It's readable, but there's just nothing really memorable about this story. Same formula with a nasty Lord Holder, no one believes in Thread, etc. None of the dragonriders make an impression (pun intended) on the reader. There seems to be some ret-conning because in this story there are female dragonriders who are not riding queens, I do not believe I've seen that before. However, it's 200 years before the original and obviously the culture has gone a bit backward in that time. They don't even remember paper. But the older I get the less I believe in the whole setup. There cannot be a planet where all life on land is wiped away every couple hundred years - because after all, before the colonists arrived that's what would have happened, grubs or no. Well no point in getting picky, this series was never aimed at grumpy old ladies, and when I was a teen I loved it.
This is one in a long line of excellent stories by A. McCaffrey. Listening to it helps to make the characters even more believable.
