Book Review

Dragonriders  of Pern
Dragonflight/ Dragonquest/ The White Dragon
Anne McCaffrey

A classic trilogy that uniquely blends science fiction and fantasy. I've never read anything quite like it and I'm wondering why Hollywood hasn't picked up on them. Well, I say that, but I suspect the real reason is that adapting original work is too hard for them anymore. Also, these books aren't structured in the way that film series have become settled on in recent years. The main character of the first book isn't the same as the main character of the third book and the primary antagonist is a scientific phenomenon that, is indicated, will never be be defeated. Yet, trilogy it remains as the story rolls and flows with the way the characters are affected by the cosmic threat in a concert of world building and the drama of the lives of the people thereon. Instead of a firm, overarching plot, it has more of a supple, overarching theme of a civilization losing valuable knowledge of their past, their struggle of reconnecting with that past without losing the progress that they've made, and balancing those dynamics to protect the future with both a firm grounding in their historical achievements and continued innovation of technology and improvement on cultural norms.
The peculiar union of scifi and fantasy could also complicate visual storytelling. The base premise is that a group of human space explorers settled on Pern. Shortly thereafter they noticed that another planet in the system would rain down deadly spores they dubbed "Thread" in predictable patterns that would destroy all organic matter. In adapting to the threat they bred native creatures, fire lizards, into large dragons that could be tactically flown during a Thread attack while the fire they breathe irradicates the spore. The fantasy aspect lies with the relationship between dragon and rider as they are telepathically linked as well as becoming physically and emotionally symbiotic. This leads to what would surely be cinematically frowned upon these days in what amounts to arranged marriages between the riders of mating dragons, as they helplessly succumb to the passions of their beasts with each other. I've seen some women refer to the romantic relationships in the books as "rapey" but these books were written by a woman so some of her own fancies and fantasies are embedded in the stories. I bet the same naysayers liked the 50 Shades trilogy. All I'm saying is that women's sensual imaginings aren't necessarily P.C. or feminist approved whether the world wants to admit it or not. But I'd still say the books lean more towards scifi because even for the dragons to breathe fire, they need to be fed a particular stones and can be used for instantaneously transporting over distances and through time. Anyway, back to the story... there will be some spoilers because it's hard to describe the books as a set without them.
The first book, Dragonflight, is the story of Lessa. Pern is coming to the end of a centuries-long interval during which there's been no threadfall due to the movements of the planets and has become akin to a civilization that's lost its faith. Most no longer believe that Thread will ever fall again and that the Dragonriders that they've been supporting financially are nothing but a useless burden on their supplies. The Dragonriders themselves have dwindled in numbers down to one weyr and have become complacent in training and vigilance, also supposing the Thread to be mostly a non-issue. All except for one Rider, F'lar, who has applied himself to studying the movement of the Red Star, the planet where Thread originates. Knowing that it will pass by again soon, he is determined to become the new leader in order to properly prepare. Leaders are determined by whose bronze dragon captures a golden queen dragon during her mating flight. So in search for a woman to bond with a newly hatched queen that his bronze, Mnementh, will one day fly, he finds a likely candidate in Lessa, who is a lowly drudge in an impoverished land hold. Her story embodies the themes of past vs. future and tradition vs. progression. She comes from an old bloodline entitled to power in her hold and she possesses the strength and drive of that line, born to lead and gifted with the rare ability to communicate with all dragon kind. After her dragon, Ramoth, is impressed on her, she bucks the latter-day traditions that have been set up in the weyr to protect the few queens and their shrinking population. She learns to fly on Ramoth even though it's not allowed. She travels "between" with her, which transports them instantaneously from place to place throughout Pern. And in doing so, it's she that discovers that dragons can travel in time as well as across distances. Only wanting to take back her own hold one day, she ends up being critical in saving the planet from the devastation of the falling spores. As hard as F'lar works over the years to prepare to fight the Thread, there's just not enough dragons or riders after all the years of neglect. Making progress with one flying, fighting queen is meaningless against such odds. So Lessa takes the daring and dangerous mission upon herself to travel back four-hundred turns (years) to when the weyrs were full and bring the Dragonriders of the past forward to help canvass the northern continent and protect the land holds from Thread. Lessa's dragon flight becomes the stuff of legends and the Master Harper is quick to set her story to song. It's a great start. And fun fact: this book is composed of two novellas that McCaffrey had published in Analog Science Fiction the year prior to its publication.
The second book, Dragonquest, is my favorite, I think. The honeymoon is soon over with the Oldtimers that Lessa brought back from the past as the book begins with the difficulties brought about by the resulting culture shock. Their arrival had its advantages. They boosted their numbers and brought invaluable experience to the generations that had never seen Thread. But society was ordered differently in their day. They begin to bully and oppress the people of the lands in their care, not taking into account that the land holds and craft halls had moved on over the centuries becoming independent of the weyrs, relaxing and freeing up the feudalistic economy a little. This book is centered on F'lar and the overwhelming task of protecting the population not just from Thread, but the outdated attitudes of the Oldtimers. To complicate matters, the Thread begins to fall in irregular, unpredictable patterns. It's at this point they start to learn how much past knowledge they've really lost. Upon discovering information and technologies belonging the ancient humans that first settled Pern, the past and present are put at odds again. Those in the present become just as resistant to changing their closed society to avoid the lack of communication that is impeding their ability to survive as the Oldtimers are to changing their traditional views of order in the land. F'lar has a full plate sorting all of this out. Also introduced in this book are the fire lizards which still exist on the southern continent, thought to be barren, that was only rediscovered and partially taken advantage of in the second half of the first book. The lizards' behaviors and impressions they make on their humans challenge coupling rituals that the weyrs had so strictly followed thus far. It's explored in the relationship of F'lar's half brother F'nor and Brekke. Their romance has a touch of the unrequited to it, which is what I like. I think F'nor is my favorite character. To be honest, both Lessa and F'lar are wound a little tight for me at times. And his brown dragon, Canth is also my favorite dragon. F'nor seems more secure with himself with no chip on his shoulder even though he doesn't have the same leadership pressures on him as F'lar. Likewise, Canth has no doubts or hesitations of his ability to out fly bronze dragons to capture Brekke's queen but not in an arrogant or boastful manner. They also show no fear when deciding that they are capable of traveling between to the Red Star itself when the tensions between the weyrs and holds reach their pique. The trust they have in one another without the need to agonize over every decision before taking action makes them a breath of fresh air. Although, I do sympathize with F'lar's obligation to exhaust all diplomatic solutions before finally fighting the leader of the Oldtimers and banishing him and all those aligned with him to the southern continent. This book brings closure to the main plot begun in the first book, confirming that Thread will always be a part of Pern and that plans would need to be made against the next extended interval to avoid losing their knowledge and forgetting the danger. The first two books actually make a pretty complete couplet.
To say that the third book, The White Dragon, is a let-down would be way too harsh. But it does seem a little disconnected from the first two. In the first book when Lessa realizes her destiny lies in the weyrs with her dragon, she cedes her claim to power in her land hold to another of the old bloodline, Jaxom, who was just born at the beginning of the story. His character is never forgotten and the beginning of his arc as a protagonist begins at the end of the second book when he impresses a dragon from an underdeveloped egg that would normally be left to die because it didn't have the strength to break its shell. Being groomed to be a Lord Holder one day, this puts him on the wrong side of everyone. But the blurb on the back cover makes his struggles sound more intense than what they actually end up being. He broke the rules by impressing the dragon but he's allowed to keep him after some good natured debate. The rest of his childhood is firmly controlled by his guardian and nurse, until he asserts his status of adulthood and he's given more freedom without much resistance. He learns about flying and going between without formal permission, but once he's caught there's no harsh repercussions for him to deal with and he's allowed to train as a dragon rider to fight Thread in a limited capacity. There's lamenting of his teenage recklessness, but usually with an underlying grin for the rascally young man. There's no problem with any of this except the most heroic thing he does at the beginning of the book - a deed that prevents an altercation between Benden Weyr and the Oldtimers in the south - is done in secret, never being officially acknowledged. And when most people figure it out, nothing is really said about it and he receives no accolades. Nor does he get much credit for important discoveries at the end of the book. To come full circle, in the same way Lessa realizes her destiny lies in the Weyr, Jaxom realizes his duty is to his land hold and finally returns to take his place as Lord. His story is fun and exciting, but also a little underwhelming. The fire lizards have more conflict to deal with than him, falling out of favor early on after the resurgence of friction from the aging Oldtimers. The fire lizards and their capability of ancestral memory is one of several other things that I loved much more than Jaxom's story that were just secondary elements in this one. I loved the Ruth, the runt, white dragon. He was deeply complex, was not useless as a dragon even though he was undersized, and had a unique relationship with the fire lizards. He always knew "when" he was when traveling between. And even though all of this is covered, it seemed incomplete and left me wanting more. Along with the latest discoveries made with the ancient's technology. They find that a grouping of stars in the sky are the ships that the original humans came in, still in orbit. And at the end, with Jaxom's impulsive and under-appreciated help, they find the location of the ancient's original settlement on the southern continent. It's such a tantalizing and frustrating tease. Will they learn everything about their ancestors? Will they travel to the ships? What other surprises lay in store? Also, will they now encourage the hatching and impression of diminutive eggs now that they've seen how special Ruth is? I'm more interested in that than the fact that Ruth had no proclivity to mate because of his size. But I suppose these threads (no pun intended) are picked up on in other installments or series; there are many entries in the Pern universe. The Harper Hall series overlaps with this one bringing in Menolly and Piemur as Jaxom's friends who assist him in his adventures. The storylines concerning the contentions between the Oldtimers and the Weyrs as well as F'lar's plans for the Dragonriders' retirement during the next long interval were wrapped up neatly in the background, spread out over the whole book since there wasn't quite enough content to fill it alone.
But overall, I have no complaints. This is a big, rich trilogy full of characters and situations that I haven't even had a chance to touch on. For as long as this review and my synopses are, there are still so many details I've had to leave out. So much great world building. Such detailed character development. So original. I can't recommend it enough for fans of dragons and light science fiction.