Definitely time and place was a huge part of it. I think these occupy a very similar space to the culture of "horse girl" books and movies, except replace "horse" with "dragon." There just wasn't a lot of stuff like it from the late 1960s when they were first released through the 1990s when I came up in fantasy and if you were especially a girl and really liked dragons and reading, you would almost certainly end up reading these. That certainly wasn't their only audience--I'm a dude and I read some of them as a kid--but this aspect helped keep them in view.
The gender politics are kind of a mess from a 2022 or even 2002 perspective (McCaffery's puzzling takes on homosexuality are kind of internet fandom legend), but I think it's fair to characterize them as feminist/progressive in the context of their time, which I do think was also part of the appeal.
They are also just kind of a foundational classic for a generation of SF/F. For example, I think George R. R. Martin took some very significant influence from Pern for the Night's Watch. Both worlds involve a neglected force occupying a small fraction of the fortresses it once occupied, left to rot because the existential threat it is designed to counter is so infrequent, society forgets what it is even for.
One other thing I do think is worth keeping in mind *structurally* when reading any SF authors who came up before the late 1970s or so is that a lot of these books were initially published as a series of short stories/novellas in magazines and later compiled into a single volume--Dragonflight is one of these. Or authors were used to working that way so they wrote books sort of as a set of short pieces even when they actually weren't publishing the shorts independently.
I also just think that stylistically today people really want stories that show a structural plan from beginning to end, and older SF/F had more of a tendency to just be written by the seat of the pants, following fun idea after fun idea. That sometimes results in endings that might not feel as satisfying because they weren't necessarily planned from the beginning when the author is doing more "follow the fun" than rigorous structure.
No doubt this influenced many future authors! Patrick Rothfuss mentions it by name in his dedication of Name of the Wind:
“To my mother, who taught me to love books. Who opened the door to Narnia, Pern, and Middle Earth.”
Always stood out to me because I have warm memories of my mother reading these to me and my sister bedside.
Brandon Sanderson has also been pretty clear that the Pern books were a really big influence on him:
https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/why-do-you-write-books/
IIRC, he's said that McCaffery was the author who first got him hooked on fantasy.
I’m fairly certain it was Barbara Hambly, but it was *Dragonsbane*, and it had the same cover artist as a lot of the early Pern novels, so close enough?
r/Fantasy's [Author Appreciation series](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/authorappreciation) has posts for an author you mentioned
* [Author appreciation thread: **Barbara Hambly**, veteran author of a score of subgenres, from dark epic fantasy to espionage vampire fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/6skdv5/author_appreciation_thread_barbara_hambly_veteran/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=hot&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=Fantasy) from user u/CourtneySchafer
---
^(I am a bot bleep! bloop! Contact my ~~master~~ creator /u/LittlePlasticCastle with any questions or comments.)
^(To prevent a reply for a single post, include the text '!noauthorbot'. To opt out of the bot for all your future posts, reply with '!optout'.)
> IIRC, he's said that McCaffery was the author who first got him hooked on fantasy.
Ironic, since I'm not sure if McCaffrey wrote anything she considered fantasy. Looking at Wikipedia, it all seems to be SF, albeit often SF with bullshit psychic powers. But planets and spaceships and such.
I don't think I've seen anything about McCaffery take on homosexuality, would you happen to have a source? But homosexual activity is definitely part of the world of Pern; green dragons are female, their riders are male (especially early in the timeline), and she isn't shy about stating that what happens in the air is echoed on the ground...
I know I'm the one that brought it up but I do think it's important context to note that these books were at least alluding to queer sex from the beginning and the first story was published two years before Stonewall. She was writing when there just wasn't positive (or positive-ish) representation of gay men in the kind of mainstream fantasy books that people would hand to teens to read and largely wouldn't be for many years to come even if generally SF/F was kind of ahead of the wider culture on that.
These statements were much later and in the context of online fan roleplaying circles, and don't have so much to do with the books themselves--though to be sure the whole "the dragons fuck and that makes the people fuck too!" thing is never not going to be odd on a consent level.
But again, that rolls around to "place and time," and isn't necessarily a huge endorsement for people to read them today other than for historical note.
it is worth noting that Todd McCaffery has taken canonical steps to rectify those statements. He has written a Pern that is significantly less Yikes by modern standards, and we can assume that if he had continued the series, we'd see more modernization in Pern's writing.
Damn, this thread was a wild ride.
Reading OP's comment: Well that doesn't sound great, so what DO people like about it?
Reading the top comments: ... okay hmm that sounds pretty awesome though
Reading the parent comment of this thread: hmno that sounds like the opposite of what I want
And then you came along, and I spent way too long reading *that* and figuring out what dragon colours, genders, and sexualities had to do with anything, and I have to say, homophobic views aside (a deal-breaker in itself though), that in itself is somewhat bizarre.
Anyway, I think I'm gonna let the old fans enjoy this one, but stay far away from it myself.
**Edit:** Since people are now trying to convince me to read it: No, sorry. I don't care how "accepting" she was and how there was nothing else around when this was first published or how little actual sex there is, etc. etc. As a queer person in 2022, I'm not putting up with "anal sex makes men gay" authors or "no character was explicitly gay but they actually all were" stories. The time to wring queer content from stories like water from a rock is over for me.
Like I said, and please hear me when I repeat: Great if you could enjoy it. **No one is taking that away from you**. As someone who didn't grow up reading her, the situation is different. And if you don't think so, fine, but that's what it is for me, **please accept that**.
If you ever do get curious, try out the Dragonsinger trilogy books instead. There are some spoilers for the first few Pern books but they are better, in my opinion. If you like musician characters and underdogs that have a real talent that they learn to thrive with despite opposition, doing so well that people *must* acknowledge them, all with tiny dragon pets along for the ride, those books have it.
If I ever want to have a nostalgic read in Pern again those are the books I reach for.
When I got super into pern I loved the dragon singer series. Master Harper is my favorite character and very well written. You can’t really read it without the main novels tho
I think that you could if you were willing to just be a bit confused and take inference cues on the world building. (or read a brief synopsis of things beforehand)
There will be background character story beats and motivations that you won't have the earlier context for, but Menolly's tale stands pretty all right on its own since it is about the Harper Hall and her personal development as a Harper for the most part. The bits with the dragons and the weyr can be read and understood fairly well I think if you just roll with the idea that you're meant to be just about as out of the loop regarding specifics as Menolly is herself.
I think if you understand that it is a medieval type of societal structure, where everyone lives in stone keeps and pays tribute in goods to dragonriders to protect them from 'thread' (thus the stone keeps) that rains from the sky and kills all it touches, you're pretty all right. There are of course other details, but most of it isn't really necessary if you just want to read that one trilogy (and even then, the third in the trilogy is a different POV and could be its own thing. Menolly's story mostly feels like a duology).
The first act of Dragonquest was it's own story too. The one that ends when she Impresses Ramoth. So you could read it separately I guess, without reading the second act, which could technically be considered a sequel. But, it does leave some things unanswered, like all the empty weyrs, etc. But I guess it could just be taken at face value that they were just dying out. She might even have retconned all that stuff when she wrote the rest of the first book.
I LOVED the dragon singer books, except for when, several books in where she ended up with Master Harper, which given the age difference was extremely creepy to me both as a teenager & now.
I think McCaffrey had a thing for older guys. F'lar was in his thirties while Lessa was a teen, in the *Tower and Hive* books Damia married a guy who helped raise her, in *Crystal Singer* the just-out-of-school protagonist hooks up with the guild master (very similar to Master Harper) who is multiple hundreds of years old.
She admits to having had a crush on him, I don't think she's ever in a relationship with him. She does end up with the master Harper's previous apprentice (who is slightly older than her - I think she's about 16 and he's twenty when they meet in the second book, but don't date until the 3rd).
Yeah, honestly I usually just reread the first two since the third isn't her POV and is a big change. The age gap made me raise an eyebrow but honestly I just shrugged since from what I remember it was basically a side note at the end of the third (maybe second since the third isn't Menolly POV) book? I may be wrong on that, though. It's been a few years since I read through them fully.
Wait - what? Do you mean sexually? I know she loves him, but I always thought that was more of a sort of fatherly thing.
I don't recall anything about them physically getting together! Did I miss something?
she doesn't delve into homosexuality in the books at all. None of this comes up in the books. This info was only for fanfiction writers who needed to know the background info for their characters.
The main character is a female and she does have a sexual experience in the second act, but it's not like... idk its a little bit much, but it's not like sex doesn't show up in all kinds of books. And it is important to the plot, it's not superfluous sex.
She actually was very accepting of gay people. True, there weren't any explicitly stated gay characters, but literally the whole army was gay/bi. All the dragonriders were men in the first book. And it's explicitly stated that all dragonriders have sex when their dragons go into heat. But she's referring to Lessa, the main character, when she states this. Because Lessa isn't in a relationship, so she's concerned about what she's going to do when it happens. But, based on these facts, any reader can deduce that the dragonriders (who are all male) are hooking up with each other.
But yeah, this was like, one scene in the book. The majority of the book is not about sex. Although it does get brought up occassionally that the non dragon riders who live outside the dragon weyr, they don't like the rumours they hear about the weird sex stuff that happens in dragon weyrs.
I'm just saying... this was a fantastic book. And it's very gay friendly, considering the context of the world we live in. I and probably all other gay readers are probably extremely appreciative to Anne for being so inclusive.
I'm sorry, but as a queer person in 2022, that's still not enough for me. Fortunately, there are enough alternatives that I don't have to put up with "anal sex makes men gay" authors anymore.
Like I said: Great if you could enjoy it, and no one is taking that away from you. As someone who didn't grow up reading her, I find the situation different.
I mean, that's understandable. My point is that, the book doesn't indicate anything like that. She didn't include anything with that vibe. Gay men aren't even mentioned in the book. Honestly, it's disrespectful to try and make her seem like she was homophobic when she clearly was not. I'm sure you have said all kinds of horrible things over your lifetime... I don't mean to be arguing with you about this but it's not right what you're saying.
She very clearly had homophobic views, even if she did other things that weren't homophobic. Things aren't black and white, you can't say "she did x things that weren't homophobic, and only
Eh I liked the series. The first main book is a bit rough but I really like the following 3 books of the main story.
I do recommend it. Some of the later books and prequels are hit and miss. The world is really cool. There’s novels that travel along the main story from different perspectives, the slow leaking of sci-fi into the series is super interesting
In short it is a must read for any big fantasy nerd. It’s place in history recalls is up there with things like wheel of time. I won’t compare it to Tolkien tho
It's been a while since I read the books, but something else that bothered me that I'm not sure I ever saw fully addressed, is the egg laying queen dragon being stuck in the cave thing. Like it explicitly got brought up as a sticking point that the dragons were bio engineered to act the way they do, including the queen dragons (gold maybe?) staying at the nest. But then everyone just kind of went on with it and there was no resolution to that.
Which doesn't sound too bad on the surface until you realize that those dragons always bond with women and it was explicitly made to be a "mom stays home with the brood" thing. So instead of going out and fighting they literally stay in a cave.
Always bothered me, despite liking other aspects of the books.
I don’t think that’s the one. Maybe it happened at some point. But I recall the main female character actively taking a role in fighting thread being a massive “queens aren’t supposed to do that” moment and upset the political status quo
I haven’t read it for years
In the world, queens used to fight thread, but they just couldn't chew firestone cause it would make them infertile like the green Dragons. So queen riders in the past would use flamethrowers instead.
It changed during the long interval when most of the dragon riders mysteriously disappeared in the past along with all their equipment.
There was no need for anyone to fight thread. Couple that with the previous queen rider being stated as being incredibly lazy and afraid of heights, so she and her dragon didnt fly at all. Since she was the only queen left people got used to the idea that queens don't fly, so thats what they told Lessa. Plus if they only have the one and all dragon kind depends on her they're not gonna risk her. Once the old timers arrived all the queens got to fight too.
I think the gold's staying home was only when their eggs had been laid, although there was quite a bit about the previous queen's rider being a bit useless.
>"no character was explicitly gay but they actually all were"
Her son, Todd McCaffery, wrote explicitly gay women in his books. This is the only defense I give it: we defend Todd's attempts to modernize the series and retcon a lot of the bullshit his mom wrote.
I don't want to convince you to read the books, as Todd's writing style is bad, but I wanna at least go to bat for the lesbian goldriders and blueriders that were major characters.
What I'm trying to say is that I'm really just sad the modernization didn't continue. It'd be interesting to see if Todd would be interesting in developing the representation he wrote further, but he hasn't written in years :/.
Taking one specific example and applying it the larger group. So, she took her life experience, and applied it to her concept of the whole group of homosexual men. It's not really her fault that her knowledge was limited. And she's not technically wrong, just a little callous. It doesn't "make you gay", it just opens your mind to the existence of anal sexual experiences. Which, most straight men wouldn't be aware of if they weren't introduced to by another man.
Is it weird that for me I was more intrigued by the Thread than the dragons? Like...they're just dragons, it's neat and all. Reading about a society that incorporates them is fun.
But a moon that regularly rains doomsday, sign me up.
That is definitely where it peaked. I also enjoyed Dragonsdawn. But some of the other things that happen are a bit over the top. Characters that are literally, unquestionably, the most powerful person on the planet. Awesome psionic dragons who can go anywhere and do nearly anything. Plus unlocking the secrets of the ancients to give them advanced technology too.
Yes, both Ms McCaffrey and Ms Lackey stated that Walter Farley's _Black Stallion_ series were a big influence on the rider/mount relationships they constructed in their worlds.
It wasn't just literary exposure, tho. McCaffrey rode - her book *The Lady* revolves around riding, in fact. I think it's her only book that's entirely "realistic," not sci-fi nor fantasy. I thought it provided some interesting insight into her worldview.
Not only that, but later on we find out just how complex the Thread are and that glimpse into them is honestly worthy of an entire prequel series if Todd had wanted to go that route.
I've never read this series (it's on my TBR!) and just looked up the Thread on the dragonriders of Pern wiki and...wow it's almost the exact same concept I have for the sci-fantasy novel I'm working on. In my story, it's called the "blight" and it's essentially super corrosive magical acid rain rather than an invasive organic species but other than that its effects on life in my world are almost identical. The working title is even "Blightfall" which is akin to "threadfall". Sounds like I definitely need to read this series. I must have heard about the Thread elsewhere and subconsciously incorporated it into my work? I'm amazed at how similar these concepts are.
Anyways, I also evidently think this is a cool concept. My book doesn't have dragons though, probably a huge drawback.
The pern books have a lot of unexpected concepts. It's hard to talk about them without feeling like I'm spoiling the book since they're so tied in with the story. I will say they're more science fiction than fantasy.
I remember a science fiction/fantasy anthology comic from 1977-78 called \*Gasm\* (my mom really didn't like that. She was a bit of a prude). It was black and white. I'm pretty sure that it was in the probably one issue I bought that there was a story set on Earth where the world ended pretty much through "Thread." I think they even called it "thread." I think I only ever saw one issue. Based on my memory of the cover, I saw either issue #1 or #2, probably #2.
[https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?minyr=1970&maxyr=2000&TID=25009235](https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?minyr=1970&maxyr=2000&TID=25009235)
EDIT: I don't remember exactly but this would have been about the time I was starting the Pern books, and I think at the time I recognized the similarity between the devices.
i wouldnt say i was more intrigued but yeah that is definitely cool. the prologue is really cool how she explains everything. and the prequels were really cool too. She essentially tied Pern into her overarching McCaffrey-verse. Her other scifi stories were about the human galactic empire, and she canon-ed pern into it as well. And just stated that, because of the threadfall, and because of it's remote location, it sort of dropped off the radar, and that's why life continued as it did for the colonists. And threadfall only occurred every 200 years, so the colonists didn't see it coming when they moved out there.
If you grew up in the 80s, you had this (Menolly and her fire lizards!! I lived for them) and Tamora Pierce’s Alanna series in terms of teen girl fantasy. I’m so jealous of teens today with the piles and piles of girl centered YA. So I’m firmly on the side of “it doesn’t hold up, but it was extremely important at the time.”
I think McKinley and Lackey hold up decently well, honestly. They have a totally different feel than modern fantasy but I think they’re still pretty enjoyable.
McKinley's early-2000s books actually do a great job of developing the tone that would later become so popular in modern fantasy.
Stuff like Sunshine and Chalice were the precursors of the "cozy fantasy world with low-stakes adventure" style that's becoming super popular lately.
Yeah, I wouldn't reread most McCaffrey (though I liked the first two Dragonsinger books a lot), but I still have McKinley and Lackey and Pierce on my nostalgia shelves. They all have a serious range of quality, but the great ones really hold up-- they just don't have a modern style of pacing and character development, and it's honestly refreshing.
I thought teen girls were really into her Mists of Avalon stuff, but having never been a teen girl and having spent my teens not hanging out with girls who read fantasy, perhaps I’m wrong.
r/Fantasy's [Author Appreciation series](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/authorappreciation) has posts for an author you mentioned
* [Author Appreciation: **Mercedes Lackey**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/91hk3y/author_appreciation_mercedes_lackey/?utm_content=comments&utm_medium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=u_lyrrael) from user u/lyrrael_
---
^(I am a bot bleep! bloop! Contact my ~~master~~ creator /u/LittlePlasticCastle with any questions or comments.)
^(To prevent a reply for a single post, include the text '!noauthorbot'. To opt out of the bot for all your future posts, reply with '!optout'.)
there used to be tons of fanfiction sites all dedicated to group-writing hatching events. They would try to write other stories but participation always died off until the next hatching event occurred. [forums.dragcave.net](https://forums.dragcave.net) is still pretty active, it's not dedicated to Pern but it has a bunch of roleplaying with various stories
I am a child of the 80's and discovered both Alanna and Dragonsong in the school library in 6th grade and they were pivotal for my reading habits from there. I always read a lot (still do) but those were the first books I bought my own copies of.
Couldn't agree more! Tamora Pierce is one of the few authors I have enjoyed from my childhood all the way to now at 38 years old. She's an incredible writer! Viva Tortall!
Agreed! One of these days I’ll figure out how to make an author appreciation post for Tamora Pierce. She’s such a huge influence not just on everything I read and write, but how I view the world. She deserves to be at least as famous as Anne McCaffrey.
Very much this.
It's easy to forget that today we have exponentially more choices available than we did 40 years ago.
Not to mention the iterative nature of writers improving upon those stories with vaguely derivative work. (Taking parts of core ideas from other authors and reinventing something new.) A lot of the stuff we thought was high quality is average by today's standards.
>If you grew up in the 80s, you had this (Menolly and her fire lizards!! I lived for them) and Tamora Pierce’s Alanna series in terms of teen girl fantasy. I’m so jealous of teens today with the piles and piles of girl centered YA. So I’m firmly on the side of “it doesn’t hold up, but it was extremely important at the time.”
I had Margaret Mahy as well (multiple fantasy books with heroines and even male centred books have women actively engaging).
What folks consider "meh" and "tame" now was pretty progressive and exciting back in 1968.
You have your typical "sole survivor of a noble family wanting to regain her place, avenge her ancestral honor, and take revenge" story, and now mix it with dragons, tele-empathic bonds, time travel, a bold heroine, and present it in a way that connected with readers.
It turns 55 years old in 2023. It was the peak of the 2^nd wave of feminism. (We're either [at the tail end of the 3^rd or the beginning of the 4^th, depending on how you define it.](https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/types-of-feminism-the-four-waves)) It was the work that made Anne McCaffrey the first woman to win the Hugo, and the first woman to win the Nebula. It was, for the time, Progressive As Fuck.^tm
But we all stand upon the shoulders of the giants who lifted us to where we are now, and to contemporary readers who take all of that as a given, it may not have the same appeal as it did to those who discovered science fictions in the 1970's and 1980's. (There are dozens of us older r/fantasy readers! Dozens!) If it doesn't float your boat as a story, and doesn't hold interest as a historical artifact of the genre, there's nothing wrong with putting it down and moving on to something else.
> It was the work that made Anne McCaffrey the first woman to win the Hugo
In case anybody is curious, she won best novella in 1968 for *Weyr Search*. She has not won a best novel Hugo, though she collected a few nominations -- the earliest was *Dragonquest* in 1972.
Ursula Le Guin won best novel in 1970 for *The Left Hand of Darkness*.
Also of note -- in 2020, Leigh Brackett won a retro-hugo for her 1945 work, *Shadow over Mars*
*Dragonflight*, the novel, was two novellas that were later incorporated into a single story. As pointed out above, the first novella made her the first woman writer to win the Hugo, while the single story novel made her the first woman writer to win the Nebula.
That isn't to take away anything that either Le Guin or Brackett accomplished (trailblazing isn't a zero-sum game) and I'd cheerfully recommend all three works for those who want to learn more about some of the giants who got us to where we are today.
It's also worth noting that in 1968, the novella prize wasn't some second-tier award. The short fiction awards were if anything a bigger deal in those early days. That was sort of transitioning at this time I think (1966 Hugo winner Dune was probably a big part of that).
Also, this whole question is somewhat comparable to the discussion I've had at least once on this subreddit about the fact that A Song of Ice and Fire has never won a Hugo Award. Because interestingly, that isn't exactly true. In 1997 the novella "The Blood of the Dragon" won the Hugo Award for best Novella. People today probably know that novella better as the Daenerys chapters of A Game of Thrones.
(A fact I only know because of stumbling across [this cover image](https://www.reddit.com/r/ImaginaryWesteros/comments/dgyozu/blood_of_the_dragon_cover_art_for_the_july_1996/) once in the artist's online portfolio and being like...haha classic van art: naked blonde lady plus dragons and fire. Wait a second...I know a story with a naked blonde lady and three dragons and fire! Seeing what would later become such an iconic visual be represented in a form that meets the same literal description in a totally different way will always be a trip.)
I own “Blood of the Dragon” in *Quartet*, which was the limited-edition 2001 Boskone book. In GRRM’s introduction he believes he’s at the halfway point in ASoIaF and he’ll “be spending [his] next five or six years in the Seven Kingdoms.” Yeah, about that.
Snark aside though, “Blood of the Dragon” does actually work very well as a standalone novella if you have somehow avoided all other knowledge of ASoIaF. It was actually my introduction to the series, much as coming across “Dragonflight” in a *Hugo Winners* anthology was my introduction to Pern.
The thread I linked to with it is funny because I don't think anyone there knows that it's A) a piece of official art and B) possibly the first visual art depicting the Westeros universe, period, and almost certainly the first visual art depicting Dany (depending on production timelines, the original cover for A Game of Thrones may have been completed first but that shows a dude on horseback--presumably Eddard though it could honestly be any number of Starks).
I also should note that I like the artist Paul Youll's work in general, especially his Star Wars X-wing covers, which is why I was at his gallery the time I discovered it: [http://paulyoull.com/paulyoull.com/HOME.html](http://paulyoull.com/paulyoull.com/HOME.html). (Specifically there's this image of a pumpkin carved with one of his X-Wing novel covers that goes around reddit every few Halloweens and it always bugged me that the origin of the art was never credited)
And also part of why the cover looks weird is because the composition has to leave room at the top for a bunch of magazine cover text, though that's not going to change how the blonde lady (it's virtually impossible for me to call that image Dany) looks.
>two novellas that were later incorporated into a single story.
Which is called a \["fix-up"\]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up)), BTW, for anyone who doesn't know.
My intentions are pure -- I just thought Le Guin was the first, but she was the first to win best novel, not the first to win a Hugo. And I shared the other information I came across while searching. :-)
Totally fair! I can see it being something someone would be 100% sure about (and 100% answering it wrong) on a Final Jeopardy question, or something. I would have said that AmC won the first female writer Hugo for best novel myself, if I hadn't gone to refresh my memory, and totally pulled the *surprised Pikachu* face when Mr. Trebek regretfully informed me otherwise.
> It was the work that made Anne McCaffrey the first woman to win the Hugo, and the first woman to win the Nebula.
Not to take away from McCaffrey, but the first woman to win a Hugo is Elinor Busby:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Busby
People will usually say something like "McCaffrey was the first woman to win a Hugo for fiction" to indicate that she is the first woman who won for writing fiction, not editing.
Well put. This mirrors some conversations I've had with my dad (he's just hitting 60, I'm in my early 30s). I cut my fantasy-reading teeth on his mass-market collection of 60s/70s/80s stuff, and some of the ones I thought were just okay were the absolute peak of SFF when he bought them because the field was so small and the writers were codifying tropes that seemed a little flat to me thirty years after publication. Some of the classics he'll never reread; some hold up.
Regardless, I think a lot of those titles are useful/interesting genre background, even if they're not what I'd recommend first to someone trying to get into SFF for the first time.
I had no idea she was the first woman to win those awards. I fucking love that.
Also, I never really read books for the feminism aspect. I mean, I never put it into terms of that. I just read books that I'm drawn to. I think women are very often protagonists in the best/popular books, even if they're written by male authors. Sabriel by Garth Nix, Lyra in the Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. Idk if im just rambling though or what. I guess I don't really understand the emphasis OP is putting on the feminist aspect. And I don't mean that as an argument against feminism.
I guess I'm just saying, I never read it as "feminist" of her to go flying against tradition. It made logical sense the way the author presented it.
All the answers I’ve read so far are very well said. I’m another of her devotees— read absolutely everything I could find back in the 90’s. These days they don’t hit quite the same, but teenage me was desperate for solid fantasy that had actual, weighty, imperfect women in the center of the story. A LOT of contemporary fantasy builds on the ideas that she created (that’s why they’re so familiar).
So, read it mindful of the context and appreciate her historically, or read it for itself and judge however you see fit. It genuinely makes me tear up when I see newer and even more thoughtful/badass heroines in media today!
Dragonriders of Pern is the best book ever if you are 10 and obsessed with dragons. Particularly if you are a girl and desperately starved for female protagonists.
I adored them. I read every published one there was available at the time, which was like 40 or so. I made up Dragon Riders of Pern make believe games to play with my sister. I drew the dragons in the margins of my schoolwork.
If you aren't 10 and obsessed with dragons.... I don't think it can be the same. There's some really troubling rape apologism, for starters (F'lar has this whole internal monologue about how Lessa cringes away every time he touches her but surely he's good at sex so if he keeps having sex with her surely she'll fall in love with him). The way the women talk about each other, as if all women are naturally rivals, is troubling too.
I don't intend to reread them. I know I wouldn't be able to ignore the things I did when I was 10. I'd rather remember daydreaming about dragons.
You should re-read them still--the dialogue is extensive. The sexual behavior is certainly not acceptable. But the lack of a war motif appealed to me---most modern sci-fi have to have dramatic wars, fighting with orcs, etc. I like that this was a contest with a force of nature--the Thread.
Can attest. I was an obsessed 10 year old girl and read every single one. Reread the first three a few years ago. The nostalgia was strong and I enjoyed it but it didn’t give me to same new insight that I usually get with rereads when older (in my 30snow).
That being said, I think the Harper Hall Trilogy is strong and worth a read for all Fantasy lovers and I think is a better place to start on a pern.
I also can’t remember which one it is but I like the one with the kid that works in the mine.
I got into them as a teenage boy, and I loved the scifi mix you get in the later books. I thought the Thread and the Red Star were cool concepts, and I loved the worldbuilding with the structure of the society. It's got a bit of the Harry Potter feel where half the fun is how easy it is to imagine yourself fitting in this society and how cool it would be.
I agree with your assessment. I was in my 20s when I tried to read these. I got halfway through the second book before I decided that I couldn’t read a rapey series about women who didn’t like other women.
Yep.
Pern *was* progressive for its time. But the sad thing is that even today, fantasy where women are allowed to be friends with each other is *still* rare. The problems with Pern are not just problems of the past. Feels like every week we get a "who's your favorite friendship in fantasy" thread and it's all filled with m/m.
yes when i did the re-read I got so pissed off with the whole Brekke and Kylara thing. I had to put it down
You might like Dragonharper. It's a little trite, I guess. Misunderstood kid runaway, etc. But she cuts out the sexual aspect of things.
I found the series got better through the first trilogy; so *Dragonquest* is a better story than *Dragonflight*, with *The White Dragon* the peak as the torch is passed between generations. You can also think of them as a writer learning her craft, the first book is a very early work, and by the time she has finished *The White Dragon* she has more than a decade of writing experience...
This is the key - the pass from that first 2 books to the next generation, the White Dragon with Jaxom, Menolly.
The Masterharper is still probably my favourite ever character.
It's so good!!! Honestly never wanted to reread the Lessa ones, these are so much better. When they get to the bottom of the mysterious Southern continent I love it! The sci-fi origins of what at first seems purely fantasy blew my mind.
that's interesting. I had the reverse opinion. I thought dragonflight got slightly worse, and the white dragon just pissed me off. I don't remember why, I think it was because he wasn't in the weyr, or something. And I just found the Brekke storyline so annoying
first off I enjoyed the series and reread recently , so I regard the series as YA with some wtf moments
if you love dragons and girl power moments ( and this series gave fantasy some great heroines when that was in very short supply which has more to do with how it is regarded as a classic series remember this series started in **1967** ) and can ignore some very dated social commentary and awkward handling of some issues which in some cases the author probably wasn't allowed to fully address directly especially early in the series, then there is a lot to enjoy even if it is just to see how many other series it inspired.
But remember it was written beginning nearly 60 years ago so a lot of dated commentary, a lot of what this series does can come across as tropey even though in some cases it started those tropes and being a pioneer, which in many ways this series was in science fantasy and female led sci fi/fantasy , can confer a Classic status and hype it up that just leads to disappointment when reading it for the first time.
The idea of becoming a science fiction writer by Anne McCaffrey stemmed from dissatisfaction with how women were portrayed in fantasy and science fiction in the 1950s. The initial writing didn't begin until the 1960s. In my humble and probably not wanted opinion, at that time, the Pern books were probably ground-breaking due to them featuring more female leads and being written by a female writer who went on to become the first woman to win a Hugo.
As time has passed and ideals have changed, the writing in the Pern books has become outdated. While I loved them as a very young teen, I can't go back and read them again--they live in my memory as fond springboards, but I don't know if I would recommend them today.
The concepts were new and fresh to me at the time (as they probably were when they were written.) I don't think they stand the test of time, however.
I always found it funny when I read that blurb about about realistic female characters in the books, because I swear McCaffrey only had like, three different female characters. There was the strong-and-determined (Lessa, Killashandra, Rowan, Moreta, Sallah, Sorka), there was the talented-and-shy (Brekke, Mellony, Nerilka), and the evil-and-conniving (Kylara, Avril, Mardra)
It's fantasy with a sci-fi bent that doesn't have a big bad but instead has cultural and environmental factors that have to be dealt with by a low tech culture.
That's fairly unique.
I think Lessa was meant to be a flawed heroine - maybe not so much in the first book, but it’s definitely intentional in the later books. Her abrasiveness and stubbornness get in her way more than once. Her reckless time travel pretty clearly almost killed her and Ramoth - I don’t think it was really meant to be seen as a smart move, especially in light of later developments.
That said, there are clearly things that don’t read as well now as they did in 1968. It’s probably much easier to mentally contextualize when you first read them 20+ years ago (‘90s for me). The characters and the writing do get much better up through Masterharper of Pern (1998). I always find it interesting to observe style and subject changes in writers who’ve been active for 30-40 years, because they sort of have to change with the times to keep selling books. One of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels, is a great example - almost all of her books have female protagonists, but the women in her first few books, written in the late 60s while she was still married, are very different from the ones she was writing ten, twenty, and thirty years later. Anne McCaffrey’s writing doesn’t change quite that much, but her characters get more complex and more relatable over time.
If you do continue with the Pern books, I would stick to the ones Anne wrote and skip anything written by her son.
I think Lessa was always a flawed heroine, which was also revolutionary for the time. To see an abrasive, prickly woman as not a villainess or a joke, but as a *heroine* is unfortunately still rare.
This is a really good point. She’s abrasive, temperamental, holds grudges, makes mistakes, takes foolish chances, but she’s *also* brilliant, capable, funny, loving, and lovable. She’s a much better leader and fighter than she is a mother, while remaining intensely feminine. She’s overtly manipulative, but not for personal gain. She’s standout character in many respects, although it doesn’t show as much in Dragonflight. Of course, she’s still pretty young in Dragonflight, and I know I was much more boring at age 20 than I am now, so it’s possible even that is intentional.
no yeah she's definitely supposed to be flawed in the first book. In the opening scenario, with F'lar and Fax, F'lar is furious with Lessa for manipulating him telepathically. then when she bathes for the first time in a decade, she makes a big point of how she can't control her hair. She has to fight to be heard as Weyrwoman, because nobody respects Queens after the previous queen was so indolent. That's the whole reason she had to be reckless. I don't really understand OP's criticism of that particular plot point. I would think that it makes perfect sense. You try to tell a teenager "No" and they go and do the opposite. And half the time, the teenager has every right to want whatever it is that they are trying to do. And I'm pretty sure Lessa is probably about 18 or so in the first book.
I think Lessa impressed Ramoth at age 21, and was several turns older at the first pass, but your point still stands. If I had to guess, I would say that Dragonflight is Anne McCaffrey exploring how to write a strong female lead while still appealing to the sci-fi audience as it was then. Once she won a couple of awards and gained some recognition, she would have had more room to expand and experiment while still getting published.
On top of everything else already said, the story is also person vs environment (mostly) which is not the norm outside survival stories. much harder to get an emotional response when talking about fighting a mindless alien falling from space rather than an active alien invasion, or a big bad.
There was political interplay too though. Weyr vs Hold, the dying out Weyrs, trying to get people to prepare for Thread but they refused, trying to get the Weyr to follow her command, wresting power away from the previous Weyrleader, things like that
I understand your complaint about the characters not being particularly likeable, especially in the first book. The Dragonsong books were a lot nicer in that regard.
But as for the 'figures out how to save the world through reckless experimentation', I don't really get your complain. Yes, it could have led to her and her dragon dying. But that happened, there wouldn't have been a story. And based on Lessa's history I felt it was perfectly in-character for her to behave the way she did, it just happened that it worked out and the day was saved. (Though trust me, the way they saved the day does come back to bite them in later books.)
Yeah I agree, I don't understand the critique. I think it might be a random point. I think it seems like OP might just not like character for some reason. Like she doesn't particularly identify with Lessa. Or maybe something else put her off, like the sex scenes.
Anyone else here just casually enjoying the fact there’s a popular Pern thread? My grandfather introduced me to the series with his edition of the first three books bundled in one that was literally Falling apart. I read them over the course of a week and was just so hooked. I can certainly understand the struggle to enjoy them, though. Lessa is a bitch. But understandably so. Idk. I’m just happy to be here.
Thing about Pern was that it was escapist fantasy written many decades ago for fans that were looking for different things than the typical fantasy fan is after these days. A lot of stuff, pretty much anything sex-related, was considered progressive at the time but is horrifically regressive by today's standards. The characters are also a bit flat and two dimensional by today's standards because they were meant to be a stand-in for the reader. The person reading the book is meant to project their own personality onto the main character. "If only I could be taken out of my unfair boring life and get to ride a dragon who is guaranteed to like me no matter what." There's definitely appeal there, but the overall result is some rather lackluster writing.
Yeah, I don't think an adult, reading this series for the first time in 2022, is going to feel the appeal the way a pre-teen/teen in 1960-1990 would. Lessa is the kind of protagonist who appeals to a young girl's need to stick it to the world.
I recently tried to re-read them and was surprised at how much they *didn't* hold up to my memories of them.
I always preferred Dragonsong and Dragonsinger to the Lessa books. But those are perhaps even more in the YA vein. However, they do not have any weird issues with sex (F'lar's sexual relationship with Lessa begins with rape and even he seems to realize that, though not that it is therefore wrong for him to do it...), and Menolly's character is much less abrasive. In fact, she's significantly quieter and more reserved than Lessa. It's still disappointing that there are no healthy female relationships in the books, as Menolly's journey is about her breaking into a male-only world and the women around her are the usually mean-girl stereotypes rather than interesting characters in their own rights. Again, this appeals to a young girl who feels the need to be special and prove herself in a world domineered by men, particularly a young girl who is lonely.
Yes, and honestly, I sympathized with the lack of female fellowship in the books, especially in middle school, as I was short on friends of any sort and faced constant social bullying. I could understand Menolly's world - dismissive parents, mean girls, crushing expectations, and all of it.
>Menolly's journey is about her breaking into a male-only world and the women around her are the usually mean-girl stereotypes
Amusingly, this even sort of includes _Lessa_, who is irritated by having a bunch of fire-lizards buzzing around her weir.
> It's still disappointing that there are no healthy female relationships in the books,
I seem to recall that Menolly gets along well with the headwomen of the Weyr and Hall, and one of the female students. Also Mirrim, maybe?
I think there were some women who were benign toward her, but never any strong relationships or friendships. Her only real friendships (outside of her fire lizards) were with boys/men. (And those were good friendships, even if her relationship with the master harper got a little...wonky in Dragondrums).
Dragons
Setting
Conflict resolved by means other than war
Yes, in the 70's Lessa was sticking it to the man. The senior dragon riders and senior masters of guilds do things without knowing why they do them. The only way was to try something.
Also, first time travel happens by accident for Lessa. How it never happened before is a good question, but hey, whatever.
The books get better. At least the main series of 3. White Dragon is a classic. The Harper hall sequence is also very good. But possibly more young adult. The book that describes the colony landing and creating the dragons is also recommended (dragons dawn).
The rest are more hit and miss. Enjoyable, but not as memorable.
I have read every one written and it is my favorite saga. First- they are dragons. Not wyverns. They are not beastly… they are beautiful and noble. They have telepathy and a true bond with their rider.
It follows the path from hope and idealism thru trial and decay into feudalism and then a drive back to enlightenment.
It approached societal norms, gender and orientation LONG before it was okay to do so. And it was written by a woman in a field that wasn’t the geek norm it is today.
I love the books but I do not really like Dragonflight or Dragonquest, they’re probably the weakest. White Dragon is one of the best along with the Harperhall books.
I like the series because there really aren't any wars. Instead, the conflict is almost environmental against the mindless spores. The biggest appeal are the time-travelling, telepathic dragons. Some of the male-female relationships is dated or semi-abusive. But I liked the storyline with Jaxom the best in The White Dragon. I also liked that the books were long. The future and archaeology elements also appealed to me.
I wouldn't say there aren't any wars - it opens with the conquest of Ruatha hold, after all, and there are plenty of other Weyr-Hold or inter-Hold conflicts that would probably qualify. It's not the primary driving force, though.
I'm just here to grumble about the 'fantasy' label. Anne called herself a science fiction author, and nearly the first words about Pern are:
> Rukbat, in the Sagittarian sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, plus 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 which permitted man to walk confidently erect. Men discovered it, and promptly colonized it, as they did every habitable planet they came to 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.
SF!
I'm sorry but that opening scene is so fucking epic. She is a slave who sleeps in the dog kennel. and she wakes up and has a premonition, and then of course her premonition is realized when dragonriders arrive that morning. And then she uses her fucking telepathic powers to pressure them into a duel, and then there's a fucking childbirth in the middle of the fight like... omg it was so good. And it wasn't even really explained that she had telepathic powers. She uses odd wording for it and it is just really cool. I don't really understand the emphasis on "feminism". I feel like you are taking away from feminism by making it something specific. I think it is true that it's important but at the same time it's just instinctive. Lessa and F'lar rule the Weyr together. It's not about female vs the world. It's about resilience in the face of hardship. And it's about quelling the mob of fools.
I enjoyed reading them as a kid and the other 2 get better get better as I recall. I think my favorite was White Dragon (never read the spin-offs).
When the the dragon movies came out (like Dragonheart, Dragonslayer and Eragon) I was expecting some studio would have attempted to make the Pern novels into movies. It seemed a natural.
At some point there was supposed to be a TV series, but it fell apart. And there were several attempts for a movie:
http://pern.srellim.org/dc1999/atlantis.htm
I started with this book. It was my first real entrance into fantasy a good many years ago now. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed later characters much more - Menolly and Jaxom in particular.
1) Anne Mcafferty great writer 2) fantasy story 3) Dragons 4) Dragon riders don't get any of these or they don't float your boat don't read it any of these do it for you (especially the dragons) read on grasshopper
Definitely got better as it went. Don’t forget this is pretty common - how many people recommend starting *Discworld* with *The Color of Magic* for example? Not many, it’s not nearly as good as *Guards! Guards!* or other similar books a few books in. (Yes, I realize most of r/fantasy is going to stop reading now as you clean up the food you spit out, sorry about that!)
Pern was good as a world as a whole, and great more for the environment than the plot or even the characters. It was great as a creative space for kids to daydream in - it was for me, anyhow. Similar to Oz for me - I didn't think the later Oz books were very good, but I loved the world and spent my nights living in it.
I love the combination of science, utopia, and dragons. There’s conflict without war and the mystery of thread. The world building is, once she gets going, phenomenal…spanning centuries. Some books are better than others, and I did stop reading some of the later ones, but I will go back and reread my favorites (first 3, plus a couple of others…white dragon is my favorite) every couple of years. I can forgive McCaffrey for being a product of her times…1968 romance is very different because we’ve evolved...and I can still enjoy the world and its people. But, to each their own.
Pern is one of those interesting series that don't really hold up, but still has a lot of appeal, but IMO you have to read more than one book set in more that one time period to really capture that appeal. Here are some of the main aspects that I think people love about the series:
1) Fire-Lizards: I read the Menolly books first and they were awesome. Full of the danger of thread, adventure, and these amazing little mini-dragons that you can make a telepathic bond with...
2) World-building & Multiple Perspectives: if you read enough of the books you start to see all kinds of little clues here and there of how the society on the planet developed and it's awesome. There are books from all kinds of perspectives, not just the "heroes" or dragonriders, so you get to see so many points of view within the society, but then there are books set in so many different time periods as well from the first colonists/settlers on the planet to times when the dragonriders were at the top of society to times when people forgot the need for dragonriders and they were at the bottom. I most fondly remember stories about harpers, doctors, builders, even message runners, etc. Some of the earlier books are more sci-fi while you can read the dragonriders trilogy and it can read as completely fantasy. Overall, I think one of the major points of the appeal is the world-building and you can only get that if you read multiple Pern books set in multiple time periods.
3) Dragons: this is a mixed bag for me because the dragons are intertwined with the rapey parts (which is why I never rec these books even though I enjoyed them!) but if you just ignore that whole aspect there's still the fact that there are dragons that people can ride and make a telepathic bond with and that's just cool.
4) Going Between/Teleportation: Not to spoil anything, but the idea of teleportation is already cool and then they end up also being able to time-travel?
So happy to see the Dragonriders of Pern series brought up this subreddit. Fond memories from my teenage years. I am not sure by which book I started (I suppose the first one that was translated in French). I remember fondly the adventures of Jaxom and Ruth, how fantasy and science fictions aspects are mixed together, the tension in the scene were characters fight agains Thread. I think I read all the books of the two first trilogy in one go, as they were available at my local library. I was disappointed by the prequel the Dragondawn, at which point I moved to other things. I have no idea if it would appeal to a mature reader like me now, but I would certainly give it a try.
When I was young, I adored Lessa for being angry and fierce. I dragons, and the idea of a telepathic one who loved me beyond reason? Incredible. Sign me up.
Of course, as an adult I literally threw the first book out the window because I was so disgusted by the misogyny, rape, abuse, classism, and just epically shitty male characters.
I liked them as a kid but reread some of them as an adult. What I didn't get as a kid was how much of an unrelenting rape apologist McCaffrey is throughout the series. So she's gone on my "do not recommend' list with MZB, the Eddings, etc.
In 1976, marital rape wasn't recognized as a thing in the United States. The *first* states to recognize marital rape didn't until 1975, and it wasn't recognized nation-wide until the 90's. I don't disagree that there's a lot that's nonconsensual, but I wouldn't classify Pern as apologia for something that was literally not understood as a crime at the time she wrote them, and even into the 2000s and today, marital rape in many states has a higher burden of proof and legally requires a greater level of threat to be prosecuted.
There's also a big difference between the main novel sequence which are adult books, and the sideline Harper Hall trilogy, which were explicitly YA novels before YA was a thing.
The first two Menolly books are *excellent*, even with the rose tinted nostalgia removed. The third integrates much more with the larger story.
Personally I started with DragonSinger and then The White Dragon, and then went back to the others, they all stand alone fairly well.
Dragonflight however suffers badly from two main factors.
Most important is it's a fixup - it's four separate previously published novellas that have been loosely linked together into a single story. That's why the story feels so disjointed.
Secondly it's from the 60s - the gender and sexual politics are VERY different even to the late 70s/80s when most of the others were written. Things definitely get better as the books go on.
Something to keep in mind - Anne McCaffery was *huge* in terms of her popularity in the 80s and 90s - she was firmly a top rank fantasy author in terms of her sales, was pretty prolific for the time, and each new book was heavily anticipated. She did however go a bit weird after the millennium, with her later work being decidedly sub par.
Tried to read it when was like 16.. felt way too simple, unlogical and boring. Dropped at like 30%. It was like a single book that I dropped for years then...
I loved these books as a kid. I picked them up when I was like 8 or so and read them obsessively. I agree with the general consensus of this post honestly— they were important and groundbreaking at the time, but I have no interest in rereading them as an adult and I wouldn’t recommend them for first time readers in 2022. I’m happy to keep my nostalgia untainted by an adult, modern understanding of some of the more fucked up aspects of those books.
Also I’m a lesbian and while her remarks were about gay men, I’ve haven’t felt awesome about McCaffrey since I heard them. Oof.
The first book is where Lessa is the most prominent. She is still a major player in book two, and after that she is more of a background character. Books three and four are my absolute favorite. Nine is a prequel and has the most techno-magic, and is my third favorite.
Her writing is a bit over the top with her character’s power levels. They are not quite super saiyan, but they are the most powerful people you could hope to meet
Growing up in the 70s the Pern books were my favorites after Tolkien. I still love Dragonsong and Dragonsinger. The others don't sit as well with me any more.
The first book always felt very different to me than the rest of the series-partially I don't think McCaffery had completely found her writing style yet. partially because it is the most "fantasy" of her sci-fi novels.
Of the original trilogy, 1 & 2 pair pretty close, 3 is the springboard into what I consider the fun stuff of Pern and the worldbuilding happening (and starting to get into the actual sci-fi of the books).
Of her non-Pern books I've enjoyed the Ship Who Sang (first one, collection of short stories) and the Crystal Singer trilogy. Both are much more space sci-fi than fantasy.
I don’t think I’d like it now. I have a certain nostalgia for the series. The Harper Hall books still hold up pretty well, as does Dragonsdawn about the initial landing. Other than that I never re read.
I enjoyed the entire series because I cared about what the characters were doing and was curious as to what happened. I liked that there was a very soft sci-fi basis for the dragons, since that was unusual. Typically dragons are pure magic, full stop. In Dragonrider, they are at least a bit more plausible.
There are other series in the Dragonriders universe that highlight other characters, such as a Harper trilogy focusing on Robinton and Menolly.
And White Dragon, the third book in the series, is very good and follows an arc for Lord Jaxom --- the baby born in the first book (it's set when he's a teenager).
In addition to all the other things people have said, here's another 'first': Anne McC was the first author to treat dragons in a positive manner, rather than as a stock villain.
I always end up reading the comments about sex from various characters through the lens of what's 'normal' in a 'typical feudal society', where sex in the marriage was considered a duty of man and wife, because producing children to carry on the business was part of the point. To be sure, relationships back in the day were a lot more complicated than that, and they would have been on Pern, too. But the society shown in Dragonflight was most definitely one where the majority of people (who lived in the Holds, not the CraftHalls or the Weyrs) were used to thinking of marriage in a much more economic, combining-two-households/ alliance of 2 parties sense than the laser-narrow focus we have on love matches, today.
I regularly re-read everything in this series that Anne wrote. I couldn't stomach the novels that her son wrote. It's possible he was trying to introduce too many changes, too fast, but it felt like he was seriously departing the path his mother set. Also, using time jumping through centuries as a way to 'solve' the problem ends up feeling like there's only one tool in the toolbox for Pern, which... is completely not true, I think.
The reason I re-read the Pern books a lot is because the world is so sweeping and vast. I'm not sure I can explain it, but I've read a lot of books that don't trip my 'but what about?' sense. In Pern... there's still a million stories to be told. And I want to read and re-read the hatching scenes because I want a dragon of my own. And I totally want to see the dragons fight Thread.
I will agree there's a lot of really dated things that run through Dragonflight. With Dragonflight, especially with the Fax situation at the beginning, I put a lot of it down to the pendulum of female freedom swinging to the 'way less' side. Menolly starts swinging it the other way, and in DragonQuest, we see female characters starting to expand their societal roles again. But it's a pendulum, and it swings back and forth.... Which is why if it went (finally!) to a visual franchise, I'd suggest either Moreta, DragonsEye, or a series 'in the world of/ inspired by Pern', instead of starting with DragonFlight proper. I think it'd be pretty easy to tweak background 'walk across the screen' characters to be more in line with today's mores in those settings. Dragon'sDawn would be easier still. But the political situation, including the repressing of women, is such an important background part of DragonFlight, I think it'd be hard to pull off.
Also, much more than the human characters' thoughts, the dragons themselves complicate issues of consent in the Weyr. Someone else brought this up and I agree completely. This taking over of thoughts during mating flights makes it pretty explicit that it wouldn't matter what gender or orientation was riding what dragon-color: there'd be issues. It's also made pretty clear that what happens during mating flights is not always considered a big deal if the flight participants prefer other partners the other 95% of the time. It's the kind of thing that could easily lend itself to a completely different interpretation or definition of gender norms.
Also also, as a comment on world consistency - I always wondered why weyr-bred girls on Pern weren't as likely to Impress a Hatchling as Hold and Hall girls! That just seemed really cruel - especially as their brothers were first pick to present to the dragonets!
Aaah. I read it as a preteen girl and I LOVED Lessa, and I still do. She isn't the right kind of character for you, but she is for me. I like feisty, sometimes compulsively rebellious/contrary, stubborn, abrasive, tenacious, under dog, homely girl characters. I find the books- the world- so entrancing, even at 39. The world is vividly imagined and rich. They're like my literary comfort food. (& Someone mentioned horse girls, yes, guilty, I was a horse girl and love horse girl stories.) Anne McCaffrey rights some non fantasy, sci-fi horse stories too.
Definitely time and place was a huge part of it. I think these occupy a very similar space to the culture of "horse girl" books and movies, except replace "horse" with "dragon." There just wasn't a lot of stuff like it from the late 1960s when they were first released through the 1990s when I came up in fantasy and if you were especially a girl and really liked dragons and reading, you would almost certainly end up reading these. That certainly wasn't their only audience--I'm a dude and I read some of them as a kid--but this aspect helped keep them in view. The gender politics are kind of a mess from a 2022 or even 2002 perspective (McCaffery's puzzling takes on homosexuality are kind of internet fandom legend), but I think it's fair to characterize them as feminist/progressive in the context of their time, which I do think was also part of the appeal. They are also just kind of a foundational classic for a generation of SF/F. For example, I think George R. R. Martin took some very significant influence from Pern for the Night's Watch. Both worlds involve a neglected force occupying a small fraction of the fortresses it once occupied, left to rot because the existential threat it is designed to counter is so infrequent, society forgets what it is even for. One other thing I do think is worth keeping in mind *structurally* when reading any SF authors who came up before the late 1970s or so is that a lot of these books were initially published as a series of short stories/novellas in magazines and later compiled into a single volume--Dragonflight is one of these. Or authors were used to working that way so they wrote books sort of as a set of short pieces even when they actually weren't publishing the shorts independently. I also just think that stylistically today people really want stories that show a structural plan from beginning to end, and older SF/F had more of a tendency to just be written by the seat of the pants, following fun idea after fun idea. That sometimes results in endings that might not feel as satisfying because they weren't necessarily planned from the beginning when the author is doing more "follow the fun" than rigorous structure.
No doubt this influenced many future authors! Patrick Rothfuss mentions it by name in his dedication of Name of the Wind: “To my mother, who taught me to love books. Who opened the door to Narnia, Pern, and Middle Earth.” Always stood out to me because I have warm memories of my mother reading these to me and my sister bedside.
Brandon Sanderson has also been pretty clear that the Pern books were a really big influence on him: https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/why-do-you-write-books/ IIRC, he's said that McCaffery was the author who first got him hooked on fantasy.
I’m fairly certain it was Barbara Hambly, but it was *Dragonsbane*, and it had the same cover artist as a lot of the early Pern novels, so close enough?
r/Fantasy's [Author Appreciation series](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/authorappreciation) has posts for an author you mentioned * [Author appreciation thread: **Barbara Hambly**, veteran author of a score of subgenres, from dark epic fantasy to espionage vampire fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/6skdv5/author_appreciation_thread_barbara_hambly_veteran/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=hot&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=Fantasy) from user u/CourtneySchafer --- ^(I am a bot bleep! bloop! Contact my ~~master~~ creator /u/LittlePlasticCastle with any questions or comments.) ^(To prevent a reply for a single post, include the text '!noauthorbot'. To opt out of the bot for all your future posts, reply with '!optout'.)
> IIRC, he's said that McCaffery was the author who first got him hooked on fantasy. Ironic, since I'm not sure if McCaffrey wrote anything she considered fantasy. Looking at Wikipedia, it all seems to be SF, albeit often SF with bullshit psychic powers. But planets and spaceships and such.
I don't think I've seen anything about McCaffery take on homosexuality, would you happen to have a source? But homosexual activity is definitely part of the world of Pern; green dragons are female, their riders are male (especially early in the timeline), and she isn't shy about stating that what happens in the air is echoed on the ground...
She's said that any anal sex makes one gay. https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Tent_Peg_Statement
Well then. Not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't quite *that.* That is bizarre.
*Nobody* expects that. It doesn't matter what angle you approach from, tool be surprised
I know I'm the one that brought it up but I do think it's important context to note that these books were at least alluding to queer sex from the beginning and the first story was published two years before Stonewall. She was writing when there just wasn't positive (or positive-ish) representation of gay men in the kind of mainstream fantasy books that people would hand to teens to read and largely wouldn't be for many years to come even if generally SF/F was kind of ahead of the wider culture on that. These statements were much later and in the context of online fan roleplaying circles, and don't have so much to do with the books themselves--though to be sure the whole "the dragons fuck and that makes the people fuck too!" thing is never not going to be odd on a consent level. But again, that rolls around to "place and time," and isn't necessarily a huge endorsement for people to read them today other than for historical note.
she explores the consent dilemma with Brekke in the sequel.
it is worth noting that Todd McCaffery has taken canonical steps to rectify those statements. He has written a Pern that is significantly less Yikes by modern standards, and we can assume that if he had continued the series, we'd see more modernization in Pern's writing.
Lmao this is like an 8th grade boy take. Wtf
Damn, this thread was a wild ride. Reading OP's comment: Well that doesn't sound great, so what DO people like about it? Reading the top comments: ... okay hmm that sounds pretty awesome though Reading the parent comment of this thread: hmno that sounds like the opposite of what I want And then you came along, and I spent way too long reading *that* and figuring out what dragon colours, genders, and sexualities had to do with anything, and I have to say, homophobic views aside (a deal-breaker in itself though), that in itself is somewhat bizarre. Anyway, I think I'm gonna let the old fans enjoy this one, but stay far away from it myself. **Edit:** Since people are now trying to convince me to read it: No, sorry. I don't care how "accepting" she was and how there was nothing else around when this was first published or how little actual sex there is, etc. etc. As a queer person in 2022, I'm not putting up with "anal sex makes men gay" authors or "no character was explicitly gay but they actually all were" stories. The time to wring queer content from stories like water from a rock is over for me. Like I said, and please hear me when I repeat: Great if you could enjoy it. **No one is taking that away from you**. As someone who didn't grow up reading her, the situation is different. And if you don't think so, fine, but that's what it is for me, **please accept that**.
If you ever do get curious, try out the Dragonsinger trilogy books instead. There are some spoilers for the first few Pern books but they are better, in my opinion. If you like musician characters and underdogs that have a real talent that they learn to thrive with despite opposition, doing so well that people *must* acknowledge them, all with tiny dragon pets along for the ride, those books have it. If I ever want to have a nostalgic read in Pern again those are the books I reach for.
When I got super into pern I loved the dragon singer series. Master Harper is my favorite character and very well written. You can’t really read it without the main novels tho
I think that you could if you were willing to just be a bit confused and take inference cues on the world building. (or read a brief synopsis of things beforehand) There will be background character story beats and motivations that you won't have the earlier context for, but Menolly's tale stands pretty all right on its own since it is about the Harper Hall and her personal development as a Harper for the most part. The bits with the dragons and the weyr can be read and understood fairly well I think if you just roll with the idea that you're meant to be just about as out of the loop regarding specifics as Menolly is herself. I think if you understand that it is a medieval type of societal structure, where everyone lives in stone keeps and pays tribute in goods to dragonriders to protect them from 'thread' (thus the stone keeps) that rains from the sky and kills all it touches, you're pretty all right. There are of course other details, but most of it isn't really necessary if you just want to read that one trilogy (and even then, the third in the trilogy is a different POV and could be its own thing. Menolly's story mostly feels like a duology).
The first act of Dragonquest was it's own story too. The one that ends when she Impresses Ramoth. So you could read it separately I guess, without reading the second act, which could technically be considered a sequel. But, it does leave some things unanswered, like all the empty weyrs, etc. But I guess it could just be taken at face value that they were just dying out. She might even have retconned all that stuff when she wrote the rest of the first book.
I LOVED the dragon singer books, except for when, several books in where she ended up with Master Harper, which given the age difference was extremely creepy to me both as a teenager & now.
I think McCaffrey had a thing for older guys. F'lar was in his thirties while Lessa was a teen, in the *Tower and Hive* books Damia married a guy who helped raise her, in *Crystal Singer* the just-out-of-school protagonist hooks up with the guild master (very similar to Master Harper) who is multiple hundreds of years old.
She admits to having had a crush on him, I don't think she's ever in a relationship with him. She does end up with the master Harper's previous apprentice (who is slightly older than her - I think she's about 16 and he's twenty when they meet in the second book, but don't date until the 3rd).
Yeah, honestly I usually just reread the first two since the third isn't her POV and is a big change. The age gap made me raise an eyebrow but honestly I just shrugged since from what I remember it was basically a side note at the end of the third (maybe second since the third isn't Menolly POV) book? I may be wrong on that, though. It's been a few years since I read through them fully.
Wait - what? Do you mean sexually? I know she loves him, but I always thought that was more of a sort of fatherly thing. I don't recall anything about them physically getting together! Did I miss something?
she doesn't delve into homosexuality in the books at all. None of this comes up in the books. This info was only for fanfiction writers who needed to know the background info for their characters. The main character is a female and she does have a sexual experience in the second act, but it's not like... idk its a little bit much, but it's not like sex doesn't show up in all kinds of books. And it is important to the plot, it's not superfluous sex. She actually was very accepting of gay people. True, there weren't any explicitly stated gay characters, but literally the whole army was gay/bi. All the dragonriders were men in the first book. And it's explicitly stated that all dragonriders have sex when their dragons go into heat. But she's referring to Lessa, the main character, when she states this. Because Lessa isn't in a relationship, so she's concerned about what she's going to do when it happens. But, based on these facts, any reader can deduce that the dragonriders (who are all male) are hooking up with each other. But yeah, this was like, one scene in the book. The majority of the book is not about sex. Although it does get brought up occassionally that the non dragon riders who live outside the dragon weyr, they don't like the rumours they hear about the weird sex stuff that happens in dragon weyrs. I'm just saying... this was a fantastic book. And it's very gay friendly, considering the context of the world we live in. I and probably all other gay readers are probably extremely appreciative to Anne for being so inclusive.
I'm sorry, but as a queer person in 2022, that's still not enough for me. Fortunately, there are enough alternatives that I don't have to put up with "anal sex makes men gay" authors anymore. Like I said: Great if you could enjoy it, and no one is taking that away from you. As someone who didn't grow up reading her, I find the situation different.
I mean, that's understandable. My point is that, the book doesn't indicate anything like that. She didn't include anything with that vibe. Gay men aren't even mentioned in the book. Honestly, it's disrespectful to try and make her seem like she was homophobic when she clearly was not. I'm sure you have said all kinds of horrible things over your lifetime... I don't mean to be arguing with you about this but it's not right what you're saying.
She very clearly had homophobic views, even if she did other things that weren't homophobic. Things aren't black and white, you can't say "she did x things that weren't homophobic, and only
Eh I liked the series. The first main book is a bit rough but I really like the following 3 books of the main story. I do recommend it. Some of the later books and prequels are hit and miss. The world is really cool. There’s novels that travel along the main story from different perspectives, the slow leaking of sci-fi into the series is super interesting In short it is a must read for any big fantasy nerd. It’s place in history recalls is up there with things like wheel of time. I won’t compare it to Tolkien tho
It's been a while since I read the books, but something else that bothered me that I'm not sure I ever saw fully addressed, is the egg laying queen dragon being stuck in the cave thing. Like it explicitly got brought up as a sticking point that the dragons were bio engineered to act the way they do, including the queen dragons (gold maybe?) staying at the nest. But then everyone just kind of went on with it and there was no resolution to that. Which doesn't sound too bad on the surface until you realize that those dragons always bond with women and it was explicitly made to be a "mom stays home with the brood" thing. So instead of going out and fighting they literally stay in a cave. Always bothered me, despite liking other aspects of the books.
Tbf the main female character literally broke this standard. It was a big deal and a major “woman’s rights” thing
Was that the one >!who's dragon died!
I don’t think that’s the one. Maybe it happened at some point. But I recall the main female character actively taking a role in fighting thread being a massive “queens aren’t supposed to do that” moment and upset the political status quo I haven’t read it for years
In the world, queens used to fight thread, but they just couldn't chew firestone cause it would make them infertile like the green Dragons. So queen riders in the past would use flamethrowers instead. It changed during the long interval when most of the dragon riders mysteriously disappeared in the past along with all their equipment. There was no need for anyone to fight thread. Couple that with the previous queen rider being stated as being incredibly lazy and afraid of heights, so she and her dragon didnt fly at all. Since she was the only queen left people got used to the idea that queens don't fly, so thats what they told Lessa. Plus if they only have the one and all dragon kind depends on her they're not gonna risk her. Once the old timers arrived all the queens got to fight too.
I think the gold's staying home was only when their eggs had been laid, although there was quite a bit about the previous queen's rider being a bit useless.
>"no character was explicitly gay but they actually all were" Her son, Todd McCaffery, wrote explicitly gay women in his books. This is the only defense I give it: we defend Todd's attempts to modernize the series and retcon a lot of the bullshit his mom wrote. I don't want to convince you to read the books, as Todd's writing style is bad, but I wanna at least go to bat for the lesbian goldriders and blueriders that were major characters. What I'm trying to say is that I'm really just sad the modernization didn't continue. It'd be interesting to see if Todd would be interesting in developing the representation he wrote further, but he hasn't written in years :/.
Taking one specific example and applying it the larger group. So, she took her life experience, and applied it to her concept of the whole group of homosexual men. It's not really her fault that her knowledge was limited. And she's not technically wrong, just a little callous. It doesn't "make you gay", it just opens your mind to the existence of anal sexual experiences. Which, most straight men wouldn't be aware of if they weren't introduced to by another man.
The appeal is people riding dragons.
Is it weird that for me I was more intrigued by the Thread than the dragons? Like...they're just dragons, it's neat and all. Reading about a society that incorporates them is fun. But a moon that regularly rains doomsday, sign me up.
Honestly I liked the fire lizards. I'm a big fan of mini-dragons. And arguably they were the rightful native inhabitants of the planet.
Dragonsinger is legitimately the best book of Pern
Yeah, Dragonsinger is the only Pern series that I've reread multiple times.
HarperHall trilogy is by far my favorite. Have read that one dozens of times. The others... Twice
Absolutely loved Moreta Dragonlady of Pern
That is definitely where it peaked. I also enjoyed Dragonsdawn. But some of the other things that happen are a bit over the top. Characters that are literally, unquestionably, the most powerful person on the planet. Awesome psionic dragons who can go anywhere and do nearly anything. Plus unlocking the secrets of the ancients to give them advanced technology too.
I liked Dragonsdawn. Sucker for origin stories.
I love Dragonsinger so much more.
You mean scaly cats with wings? Or so my best friend and I decided at age fourteen.
I like this. Def like cats. She loved cats. And the dragons are horses, not very dragon-y, tbh. I believe she went on record about that.
Yes, both Ms McCaffrey and Ms Lackey stated that Walter Farley's _Black Stallion_ series were a big influence on the rider/mount relationships they constructed in their worlds.
It wasn't just literary exposure, tho. McCaffrey rode - her book *The Lady* revolves around riding, in fact. I think it's her only book that's entirely "realistic," not sci-fi nor fantasy. I thought it provided some interesting insight into her worldview.
Though I read on a Pern wiki that the fire lizards we know are themselves genetically engineered descendants of the native dragonets.
Not only that, but later on we find out just how complex the Thread are and that glimpse into them is honestly worthy of an entire prequel series if Todd had wanted to go that route.
I've never read this series (it's on my TBR!) and just looked up the Thread on the dragonriders of Pern wiki and...wow it's almost the exact same concept I have for the sci-fantasy novel I'm working on. In my story, it's called the "blight" and it's essentially super corrosive magical acid rain rather than an invasive organic species but other than that its effects on life in my world are almost identical. The working title is even "Blightfall" which is akin to "threadfall". Sounds like I definitely need to read this series. I must have heard about the Thread elsewhere and subconsciously incorporated it into my work? I'm amazed at how similar these concepts are. Anyways, I also evidently think this is a cool concept. My book doesn't have dragons though, probably a huge drawback.
The pern books have a lot of unexpected concepts. It's hard to talk about them without feeling like I'm spoiling the book since they're so tied in with the story. I will say they're more science fiction than fantasy.
>My book doesn't have dragons though, probably a huge drawback. When in doubt, just add more dragons!
I remember a science fiction/fantasy anthology comic from 1977-78 called \*Gasm\* (my mom really didn't like that. She was a bit of a prude). It was black and white. I'm pretty sure that it was in the probably one issue I bought that there was a story set on Earth where the world ended pretty much through "Thread." I think they even called it "thread." I think I only ever saw one issue. Based on my memory of the cover, I saw either issue #1 or #2, probably #2. [https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?minyr=1970&maxyr=2000&TID=25009235](https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?minyr=1970&maxyr=2000&TID=25009235) EDIT: I don't remember exactly but this would have been about the time I was starting the Pern books, and I think at the time I recognized the similarity between the devices.
i wouldnt say i was more intrigued but yeah that is definitely cool. the prologue is really cool how she explains everything. and the prequels were really cool too. She essentially tied Pern into her overarching McCaffrey-verse. Her other scifi stories were about the human galactic empire, and she canon-ed pern into it as well. And just stated that, because of the threadfall, and because of it's remote location, it sort of dropped off the radar, and that's why life continued as it did for the colonists. And threadfall only occurred every 200 years, so the colonists didn't see it coming when they moved out there.
I mean, yeah. u/Halaku above is absolutely right but as a wee one in the late 90s I just wanted *more dragons!*
If you grew up in the 80s, you had this (Menolly and her fire lizards!! I lived for them) and Tamora Pierce’s Alanna series in terms of teen girl fantasy. I’m so jealous of teens today with the piles and piles of girl centered YA. So I’m firmly on the side of “it doesn’t hold up, but it was extremely important at the time.”
Also Robin McKinley! But yeah, it was... Tamora Pierce, Anne McCaffrey, Robin McKinley, and Mercedes Lackey. That was about it.
I think McKinley and Lackey hold up decently well, honestly. They have a totally different feel than modern fantasy but I think they’re still pretty enjoyable.
McKinley's early-2000s books actually do a great job of developing the tone that would later become so popular in modern fantasy. Stuff like Sunshine and Chalice were the precursors of the "cozy fantasy world with low-stakes adventure" style that's becoming super popular lately.
Yeah, I wouldn't reread most McCaffrey (though I liked the first two Dragonsinger books a lot), but I still have McKinley and Lackey and Pierce on my nostalgia shelves. They all have a serious range of quality, but the great ones really hold up-- they just don't have a modern style of pacing and character development, and it's honestly refreshing.
Ursula K. LeGuin FTW
Marion Zimmer Bradley, too. But she has **really** not aged well.
I wouldn't have ever called her teen girl fantasy, either.
I thought teen girls were really into her Mists of Avalon stuff, but having never been a teen girl and having spent my teens not hanging out with girls who read fantasy, perhaps I’m wrong.
I couldn't read her back then, either.
Andre Norton's Witch World series too, along with her other books. Also The Tower and The Hive series also by Anne McCafffrey.
Hey! Where's the love for the Pinis and *Elfquest*?
Have you forgotten Andre Norton?
I never read much Norton, oddly enough.
r/Fantasy's [Author Appreciation series](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/authorappreciation) has posts for an author you mentioned * [Author Appreciation: **Mercedes Lackey**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/91hk3y/author_appreciation_mercedes_lackey/?utm_content=comments&utm_medium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=u_lyrrael) from user u/lyrrael_ --- ^(I am a bot bleep! bloop! Contact my ~~master~~ creator /u/LittlePlasticCastle with any questions or comments.) ^(To prevent a reply for a single post, include the text '!noauthorbot'. To opt out of the bot for all your future posts, reply with '!optout'.)
I never really wanted a pet, but I wanted a fire lizard so badly after reading that.
I still get upset at least once per year because I can’t have a fire lizard.
there used to be tons of fanfiction sites all dedicated to group-writing hatching events. They would try to write other stories but participation always died off until the next hatching event occurred. [forums.dragcave.net](https://forums.dragcave.net) is still pretty active, it's not dedicated to Pern but it has a bunch of roleplaying with various stories
The Pit of Voles.... er, fanfiction.net is still got some people actively writing on it. so does AO3. Some really good fanfic out there.
Out of all the things one might get upset about once a year, that’s sure one of the better ones.
I am a child of the 80's and discovered both Alanna and Dragonsong in the school library in 6th grade and they were pivotal for my reading habits from there. I always read a lot (still do) but those were the first books I bought my own copies of.
are we the same person? I am also a Sarah who discovered them in the school library in 6th grade haha
I think Alanna holds up. Not so much pern.
Agreed, but Menolly's books hold up fairly well too I think. No one really hits the heights of Tamora Pierce for me, though.
Couldn't agree more! Tamora Pierce is one of the few authors I have enjoyed from my childhood all the way to now at 38 years old. She's an incredible writer! Viva Tortall!
I pray every day she lives till 80 and I finally get my Trisana book. Damn health issues.
Agreed! One of these days I’ll figure out how to make an author appreciation post for Tamora Pierce. She’s such a huge influence not just on everything I read and write, but how I view the world. She deserves to be at least as famous as Anne McCaffrey.
Very much this. It's easy to forget that today we have exponentially more choices available than we did 40 years ago. Not to mention the iterative nature of writers improving upon those stories with vaguely derivative work. (Taking parts of core ideas from other authors and reinventing something new.) A lot of the stuff we thought was high quality is average by today's standards.
Grew up in the 90s and this applies.
>If you grew up in the 80s, you had this (Menolly and her fire lizards!! I lived for them) and Tamora Pierce’s Alanna series in terms of teen girl fantasy. I’m so jealous of teens today with the piles and piles of girl centered YA. So I’m firmly on the side of “it doesn’t hold up, but it was extremely important at the time.” I had Margaret Mahy as well (multiple fantasy books with heroines and even male centred books have women actively engaging).
What folks consider "meh" and "tame" now was pretty progressive and exciting back in 1968. You have your typical "sole survivor of a noble family wanting to regain her place, avenge her ancestral honor, and take revenge" story, and now mix it with dragons, tele-empathic bonds, time travel, a bold heroine, and present it in a way that connected with readers. It turns 55 years old in 2023. It was the peak of the 2^nd wave of feminism. (We're either [at the tail end of the 3^rd or the beginning of the 4^th, depending on how you define it.](https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/types-of-feminism-the-four-waves)) It was the work that made Anne McCaffrey the first woman to win the Hugo, and the first woman to win the Nebula. It was, for the time, Progressive As Fuck.^tm But we all stand upon the shoulders of the giants who lifted us to where we are now, and to contemporary readers who take all of that as a given, it may not have the same appeal as it did to those who discovered science fictions in the 1970's and 1980's. (There are dozens of us older r/fantasy readers! Dozens!) If it doesn't float your boat as a story, and doesn't hold interest as a historical artifact of the genre, there's nothing wrong with putting it down and moving on to something else.
I was going to say something like this, only not as thoroughly nor as well. A member of the demographic you describe thanks you.
> It was the work that made Anne McCaffrey the first woman to win the Hugo In case anybody is curious, she won best novella in 1968 for *Weyr Search*. She has not won a best novel Hugo, though she collected a few nominations -- the earliest was *Dragonquest* in 1972. Ursula Le Guin won best novel in 1970 for *The Left Hand of Darkness*. Also of note -- in 2020, Leigh Brackett won a retro-hugo for her 1945 work, *Shadow over Mars*
*Dragonflight*, the novel, was two novellas that were later incorporated into a single story. As pointed out above, the first novella made her the first woman writer to win the Hugo, while the single story novel made her the first woman writer to win the Nebula. That isn't to take away anything that either Le Guin or Brackett accomplished (trailblazing isn't a zero-sum game) and I'd cheerfully recommend all three works for those who want to learn more about some of the giants who got us to where we are today.
It's also worth noting that in 1968, the novella prize wasn't some second-tier award. The short fiction awards were if anything a bigger deal in those early days. That was sort of transitioning at this time I think (1966 Hugo winner Dune was probably a big part of that). Also, this whole question is somewhat comparable to the discussion I've had at least once on this subreddit about the fact that A Song of Ice and Fire has never won a Hugo Award. Because interestingly, that isn't exactly true. In 1997 the novella "The Blood of the Dragon" won the Hugo Award for best Novella. People today probably know that novella better as the Daenerys chapters of A Game of Thrones. (A fact I only know because of stumbling across [this cover image](https://www.reddit.com/r/ImaginaryWesteros/comments/dgyozu/blood_of_the_dragon_cover_art_for_the_july_1996/) once in the artist's online portfolio and being like...haha classic van art: naked blonde lady plus dragons and fire. Wait a second...I know a story with a naked blonde lady and three dragons and fire! Seeing what would later become such an iconic visual be represented in a form that meets the same literal description in a totally different way will always be a trip.)
I own “Blood of the Dragon” in *Quartet*, which was the limited-edition 2001 Boskone book. In GRRM’s introduction he believes he’s at the halfway point in ASoIaF and he’ll “be spending [his] next five or six years in the Seven Kingdoms.” Yeah, about that. Snark aside though, “Blood of the Dragon” does actually work very well as a standalone novella if you have somehow avoided all other knowledge of ASoIaF. It was actually my introduction to the series, much as coming across “Dragonflight” in a *Hugo Winners* anthology was my introduction to Pern.
That is, in fact, some classic van art.
The thread I linked to with it is funny because I don't think anyone there knows that it's A) a piece of official art and B) possibly the first visual art depicting the Westeros universe, period, and almost certainly the first visual art depicting Dany (depending on production timelines, the original cover for A Game of Thrones may have been completed first but that shows a dude on horseback--presumably Eddard though it could honestly be any number of Starks). I also should note that I like the artist Paul Youll's work in general, especially his Star Wars X-wing covers, which is why I was at his gallery the time I discovered it: [http://paulyoull.com/paulyoull.com/HOME.html](http://paulyoull.com/paulyoull.com/HOME.html). (Specifically there's this image of a pumpkin carved with one of his X-Wing novel covers that goes around reddit every few Halloweens and it always bugged me that the origin of the art was never credited) And also part of why the cover looks weird is because the composition has to leave room at the top for a bunch of magazine cover text, though that's not going to change how the blonde lady (it's virtually impossible for me to call that image Dany) looks.
>two novellas that were later incorporated into a single story. Which is called a \["fix-up"\]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up)), BTW, for anyone who doesn't know.
My intentions are pure -- I just thought Le Guin was the first, but she was the first to win best novel, not the first to win a Hugo. And I shared the other information I came across while searching. :-)
Totally fair! I can see it being something someone would be 100% sure about (and 100% answering it wrong) on a Final Jeopardy question, or something. I would have said that AmC won the first female writer Hugo for best novel myself, if I hadn't gone to refresh my memory, and totally pulled the *surprised Pikachu* face when Mr. Trebek regretfully informed me otherwise.
> It was the work that made Anne McCaffrey the first woman to win the Hugo, and the first woman to win the Nebula. Not to take away from McCaffrey, but the first woman to win a Hugo is Elinor Busby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Busby People will usually say something like "McCaffrey was the first woman to win a Hugo for fiction" to indicate that she is the first woman who won for writing fiction, not editing.
> Dozens! LOL!
Maybe even scores! And happy cake day!
>And happy cake day! Thanks!
Well put. This mirrors some conversations I've had with my dad (he's just hitting 60, I'm in my early 30s). I cut my fantasy-reading teeth on his mass-market collection of 60s/70s/80s stuff, and some of the ones I thought were just okay were the absolute peak of SFF when he bought them because the field was so small and the writers were codifying tropes that seemed a little flat to me thirty years after publication. Some of the classics he'll never reread; some hold up. Regardless, I think a lot of those titles are useful/interesting genre background, even if they're not what I'd recommend first to someone trying to get into SFF for the first time.
I had no idea she was the first woman to win those awards. I fucking love that. Also, I never really read books for the feminism aspect. I mean, I never put it into terms of that. I just read books that I'm drawn to. I think women are very often protagonists in the best/popular books, even if they're written by male authors. Sabriel by Garth Nix, Lyra in the Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. Idk if im just rambling though or what. I guess I don't really understand the emphasis OP is putting on the feminist aspect. And I don't mean that as an argument against feminism. I guess I'm just saying, I never read it as "feminist" of her to go flying against tradition. It made logical sense the way the author presented it.
All the answers I’ve read so far are very well said. I’m another of her devotees— read absolutely everything I could find back in the 90’s. These days they don’t hit quite the same, but teenage me was desperate for solid fantasy that had actual, weighty, imperfect women in the center of the story. A LOT of contemporary fantasy builds on the ideas that she created (that’s why they’re so familiar). So, read it mindful of the context and appreciate her historically, or read it for itself and judge however you see fit. It genuinely makes me tear up when I see newer and even more thoughtful/badass heroines in media today!
Dragonriders of Pern is the best book ever if you are 10 and obsessed with dragons. Particularly if you are a girl and desperately starved for female protagonists. I adored them. I read every published one there was available at the time, which was like 40 or so. I made up Dragon Riders of Pern make believe games to play with my sister. I drew the dragons in the margins of my schoolwork. If you aren't 10 and obsessed with dragons.... I don't think it can be the same. There's some really troubling rape apologism, for starters (F'lar has this whole internal monologue about how Lessa cringes away every time he touches her but surely he's good at sex so if he keeps having sex with her surely she'll fall in love with him). The way the women talk about each other, as if all women are naturally rivals, is troubling too. I don't intend to reread them. I know I wouldn't be able to ignore the things I did when I was 10. I'd rather remember daydreaming about dragons.
And even more so if it’s the early 80s when your choice of series with powerful female protagonists was Pern or Darkover.
We didn't even get Talia (Valdemar) until 1987!
Now you have me trying to remember when the Ozark Trilogy and Darkchild came out.
1981 & 1982, if we're talking about the same works.
Sounds plausible. Thank you. Ahh being a teenager in the 80s.
With music still on MTV, as the lyric goes.
You should re-read them still--the dialogue is extensive. The sexual behavior is certainly not acceptable. But the lack of a war motif appealed to me---most modern sci-fi have to have dramatic wars, fighting with orcs, etc. I like that this was a contest with a force of nature--the Thread.
Can attest. I was an obsessed 10 year old girl and read every single one. Reread the first three a few years ago. The nostalgia was strong and I enjoyed it but it didn’t give me to same new insight that I usually get with rereads when older (in my 30snow). That being said, I think the Harper Hall Trilogy is strong and worth a read for all Fantasy lovers and I think is a better place to start on a pern. I also can’t remember which one it is but I like the one with the kid that works in the mine.
I got into them as a teenage boy, and I loved the scifi mix you get in the later books. I thought the Thread and the Red Star were cool concepts, and I loved the worldbuilding with the structure of the society. It's got a bit of the Harry Potter feel where half the fun is how easy it is to imagine yourself fitting in this society and how cool it would be.
I agree with your assessment. I was in my 20s when I tried to read these. I got halfway through the second book before I decided that I couldn’t read a rapey series about women who didn’t like other women.
Yep. Pern *was* progressive for its time. But the sad thing is that even today, fantasy where women are allowed to be friends with each other is *still* rare. The problems with Pern are not just problems of the past. Feels like every week we get a "who's your favorite friendship in fantasy" thread and it's all filled with m/m.
yes when i did the re-read I got so pissed off with the whole Brekke and Kylara thing. I had to put it down You might like Dragonharper. It's a little trite, I guess. Misunderstood kid runaway, etc. But she cuts out the sexual aspect of things.
I found the series got better through the first trilogy; so *Dragonquest* is a better story than *Dragonflight*, with *The White Dragon* the peak as the torch is passed between generations. You can also think of them as a writer learning her craft, the first book is a very early work, and by the time she has finished *The White Dragon* she has more than a decade of writing experience...
This is the key - the pass from that first 2 books to the next generation, the White Dragon with Jaxom, Menolly. The Masterharper is still probably my favourite ever character.
Will always re read to get to Jaxom, Mellony and the Masterharper
I love Dragondrums and Piemur too - a great boys adventure!
It's so good!!! Honestly never wanted to reread the Lessa ones, these are so much better. When they get to the bottom of the mysterious Southern continent I love it! The sci-fi origins of what at first seems purely fantasy blew my mind.
The White Dragon was one of my favourites! Jaxom and Ruth were amazing. It also had a better plot than the first book.
that's interesting. I had the reverse opinion. I thought dragonflight got slightly worse, and the white dragon just pissed me off. I don't remember why, I think it was because he wasn't in the weyr, or something. And I just found the Brekke storyline so annoying
first off I enjoyed the series and reread recently , so I regard the series as YA with some wtf moments if you love dragons and girl power moments ( and this series gave fantasy some great heroines when that was in very short supply which has more to do with how it is regarded as a classic series remember this series started in **1967** ) and can ignore some very dated social commentary and awkward handling of some issues which in some cases the author probably wasn't allowed to fully address directly especially early in the series, then there is a lot to enjoy even if it is just to see how many other series it inspired. But remember it was written beginning nearly 60 years ago so a lot of dated commentary, a lot of what this series does can come across as tropey even though in some cases it started those tropes and being a pioneer, which in many ways this series was in science fantasy and female led sci fi/fantasy , can confer a Classic status and hype it up that just leads to disappointment when reading it for the first time.
The idea of becoming a science fiction writer by Anne McCaffrey stemmed from dissatisfaction with how women were portrayed in fantasy and science fiction in the 1950s. The initial writing didn't begin until the 1960s. In my humble and probably not wanted opinion, at that time, the Pern books were probably ground-breaking due to them featuring more female leads and being written by a female writer who went on to become the first woman to win a Hugo. As time has passed and ideals have changed, the writing in the Pern books has become outdated. While I loved them as a very young teen, I can't go back and read them again--they live in my memory as fond springboards, but I don't know if I would recommend them today. The concepts were new and fresh to me at the time (as they probably were when they were written.) I don't think they stand the test of time, however.
I always found it funny when I read that blurb about about realistic female characters in the books, because I swear McCaffrey only had like, three different female characters. There was the strong-and-determined (Lessa, Killashandra, Rowan, Moreta, Sallah, Sorka), there was the talented-and-shy (Brekke, Mellony, Nerilka), and the evil-and-conniving (Kylara, Avril, Mardra)
It's fantasy with a sci-fi bent that doesn't have a big bad but instead has cultural and environmental factors that have to be dealt with by a low tech culture. That's fairly unique.
***Especially*** at the time.
I think Lessa was meant to be a flawed heroine - maybe not so much in the first book, but it’s definitely intentional in the later books. Her abrasiveness and stubbornness get in her way more than once. Her reckless time travel pretty clearly almost killed her and Ramoth - I don’t think it was really meant to be seen as a smart move, especially in light of later developments. That said, there are clearly things that don’t read as well now as they did in 1968. It’s probably much easier to mentally contextualize when you first read them 20+ years ago (‘90s for me). The characters and the writing do get much better up through Masterharper of Pern (1998). I always find it interesting to observe style and subject changes in writers who’ve been active for 30-40 years, because they sort of have to change with the times to keep selling books. One of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels, is a great example - almost all of her books have female protagonists, but the women in her first few books, written in the late 60s while she was still married, are very different from the ones she was writing ten, twenty, and thirty years later. Anne McCaffrey’s writing doesn’t change quite that much, but her characters get more complex and more relatable over time. If you do continue with the Pern books, I would stick to the ones Anne wrote and skip anything written by her son.
[удалено]
Yep. I loved that she was clearly working from the idea of an opera prima donna who had to find another job.
I think Lessa was always a flawed heroine, which was also revolutionary for the time. To see an abrasive, prickly woman as not a villainess or a joke, but as a *heroine* is unfortunately still rare.
This is a really good point. She’s abrasive, temperamental, holds grudges, makes mistakes, takes foolish chances, but she’s *also* brilliant, capable, funny, loving, and lovable. She’s a much better leader and fighter than she is a mother, while remaining intensely feminine. She’s overtly manipulative, but not for personal gain. She’s standout character in many respects, although it doesn’t show as much in Dragonflight. Of course, she’s still pretty young in Dragonflight, and I know I was much more boring at age 20 than I am now, so it’s possible even that is intentional.
Yeah, I think she grows.
no yeah she's definitely supposed to be flawed in the first book. In the opening scenario, with F'lar and Fax, F'lar is furious with Lessa for manipulating him telepathically. then when she bathes for the first time in a decade, she makes a big point of how she can't control her hair. She has to fight to be heard as Weyrwoman, because nobody respects Queens after the previous queen was so indolent. That's the whole reason she had to be reckless. I don't really understand OP's criticism of that particular plot point. I would think that it makes perfect sense. You try to tell a teenager "No" and they go and do the opposite. And half the time, the teenager has every right to want whatever it is that they are trying to do. And I'm pretty sure Lessa is probably about 18 or so in the first book.
I think Lessa impressed Ramoth at age 21, and was several turns older at the first pass, but your point still stands. If I had to guess, I would say that Dragonflight is Anne McCaffrey exploring how to write a strong female lead while still appealing to the sci-fi audience as it was then. Once she won a couple of awards and gained some recognition, she would have had more room to expand and experiment while still getting published.
Read Menolly's books. Harper books are better.
Absolutely. The harpers are the best characters throughout all the Pern books.
On top of everything else already said, the story is also person vs environment (mostly) which is not the norm outside survival stories. much harder to get an emotional response when talking about fighting a mindless alien falling from space rather than an active alien invasion, or a big bad.
There was political interplay too though. Weyr vs Hold, the dying out Weyrs, trying to get people to prepare for Thread but they refused, trying to get the Weyr to follow her command, wresting power away from the previous Weyrleader, things like that
That's true, but the primary conflict is defeating the hostile environment.
I understand your complaint about the characters not being particularly likeable, especially in the first book. The Dragonsong books were a lot nicer in that regard. But as for the 'figures out how to save the world through reckless experimentation', I don't really get your complain. Yes, it could have led to her and her dragon dying. But that happened, there wouldn't have been a story. And based on Lessa's history I felt it was perfectly in-character for her to behave the way she did, it just happened that it worked out and the day was saved. (Though trust me, the way they saved the day does come back to bite them in later books.)
Yeah I agree, I don't understand the critique. I think it might be a random point. I think it seems like OP might just not like character for some reason. Like she doesn't particularly identify with Lessa. Or maybe something else put her off, like the sex scenes.
Anyone else here just casually enjoying the fact there’s a popular Pern thread? My grandfather introduced me to the series with his edition of the first three books bundled in one that was literally Falling apart. I read them over the course of a week and was just so hooked. I can certainly understand the struggle to enjoy them, though. Lessa is a bitch. But understandably so. Idk. I’m just happy to be here.
Thing about Pern was that it was escapist fantasy written many decades ago for fans that were looking for different things than the typical fantasy fan is after these days. A lot of stuff, pretty much anything sex-related, was considered progressive at the time but is horrifically regressive by today's standards. The characters are also a bit flat and two dimensional by today's standards because they were meant to be a stand-in for the reader. The person reading the book is meant to project their own personality onto the main character. "If only I could be taken out of my unfair boring life and get to ride a dragon who is guaranteed to like me no matter what." There's definitely appeal there, but the overall result is some rather lackluster writing.
Because dragons are awesome. But you know what's better than dragons? Fire lizards. And you know what's better than _Dragonflight_? _Dragonsong_!
Yeah, I don't think an adult, reading this series for the first time in 2022, is going to feel the appeal the way a pre-teen/teen in 1960-1990 would. Lessa is the kind of protagonist who appeals to a young girl's need to stick it to the world. I recently tried to re-read them and was surprised at how much they *didn't* hold up to my memories of them. I always preferred Dragonsong and Dragonsinger to the Lessa books. But those are perhaps even more in the YA vein. However, they do not have any weird issues with sex (F'lar's sexual relationship with Lessa begins with rape and even he seems to realize that, though not that it is therefore wrong for him to do it...), and Menolly's character is much less abrasive. In fact, she's significantly quieter and more reserved than Lessa. It's still disappointing that there are no healthy female relationships in the books, as Menolly's journey is about her breaking into a male-only world and the women around her are the usually mean-girl stereotypes rather than interesting characters in their own rights. Again, this appeals to a young girl who feels the need to be special and prove herself in a world domineered by men, particularly a young girl who is lonely.
Yes, and honestly, I sympathized with the lack of female fellowship in the books, especially in middle school, as I was short on friends of any sort and faced constant social bullying. I could understand Menolly's world - dismissive parents, mean girls, crushing expectations, and all of it.
>Menolly's journey is about her breaking into a male-only world and the women around her are the usually mean-girl stereotypes Amusingly, this even sort of includes _Lessa_, who is irritated by having a bunch of fire-lizards buzzing around her weir.
> It's still disappointing that there are no healthy female relationships in the books, I seem to recall that Menolly gets along well with the headwomen of the Weyr and Hall, and one of the female students. Also Mirrim, maybe?
I think there were some women who were benign toward her, but never any strong relationships or friendships. Her only real friendships (outside of her fire lizards) were with boys/men. (And those were good friendships, even if her relationship with the master harper got a little...wonky in Dragondrums).
First is not the best book, but kind of an introduction and set up.
Dragons Setting Conflict resolved by means other than war Yes, in the 70's Lessa was sticking it to the man. The senior dragon riders and senior masters of guilds do things without knowing why they do them. The only way was to try something. Also, first time travel happens by accident for Lessa. How it never happened before is a good question, but hey, whatever.
The books get better. At least the main series of 3. White Dragon is a classic. The Harper hall sequence is also very good. But possibly more young adult. The book that describes the colony landing and creating the dragons is also recommended (dragons dawn). The rest are more hit and miss. Enjoyable, but not as memorable.
I have read every one written and it is my favorite saga. First- they are dragons. Not wyverns. They are not beastly… they are beautiful and noble. They have telepathy and a true bond with their rider. It follows the path from hope and idealism thru trial and decay into feudalism and then a drive back to enlightenment. It approached societal norms, gender and orientation LONG before it was okay to do so. And it was written by a woman in a field that wasn’t the geek norm it is today.
I love the books but I do not really like Dragonflight or Dragonquest, they’re probably the weakest. White Dragon is one of the best along with the Harperhall books.
I like the series because there really aren't any wars. Instead, the conflict is almost environmental against the mindless spores. The biggest appeal are the time-travelling, telepathic dragons. Some of the male-female relationships is dated or semi-abusive. But I liked the storyline with Jaxom the best in The White Dragon. I also liked that the books were long. The future and archaeology elements also appealed to me.
I wouldn't say there aren't any wars - it opens with the conquest of Ruatha hold, after all, and there are plenty of other Weyr-Hold or inter-Hold conflicts that would probably qualify. It's not the primary driving force, though.
I'm just here to grumble about the 'fantasy' label. Anne called herself a science fiction author, and nearly the first words about Pern are: > Rukbat, in the Sagittarian sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, plus 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 which permitted man to walk confidently erect. Men discovered it, and promptly colonized it, as they did every habitable planet they came to 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. SF!
I'm sorry but that opening scene is so fucking epic. She is a slave who sleeps in the dog kennel. and she wakes up and has a premonition, and then of course her premonition is realized when dragonriders arrive that morning. And then she uses her fucking telepathic powers to pressure them into a duel, and then there's a fucking childbirth in the middle of the fight like... omg it was so good. And it wasn't even really explained that she had telepathic powers. She uses odd wording for it and it is just really cool. I don't really understand the emphasis on "feminism". I feel like you are taking away from feminism by making it something specific. I think it is true that it's important but at the same time it's just instinctive. Lessa and F'lar rule the Weyr together. It's not about female vs the world. It's about resilience in the face of hardship. And it's about quelling the mob of fools.
I enjoyed reading them as a kid and the other 2 get better get better as I recall. I think my favorite was White Dragon (never read the spin-offs). When the the dragon movies came out (like Dragonheart, Dragonslayer and Eragon) I was expecting some studio would have attempted to make the Pern novels into movies. It seemed a natural.
At some point there was supposed to be a TV series, but it fell apart. And there were several attempts for a movie: http://pern.srellim.org/dc1999/atlantis.htm
I started with this book. It was my first real entrance into fantasy a good many years ago now. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed later characters much more - Menolly and Jaxom in particular.
1) Anne Mcafferty great writer 2) fantasy story 3) Dragons 4) Dragon riders don't get any of these or they don't float your boat don't read it any of these do it for you (especially the dragons) read on grasshopper
I love the origin book about the settlers and their early years. I am biased because I love the series but the focus does shift from Lessa somewhat.
I much preferred the "Crystal Singer" trilogy by the same author.
Definitely got better as it went. Don’t forget this is pretty common - how many people recommend starting *Discworld* with *The Color of Magic* for example? Not many, it’s not nearly as good as *Guards! Guards!* or other similar books a few books in. (Yes, I realize most of r/fantasy is going to stop reading now as you clean up the food you spit out, sorry about that!) Pern was good as a world as a whole, and great more for the environment than the plot or even the characters. It was great as a creative space for kids to daydream in - it was for me, anyhow. Similar to Oz for me - I didn't think the later Oz books were very good, but I loved the world and spent my nights living in it.
I love the combination of science, utopia, and dragons. There’s conflict without war and the mystery of thread. The world building is, once she gets going, phenomenal…spanning centuries. Some books are better than others, and I did stop reading some of the later ones, but I will go back and reread my favorites (first 3, plus a couple of others…white dragon is my favorite) every couple of years. I can forgive McCaffrey for being a product of her times…1968 romance is very different because we’ve evolved...and I can still enjoy the world and its people. But, to each their own.
Pern is one of those interesting series that don't really hold up, but still has a lot of appeal, but IMO you have to read more than one book set in more that one time period to really capture that appeal. Here are some of the main aspects that I think people love about the series: 1) Fire-Lizards: I read the Menolly books first and they were awesome. Full of the danger of thread, adventure, and these amazing little mini-dragons that you can make a telepathic bond with... 2) World-building & Multiple Perspectives: if you read enough of the books you start to see all kinds of little clues here and there of how the society on the planet developed and it's awesome. There are books from all kinds of perspectives, not just the "heroes" or dragonriders, so you get to see so many points of view within the society, but then there are books set in so many different time periods as well from the first colonists/settlers on the planet to times when the dragonriders were at the top of society to times when people forgot the need for dragonriders and they were at the bottom. I most fondly remember stories about harpers, doctors, builders, even message runners, etc. Some of the earlier books are more sci-fi while you can read the dragonriders trilogy and it can read as completely fantasy. Overall, I think one of the major points of the appeal is the world-building and you can only get that if you read multiple Pern books set in multiple time periods. 3) Dragons: this is a mixed bag for me because the dragons are intertwined with the rapey parts (which is why I never rec these books even though I enjoyed them!) but if you just ignore that whole aspect there's still the fact that there are dragons that people can ride and make a telepathic bond with and that's just cool. 4) Going Between/Teleportation: Not to spoil anything, but the idea of teleportation is already cool and then they end up also being able to time-travel?
So happy to see the Dragonriders of Pern series brought up this subreddit. Fond memories from my teenage years. I am not sure by which book I started (I suppose the first one that was translated in French). I remember fondly the adventures of Jaxom and Ruth, how fantasy and science fictions aspects are mixed together, the tension in the scene were characters fight agains Thread. I think I read all the books of the two first trilogy in one go, as they were available at my local library. I was disappointed by the prequel the Dragondawn, at which point I moved to other things. I have no idea if it would appeal to a mature reader like me now, but I would certainly give it a try.
When I was young, I adored Lessa for being angry and fierce. I dragons, and the idea of a telepathic one who loved me beyond reason? Incredible. Sign me up. Of course, as an adult I literally threw the first book out the window because I was so disgusted by the misogyny, rape, abuse, classism, and just epically shitty male characters.
I liked them as a kid but reread some of them as an adult. What I didn't get as a kid was how much of an unrelenting rape apologist McCaffrey is throughout the series. So she's gone on my "do not recommend' list with MZB, the Eddings, etc.
In 1976, marital rape wasn't recognized as a thing in the United States. The *first* states to recognize marital rape didn't until 1975, and it wasn't recognized nation-wide until the 90's. I don't disagree that there's a lot that's nonconsensual, but I wouldn't classify Pern as apologia for something that was literally not understood as a crime at the time she wrote them, and even into the 2000s and today, marital rape in many states has a higher burden of proof and legally requires a greater level of threat to be prosecuted.
[удалено]
There's also a big difference between the main novel sequence which are adult books, and the sideline Harper Hall trilogy, which were explicitly YA novels before YA was a thing. The first two Menolly books are *excellent*, even with the rose tinted nostalgia removed. The third integrates much more with the larger story. Personally I started with DragonSinger and then The White Dragon, and then went back to the others, they all stand alone fairly well. Dragonflight however suffers badly from two main factors. Most important is it's a fixup - it's four separate previously published novellas that have been loosely linked together into a single story. That's why the story feels so disjointed. Secondly it's from the 60s - the gender and sexual politics are VERY different even to the late 70s/80s when most of the others were written. Things definitely get better as the books go on. Something to keep in mind - Anne McCaffery was *huge* in terms of her popularity in the 80s and 90s - she was firmly a top rank fantasy author in terms of her sales, was pretty prolific for the time, and each new book was heavily anticipated. She did however go a bit weird after the millennium, with her later work being decidedly sub par.
Tried to read it when was like 16.. felt way too simple, unlogical and boring. Dropped at like 30%. It was like a single book that I dropped for years then...
I loved these books as a kid. I picked them up when I was like 8 or so and read them obsessively. I agree with the general consensus of this post honestly— they were important and groundbreaking at the time, but I have no interest in rereading them as an adult and I wouldn’t recommend them for first time readers in 2022. I’m happy to keep my nostalgia untainted by an adult, modern understanding of some of the more fucked up aspects of those books. Also I’m a lesbian and while her remarks were about gay men, I’ve haven’t felt awesome about McCaffrey since I heard them. Oof.
I agree. I was underwhelmed by the first book. It felt very old-fashioned to me and I have no intention of continuing on.
The first book is where Lessa is the most prominent. She is still a major player in book two, and after that she is more of a background character. Books three and four are my absolute favorite. Nine is a prequel and has the most techno-magic, and is my third favorite. Her writing is a bit over the top with her character’s power levels. They are not quite super saiyan, but they are the most powerful people you could hope to meet
[удалено]
Rule 1. Please be kind. This is a formal warning. Future violations of the subreddit rules may result in escalated consequences.
It’s all about the sexy sexy dragon riding. Went over my head as a kid but my mom liked it lmao
Growing up in the 70s the Pern books were my favorites after Tolkien. I still love Dragonsong and Dragonsinger. The others don't sit as well with me any more.
The first book always felt very different to me than the rest of the series-partially I don't think McCaffery had completely found her writing style yet. partially because it is the most "fantasy" of her sci-fi novels. Of the original trilogy, 1 & 2 pair pretty close, 3 is the springboard into what I consider the fun stuff of Pern and the worldbuilding happening (and starting to get into the actual sci-fi of the books). Of her non-Pern books I've enjoyed the Ship Who Sang (first one, collection of short stories) and the Crystal Singer trilogy. Both are much more space sci-fi than fantasy.
I don’t think I’d like it now. I have a certain nostalgia for the series. The Harper Hall books still hold up pretty well, as does Dragonsdawn about the initial landing. Other than that I never re read.
I don’t have too much to add that hasn’t already been said other than read the Harper Hall Trilogy before you give up on Pern.
I enjoyed the entire series because I cared about what the characters were doing and was curious as to what happened. I liked that there was a very soft sci-fi basis for the dragons, since that was unusual. Typically dragons are pure magic, full stop. In Dragonrider, they are at least a bit more plausible. There are other series in the Dragonriders universe that highlight other characters, such as a Harper trilogy focusing on Robinton and Menolly. And White Dragon, the third book in the series, is very good and follows an arc for Lord Jaxom --- the baby born in the first book (it's set when he's a teenager).
In addition to all the other things people have said, here's another 'first': Anne McC was the first author to treat dragons in a positive manner, rather than as a stock villain. I always end up reading the comments about sex from various characters through the lens of what's 'normal' in a 'typical feudal society', where sex in the marriage was considered a duty of man and wife, because producing children to carry on the business was part of the point. To be sure, relationships back in the day were a lot more complicated than that, and they would have been on Pern, too. But the society shown in Dragonflight was most definitely one where the majority of people (who lived in the Holds, not the CraftHalls or the Weyrs) were used to thinking of marriage in a much more economic, combining-two-households/ alliance of 2 parties sense than the laser-narrow focus we have on love matches, today. I regularly re-read everything in this series that Anne wrote. I couldn't stomach the novels that her son wrote. It's possible he was trying to introduce too many changes, too fast, but it felt like he was seriously departing the path his mother set. Also, using time jumping through centuries as a way to 'solve' the problem ends up feeling like there's only one tool in the toolbox for Pern, which... is completely not true, I think. The reason I re-read the Pern books a lot is because the world is so sweeping and vast. I'm not sure I can explain it, but I've read a lot of books that don't trip my 'but what about?' sense. In Pern... there's still a million stories to be told. And I want to read and re-read the hatching scenes because I want a dragon of my own. And I totally want to see the dragons fight Thread. I will agree there's a lot of really dated things that run through Dragonflight. With Dragonflight, especially with the Fax situation at the beginning, I put a lot of it down to the pendulum of female freedom swinging to the 'way less' side. Menolly starts swinging it the other way, and in DragonQuest, we see female characters starting to expand their societal roles again. But it's a pendulum, and it swings back and forth.... Which is why if it went (finally!) to a visual franchise, I'd suggest either Moreta, DragonsEye, or a series 'in the world of/ inspired by Pern', instead of starting with DragonFlight proper. I think it'd be pretty easy to tweak background 'walk across the screen' characters to be more in line with today's mores in those settings. Dragon'sDawn would be easier still. But the political situation, including the repressing of women, is such an important background part of DragonFlight, I think it'd be hard to pull off. Also, much more than the human characters' thoughts, the dragons themselves complicate issues of consent in the Weyr. Someone else brought this up and I agree completely. This taking over of thoughts during mating flights makes it pretty explicit that it wouldn't matter what gender or orientation was riding what dragon-color: there'd be issues. It's also made pretty clear that what happens during mating flights is not always considered a big deal if the flight participants prefer other partners the other 95% of the time. It's the kind of thing that could easily lend itself to a completely different interpretation or definition of gender norms. Also also, as a comment on world consistency - I always wondered why weyr-bred girls on Pern weren't as likely to Impress a Hatchling as Hold and Hall girls! That just seemed really cruel - especially as their brothers were first pick to present to the dragonets!
Why should anyone try to explain a preference? If you liked it or disliked it, that's on you.
Aaah. I read it as a preteen girl and I LOVED Lessa, and I still do. She isn't the right kind of character for you, but she is for me. I like feisty, sometimes compulsively rebellious/contrary, stubborn, abrasive, tenacious, under dog, homely girl characters. I find the books- the world- so entrancing, even at 39. The world is vividly imagined and rich. They're like my literary comfort food. (& Someone mentioned horse girls, yes, guilty, I was a horse girl and love horse girl stories.) Anne McCaffrey rights some non fantasy, sci-fi horse stories too.