This page collects our Season 1 reading recommendations in one convenient location, sorted by episode! For Season 2 recs, see here.
Main episodes
Episode 1: Dragonflight (1968)
If you’re interested in stories about ugly and violent revenge involving magic and power fantasy and the messy ways in which society can turn in on itself, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Blood Debts, by Terry J. Benton-Walker.
If you’re interested in some of the theoretical questions McCaffrey’s world-building is interested in (power, gender, sex and sexuality, social organization), Lleu recommends Samuel R. Delany’s Return to Nevèrÿon series (first book Tales of Nevèrÿon), the second book of which (Neveryóna) is in fact dedicated to McCaffrey and includes an homage to Lessa’s first ride on Ramoth.
If you’re interested in violent revenge stories with complicated romantic relationships in which power dynamics are going back and forth at fast pace, Tequila Mockingbird recommends The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage (重生之将门毒后), a webnovel by Qian Shan Cha Ke (千山茶客).
Episode 2: Dragonquest (1971)
If you liked these complicated political tensions and people trying frantically to avert giant, potentially world-ending political crises, as well as the ideas about social transformation, with some wild sexual politics and interesting ideas about alien gender and sexuality (and multiple explicitly gay characters), Lleu recommends Eleanor Arnason’s Ring of Swords.
If you’re interested in a tortured, messy, ugly female villain whose psychological decline is compelling and tragic, and at the same time you also want to watch her get her face stomped into the dirt, Tequila Mockingbird recommends the animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, because Azula is so much better than Kylara in every possible way.
Episode 3: Dragonsong (1976)
Surprise: we pretty wholeheartedly recommend reading Dragonsong itself! If you only read one book in the series, it should be this one.
If you like(d) stories where a child feels misunderstood at home and so runs away and lives in the wilderness satisfactorily, Tequila Mockingbird also recommends Mandy, by Julie Andrews (yes, that Julie Andrews).
Episode 4: Dragonsinger (1977)
If you enjoyed Dragonsong, we would also recommend (though with some reservations, especially re (dis)ability) Dragonsinger as a companion and immediate sequel.
If you’re interested in the way Dragonsinger immerses you in a community of musicians — and especially if you’ve ever written a dissertation, or a novel — Lleu much more heartily recommends Patricia A. McKillip’s The Bards of Bone Plane.
If you’re interested in more of a school story about a character entering an academic community and building a social community for themselves there, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Claribel Ortega’s Witchlings series (first book Witchlings).
If you’re interested in stories about characters who by rights should be Mary Sues but are effectively hamstrung by their trauma-induced profound self-doubt, Lleu suggests you consider Tamora Pierce’s Immortals quartet (first book Wild Magic) alongside Menolly.
Episode 5: The White Dragon (1978)
If you’re interested in a space archaeology story that engages critically with colonialism and the relationship between past and present / history and new technology, Lleu recommends Leigh Brackett’s short story “The Road to Sinharat” (available through Project Gutenberg), published in her short fiction collection The Coming of the Terrans.
If you wanted a science fiction coming-of-age story whose protagonist isn’t trapped by the narrative, Lleu recommends Samuel R. Delany’s Nova.
If you’re interested in a coming-of-age story that engages more substantively with questions of identity, sexuality, and race, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Mark Oshiro’s Anger Is a Gift.
Episode 6: Dragondrums (1979)
If you were interested in a coming-of-age narrative about a young person coming into a new world and going on a coming-of-age quest to figure out their identity and their role while dealing with a complicated relationship with a somewhat dubious mentor figure, Tequila Mockingbird recommends two books:
Dhonielle Clayton’s The Marvellers
Graci Kim’s The Last Fallen Star
If you were interested in a critique of narratives about a person arriving in a new world and setting out to reestablish civilization from first principles, Lleu recommends Joanna Russ’s We Who Are About To..., a sharp takedown of the Robinsonade genre.
Episode 7: Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern (1983)
Surprise! If you have read some Pern books but haven’t read Moreta, we think it’s really good and weorth reading! If you haven’t already read any Pern, it’s probably not worth starting just for Moreta, and we don’t think it will work as well on its own, unfortunately.
If you’re interested in stories about living through a pandemic, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Ling Ma’s Severance.
If you’re interested in stories about rapid cultural change, epidemic (though not pandemic), and loss of historical and cultural knowledge, Lleu recommends Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk’s Sanaaq (translated by Peter Frost from Bernard Saladin d’Anglure’s French translation).
Episode 8: Nerilka’s Story (1985)
If you’re interested in an actual romance novel with a historical setting, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Courtney Milan’s The Countess Conspiracy and The Devil Comes Courting.
If you’re interested in heavily-implied lesbians during a major political crisis, with a real grasp of the relationship between history and present, Lleu recommends Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Episode 9: Dragonsdawn (1988) (part 1)
If you’re interested in literature actually by Irish Travellers, Lleu encourages you to check out Oein DeBhairduin’s short story collection Why the Moon Travels.
If you’re interested in stories about planetary colonization, racism, and societies in crisis, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Emma Newman’s Planetfall.
If you’re interested in a post-war society dealing with its trauma and confronting a crisis that brings that trauma to the fore, Tequila also recommends the film Godzilla Minus One.
If you like Godzilla movies and/or the idea of Godzilla, Lleu also suggests checking out Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again, a pair of short novels (published in one volume) by Kayama Shigeru, who wrote the screenplay for the original Godzilla movie.
Episode #10: Dragonsdawn (1988) (part 2)
If you are looking for a story about a community in space dealing with crisis and the ways that that can fracture or bring people closer together, and the way that it fundamentally changes a society, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Mary Anne Mohanraj’s The Stars Change.
If what seemed compelling was the portion at the beginning of this book, where we have our young protagonists exploring a new planet together and discovering fire lizards and being a little mini-slice of a mini middle grade novel, Tequila also recommends O.T. Nelson’s The Girl Who Owned a City.
If you’re interested in a story about an agrarian space colony that is dysfunctional in a variety of ways, and what it does when it encounters some kind of political crisis due to an outside force that challenges the fundamental premises of the community, Lleu recommends Sofia Samatar’s novella “Fallow,” published in her short story collection Tender.
Episode #11: The Renegades of Pern (1989)
If you’re looking for a story that touches on many of the same beats and plot elements as Renegades but better, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Zen Cho’s story of nuns and bandits, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water.
If you’re looking for a story about actually recognizing the ideological bankruptcy of a system and setting out to destroy it, Lleu recommends Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire trilogy (first book Ninefox Gambit).
If you’re interested in a story about an itinerant community actually by a member of an (until recently) itinerant community, Lleu also again recommends Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk’s Sanaaq (translated by Peter Frost from Bernard Saladin d’Anglure’s French translation).
Episode #12: All the Weyrs of Pern (1991)
If you’re interested in a story about an entity from the distant past attempting to reintegrate into (and manipulate) the present, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Saad Z. Hossain’s The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, which does also feature an artificial intelligence attempting to shape human society.
If you’re interested in a story that actually engages with issues of unfree labor and the lies a society must construct in order to ideologically maintain structural inequality, Lleu recommends Elizabeth A. Lynn’s The Sardonyx Net.
Episode #13: The Dolphins of Pern (1994)
If you’re interested in a story about first contact with an alien being, the at times willful misunderstandings that emerge from this, and multispecies interactions, Lleu recommends C.J. Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur.
If you’re interested in a story about reestablishing contact (and determining the best way to go about this), Tequila Mockingbird recommends Rivers Solomon’s The Deep, about mermaids descended from pregnant enslaved women thrown overboard from slave ships who are considering reestablishing contact with land-dwelling humans.
If you’re interested in a story about fleeing an oppressive community and having to decide whether to live by oneself or to return to that society in order to change it, Tequila also recommends Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland.
Episode #14: Red Star Rising/Dragonseye (1996/1997), part 1
If you’re interested in a classic sci-fi story where gay love actually takes center stage (albeit bittersweetly), Lleu recommends Elizabeth A. Lynn’s A Different Light.
If you’re interested in a story about the interrelations of class, race, education, and power, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain (Lleu also recommends this, as he recommends all of Samatar’s work).
Episode #15: Red Star Rising/Dragonseye (1996/1997), part 2
If you’re interested in a story that engages critically with the sexual politics of “good girls” and “bad girls,” women exercising sexual agency, and (re)connecting through the arts, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Eloisa James’s Your Wicked Ways.
If you’re interested in a story about the entanglements of education, race, class, gender, and sexuality and the ways all of these are shaped by their social and political context, Lleu recommends Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater.
Episode #16: The Masterharper of Pern (1998)
If you’re interested in a story about the performing arts (drama, in this case), tyranny, and revolution, Lleu recommends C.L. Moore’s classic dystopian novel Doomsday Morning.
If you’re interested in a Bildunsgroman-type narrative following an artist over the course of her career through social and political changes, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Andrea Hairston’s Will Do Magic for Small Change and Archangels of Funk.
(These are books two and three of a trilogy; book one, Redwood and Wildfire, is also excellent but doesn’t match up as closely and follows different characters — the latter two books can be read separately.)
Episode #17: The Skies of Pern (2001), part 1
If you’re interested in a story with a more nuanced portrayal of protest movements going to “extremes,” and/or in a story that gives a bit more depth to the kind of family dynamic F’lar, Lessa, and F’lessan have going on, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation.
If you’re interested in a book about complex plots and counter-plots, conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, that’s navigating the future of technology and the tensions between progressive and reactionary social forces and attitudes, Lleu recommends (with some caveats) Marietta S. Shaginyan’s Yankees in Petrograd, newly retranslated by Jill Roese.
Episode #18: The Skies of Pern (2001), part 2
If you’re interested in a story about changing social, political, and technological systems over an extended period of time, from early industrialization to the near future, as well as a novel thinking about sexual violence, consent, and violence in general, Lleu recommends Jewelle Gomez’s classic Black lesbian vampire novel The Gilda Stories.
If you’re interested in natural disasters and the effects of natural disasters on communities, particularly economically and socially marginalized ones, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Sarah M. Broom’s nonfiction book The Yellow House, about the house owned by her mother and several generations of her mother’s family in New Orleans East.
Episode #19: “Weyr Search” (1967)
If you’re interested in a story playing with the boundaries between science fiction and fantasy, Lleu recommends Elizabeth A. Lynn’s short story “The Gods of Reorth.”
Bonus episodes
Bonus Episode #6: “The Girl Who Heard Dragons” (1986)
If you’re interested in a young person being kidnapped by their family to serve a cause that they ultimately find themselves rebelling against, Lleu recommends Elaine Cuyegkeng’s “These Constellations Will Be Yours.”
Lleu recommends Kim Sung-il’s Blood of the Old Kings (translated by Anton Hur).
Special guest onlysunscreen recommends Laurie J. Marks’s Fire Logic (the first book in her Elemental Logic series). (Lleu also recommends this.)
Bonus Episode #8: “Rescue Run” (1991)
If you’re looking for a story about the sole survivor of a war making do, and also killing fascists, Lleu recommends Sascha Stronach’s short story “Tomorrow, Dawn.”
If you’re looking for a story about women’s agency and betrayal by a mentor or paternal figure, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Garth Nix’s short story “Hope Chest,” published in Across the Wall.
Bonus Episode #10: “The Survey: P.E.R.N.c” (1993)
If you’re interested in a story about a horrific environmental catastrophe coincidentally terraforming a planet to make it suitable for colonization, à la Thread eliminating large land-dwelling animals and predators, Lleu recommends the classic film Pacific Rim (2013).
Bonus Episode #11: “The Dolphins’ Bell” (1993)
If you’re interested in a story about crisis management (but with more mystery) and a boat, Lleu recommends Kim Changgyu’s short story “Our Banished World,” published in the anthology Readymade Bodhisattva, loosely based on the Sewol ferry disaster and following a group of high school students trying to figure out why all the adults in their lives have begun to act very strangely.
Bonus Episode #12: “The Ford of Red Hanrahan” (1993)
If you’re interested in a story about a group of people coming together during/out of a crisis to form a community and build something new, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Naomi Kritzer’s short story “The Year Without Sunshine.”
If you’re interested in a story about community and utopia — what makes something a utopia, from whose perspective, and who needs utopia, Lleu recommends Sofia Samatar’s short story “An Account of the Land of Witches.”
Bonus Episode #13: “The Second Weyr” (1993)
If you’re interested in a story about a romance with some stalkery vibes that intentionally engages with that aspect, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Aliette de Bodard’s In the Vanisher’s Palace, a lesbian “Beauty and the Beast” story where the beast is a dragon.
Bonus Episode #14: A Literary History of Dragon(rider)s
If you’re interested in an unsettling but compelling take on the idea of talking companion animals, Lleu recommends Kij Johnson’s short story “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change,” published in her short story collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees.
If you’re just looking for a solid book with dragons to recommend to kids in lieu of Pern, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.
Bonus Episode #15: “Runner of Pern” (1998)
If you’re interested in a story about laborers banding together to address a (more interesting and also funnier) crisis, Lleu recommends Janelle Shane’s short story “The Skeleton Crew,” about the remote workers running the cheap plastic skeletons at an ostensibly “AI”-operated haunted house.
Bonus Episode #17: “Ever the Twain” (2001)
If you’re interested in a short story about putting all of society’s expectations and weight on the shoulders of children, or just in powerful literary thought experiments, Lleu recommends reading — or revisiting and taking the time to think with — Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”
Bonus Episode #18: “Beyond Between” (2003)
If you’re looking for better ghost stories, Tequila Mockingbird recommends Tananarive Due’s story “Ghost Summer,” published in the collection of the same title, about a boy who wants to be a ghost hunter.
Lleu drew a blank while recording the episode, but in the spirit (as it were) of better ghost stories he recommends the Jewish-Anishinaabe writer Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler’s short story “Intermediaries,” published in his collection Ghost Lake, about a group of white teenagers who steal an artifact from an Anishinaabe burial ground and find themselves, of course, haunted.