Dragonriders of Pern

I'll be reviewing this in pieces, as it's an omnibus edition:

Dragonflight:

This was never my favorite of the Pern books, and I can see why. But it's not a bad entry into a classic universe - the plot is solid, the politicking is realistic, and the dragons, while not as fully-developed as they get later, are still intriguing. It's just hard for me to see past all the shaking and slapping that the male lead does to the female lead, apparently as a routine way of emphasizing his points.

I have seen a lot of people report being squicked out by the sex scene - I can say with confidence that when I first read this as an adolescent it went entirely over my head, but now I find it a little more problematic. Not the actual mating flight itself - I can more or less rationalize the empathic bonding making the question of consent moot (...more or less.) It's the explicit statement later that a) they continued to sleep together afterwards and b) "it might as well have been rape." Wait, WHAT? You have magically-obligatory sex once and then she automatically is required to fuck you whenever you want from then on, whether she's interested or not? Yeah, I'm not so cool with that.

So yeah, I have trouble really getting in to this particular book. I'm curious if some of these appalling gender issues get better in the later volumes - I really can't remember. The "strong female characters" don't really make up for their utter lack of sexual agency (or, the contrast, the slut-shaming for the women who actually like and seek out sex. Kylara is nothing more than a running joke in this book.)

Dragonquest:

Dragonquest is less problematic, but mostly because the women are, for the most part, safely on their pedestals. The psychopathic slut Kylara, the virtuous virgin Brekke, the shrewish but loyal Lessa - they're all pretty cardboard, and the men do all of the acting in this one.

That's not to say it's not solid pulp fantasy. There's some excellent worldbuilding and a couple of engaging subplots. It doesn't really go anywhere in particular, but this is essentially book 2 of 5 or 6 in this plot arc, so that's more or less to be expected.

The White Dragon:

It's easy to see why this one was the one that hit the bestseller lists. Engaging main character, absolutely adorable dragon, and some great adventures. The viewpoint shifts are kind of atrocious - they happen without any warning, and are dreadfully confusing in places - but for the most part this is a quick, fun read.

It's a little unfortunate that it's in this omnibus, as the entire Harper Hall trilogy takes place between Dragonquest and The White Dragon (which I had forgotten) so we meet people for the first time here with references to their various adventures that took place in those books, and it doesn't flow all that well. ( )

See my review for "Dragonflight". ( )

A real page turner with little literary merit. The world building is enthusiastic but hard to accept --- I kept wondering about the digestive needs of the dragons and fire lizards. Do they go between during those crucial digestive moments? It is _way_ less feminist than the Harper Hall trilogy and the dragon sex gets wearing while the jocularity of the good guys really grates. The later books involve so much time travel and unresolved temporal paradox that they require a special kind of suspension of disbelief.

The bonding for life and telepathic communication ideas resurface in the Golden Compass and its sequels. ( )

(I took care to give no obvious spoilers about the story)

Title: Dragonflight (on Librarything)
Author: Anne McCaffrey
Series: Pern (mostly a series of stand-alone books, but this should be the "first" one)
Reviews for other books in this series (up till now): The girl who heard dragons
Format: Hardcover book combining Dragonflight, Dragonquest and The White Dragon, Book Club Edition
Pages: 188
Year published: original 1968, my edition 1978
Language: English (original language)
ISBN number: no ISBN number
Reason for reading: It's in the book together with two other Pern stories I want to read. I've already read this story in a separate book, but I liked it as well then so I didn't mind a re-read.

Back cover text:
The first humans to settle on Pern barely noticed a distant planet in the same system; their descendants couldn't afford such an oversight. For the orbit of that Red Star swept it close to Pern at perihelion - and when that happened, deadly silver Threads would fall through the skies of Pern, mindlessly searing all they touched.
To combat these invasions, the Pernese bred huge, sensitive flying beasts that could teleport themselves in an instant, and destroy Thread in midair with flaming breath. Men and women with telepathic ability were trained to ride the dragons, giving rise to countless heroic tales... and the thrilling sage recounted here:
DRAGONFLIGHT. In return for protection, land Holders and Craftsmen have traditionally tithed food and supplies to the dragonweyrs to which they are bound. But it has been nearly 400 years since the last Threadfall, and some people have come to doubt that the menace will ever strike again.
F'lar, rider of Pern's greatest bronze dragon, has no such illusions. The Red Star is near; Thread will fall soon. And unless the dragonmen find a new Weyrwoman - a woman of sufficient sensitivity and intelligence to bond with a queen dragon - Pern will not survive.
Then F'lar meets Lessa, last of a noble bloodline that had already produced Pern's most legendary weyrwomen. And between them, Lessa and F'lar create a new legend.

First alinea of the Introduction:
When is a legend legend? Why is a myth a myth? How old and disused must a fact be for it to be relegated to the category "Fairy-tale"? And why do certain facts remain incontrovertible while others lose their validity to assume a shabby, unstable character?
Rukbat, in the Sagittarian sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, and one stray it had attracted and held in recent millennia. Its third planet was enveloped by air man could breathe, boasted water he could drink, and possessed a gravity that permitted man to walk confidently erect. Men discovered it and promptly colonized it. They did that to every habitable planet, and then - whether callously or through collapse of empire, the colonists never discovered and eventually forgot to ask - left the colonies to fend for themselves.

Review:
Story:
First, the names with apostrophs in it are only for the male humans and are made by using the first letter of the father and a syllable of the mother's name. So there's logic in it :) It's not random let's-use-an-apostroph-names.
I really liked the story. The kind of fantasy books I prefer are the ones which are a bit "mixed" with science fiction elements and which have some explanation of the 'magic' (why does magic exist, or how does it work?). In the Pern books there's no magic, but there is a bit of a science-fiction element. The people on Pern don't know how there came to be people there, though.
I think it's an interesting world to read about :) The story in this book was one I enjoyed a lot. I still think it's quite original what Anne McCaffrey thought up about the "dragons" and their abilities. It makes sense! And I didn't expect the way the story was going (well, first time, but on re-reading I still liked it and it was still 'unexpected', as far as re-reading a story can have 'unexpectancies').

Writing style:
Easy-reading. Some English words I didn't know, but those meaning are easily derivable from the context. I started pronouncing the apostroph-names without apostrophs for easier reading, though. "Flar" instead of "F(break)lar".

Rereadability:
Yes! Even though I already read it twice now :P But first I'll read some other Pern books.

This entry was originally posted on http://moonplanet.dreamwidth.org/64373.html. You can comment both on LJ and on DW.

Really, I can't go into much detail about these books as I was very young when I read them. Until now I never even thought there were more books after the three included in it! Even now, almost 10 years later , I have an odd attachment to this book. It was a wonderful part of my childhood. It was definitely quite an absorbing book and definitely worth a good read through. ( )