, Privateering and waiting for packages

I have just finished reading Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsdawn, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It is about the colonisation of Pern, set around two thousand years before the other Pern books I have read. It was a page-turner and a wonderful read, full of suspense and exciting events. I suddenly understood much more of the names of the places in the books set to later millennia. This book was more of a science fiction book than the Dragonriders trilogy (the ones set in later milennia), with interplanetary travel, colonisation of new worlds and a lot of interesting technology. It appears that the people of Pern lose their sophisticated science and technology in later generations, and revert to something of a medieval system.

The omnibus containing Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey,
Privateering by Mark Knopfler, and autumn trees outside

I thoroughly enjoy both the time periods and, more than anything, Anne McCaffrey's writing. Her style and technique is wonderful and draws you into the story. I have become accustomed with following several characters at once, and I really like the way it gives me a bigger picture of what's going on. Well, in short, the books about Pern by Anne McCaffrey are highly recommended. I recommend starting with the Dragonriders trilogy for an exciting introduction to Pern and the dragonriders, but I guess you could start with Dragonsdawn too, if you want to read the books in chronological order.

Since I last posted, Privateering (the new album from Mark Knopfler) has come in the mail. I was told by Amazon that it would arrive about a week after the release, but I was anxiously waiting for a full two weeks, trying not to spoil myself by listening to it on Spotify. I was very happy when it finally arrived in my post box. I have been listening to it a lot, and some of my favourites are 'Dream of the Drowned Submariner', 'Go, Love', 'Yon Two Crows' and the two pre-releases 'Redbud Tree' and 'Privateering'. I love the album, and the fact that there are two discs and a total of 20 songs makes the whole thing really wonderful.

Talking of waiting for things to arrive in the mail, 'The Casual Vacancy' by J. K. Rowling has finally been published. Once again, Amazon tells me that it will arrive a week after the release, which means I could have it by the coming friday. But if my last experience tells me anything, it is not to trust the estimates amazon gives. So I will have to be patient and try not to expect it before friday in almost two weeks. Which is hard, considering that I have already seen the book in a bookshop. Actually, I saw it in a new and wonderful bookshop here in Trondheim called Bookstars. It is a combined bookshop and coffee bar, and they have decided to drop all the other things, and focus entirely on books. I like their concept very much, and I have already added it to the list of places to visit when I'm in town shopping. A perfect place (a little difficult, though) to practice not buying books.

Autumn has really begun here, with vibrantly coloured trees and a heightened need for tea, blankets and a good book. I am going to enjoy the season sitting in my favourite reading spot with tea and books about dragons and small villages in England. And maybe with some soothing music from Mark Knopfler in the background. All this, of course, in between all the other things I will be busy doing.

A new family of animals

This is a relatively diverse family, with big differences in colour and size. The genera can be separated by close observation, but this is not usually convenient  to manage. The species can only be identified by experts and connoisseurs. The animals in this family are highly structured in their habits, and these differ throughout the year. The juvenile animals go into hibernation during the winter, while the adult ones simply change habits.

These animals change morphologically throughout the year, with different anterior and/or posterior protrusions marking the different stages. The stages differ from species to species and according to environmental factors. An animal can sometimes revert to a previous stage during a season.

The mating protrusion varies between species, but during the laying of the eggs, the animal devours all available food in its territory. This is necessary to make many large eggs, which are lain uniformly distributed on the whole of the animal's territory at the end of july and the beginning of august in places with clearly defined seasons, but this can vary according to geographical position. After a while, the animal gathers the eggs, which can vary in colour - some observed colours are green, grey, white, and black - in highly structured collections. The eggs are short cylindrical, and are lain on their side. They are not incubated, and hatch evenly throughout the winter, seldom any two at the same time from the same batch. The young animal is small, and therefore goes into hibernation until it is sexually mature, which takes about five years. Relatively few animals survive their first and second winter, usually due to hunger or neglect.

These animals are hermaphroditic, and most of them, when it is too far from the closest individual of the same species, uses self-fertilisation. The complications of this are insignificant for the animal's health. The adult's winter morphology includes an anterior mouth part which is used to eat or move snow, which is its main food during the winter. Some species can have a posterior protrusion for the dispersal of excrement or for camouflaging its trails.

These animals have in recent times been bred to need regular interaction with humans, which is why wild specimens of this family are rare. They are kept as domestic animals. It is unusual that one family owns more than three, as they can be demanding and need large territories with a lot of available food. They are herbivores during the egg-laying, but at other times they can eat humus (especially in the spring and autumn) or snow (during the winter season). Some examples of genera are John Deere and Kubota.


As you can understand, I have been brainwashed this summer...