Dragon Harper: Dragons and Pestilence.

Dragon Harper By Anne and Todd McCaffrey.

Pern is a planet in the Rukbat system. Settled centuries before by colonists from Earth, Pern seemed ideal for an agrarian colony. Then tragedy struck, in the form of Thread; a space faring virulent spore, spawned from the Red Star, an erratic fifth planet in the Rukbat system. Thread eats anything organic, propagating at an incredible rate. To save their adopted planet, the colonist turned the tiny fire breathing lizards into giant majestic Dragons. Bonded from birth, the Dragons and their riders are Pern’s best defense.

Anne McCaffrey and later, her son Todd, have taken us along on some sixteen odd adventures on this lonely little planet, the adventures set at various times through out Pern’s history.

Now, Dragon Harper follows the adventures of Kindan and his friends Nonala and Kelsa, in the year 495 after landing. Kindan was the hero of Dragon’s Kin, Kindan is a remarkable young man, not only did he impress a green watch wher, and possibly saved the species from extinction. Watch whers are ugly draconic beasts, strictly nocturnal, used as night watchmen. Related to dragons, they possess many of their powers. Circumstances forced Kindan to renounce his bond with Kisk, giving the Watchwher over to his friend, Nuealla. That self sacrifice alone marks him as unusual.

Now a proper apprentice assigned to Harper Hall, Kindan finds his life easier, and more challenging in new ways. As the story opens, Kindan has been searched; chosen to stand on the hatching grounds for new born dragons to choose as their lifepartner. Since he has already proven himself acceptable to Dragonkind, when he impressed the Watchwher, he is considered a very likely candidate.

But Dragons have their own standards, and Kindan heads back to Harper Hall disappointed. There, his friends Kesla and Verilan are determined to make him feel better. Kesla is the only female Harper apprentice. Only her remarkable gifts for song writing allowed her to be chosen despite her gender. Verilan is the youngest apprentice.

And none of them are in the good graces of Vaxoram. Vaxoram is a bully. He has picked Kindan as his special target, partly because Kindan stands up for his friends, the other outsiders, the natural targets of bullies.

Vaxoram finally pushes a little too hard threatens to hurt the girls, and Kindan snaps, challenging Vaxoram to a duel. Vaxoram is older, stronger, bigger, and meaner. And as the challenged party, he has the choice of weapons. The one class that Vaxoram really excels at is fencing. He chooses cold steel.

The Master Harper and others who care for Kindan set the duel for seven days past the healing of the injuries Vaxoram gave him. They send him for some intensive training, to give him a fighting chance.

It also gave Kindan time to think. Killing Vaxoram will not solve his problems. In fact, killing him will make him a martyr, a martyr to the cause that women should not be allowed because they cause problems. So he has to think of another way.

And he does. Mikal, his tutor teaches him to use instinct against his foe.

And he uses it. And he wins. He holds Vaxoram’s life in his hands. He can pay the bully who has made his life a living hell back any way he chooses, banishing him if he chose. Instead he choose an option that totally declaws Vaxoram, allows him to remain at the Harper Hall, and ends up making everyone happy. And the leadership of Pern sees that not only can Kindan think in the long term, he respects life, others’ feelings, and takes responsibility for his actions.

But his life is not entirely smooth. The oddest things can complicate life, like a tiny dragon, or a pretty girl. The dragon is a fire lizard egg, a consolation prize for his sacrifice of his beloved Watchwher. The girl is Koriana, the eldest daughter of Lord Bemis of Fort Hold.

Of course, a romance between a holder’s daughter and a Harper apprentice is impossible, but they are young, and things happen, and Kindan finds himself hopelessly smitten with Koriana. And the young lady seems to reciprocate the feelings. Pern operates under two different moral standards; the Holder values, which are typical repressive class based and restrictive to women, and Dragon Riders, who, due to their links with their dragons also go into heat. When dragons mate, so do their riders.

And this also hold true for the owners of Fire Lizards. The bond is not as pervasive, because the Lizards are not as intelligent and telepathic as the Dragons, its more empathic, but when a Queen Fire Lizard rises to mate, it plays merry hob with the social interactions of all the people connected to the males chasing her. So now Kindan and Koriana both have Fire Lizards; does this make them Dragonfolk? I’ll tell you what Koriana’s mother, the Lady Holder of Fort thinks about that. No.

But then a threat as real and devastating as Thread strikes Pern. Plague.

Influenza as virulent as the Spanish Flu starts wiping out holds across Pern. The Harpers turn to the records for help, and discover that this has happened before, and while Dragon riders tend to be immune, the support staff of a Weyr is not. It took almost twenty years for the Weyr to get back to full strength.

Thread will fall in twelve years.

So now the Dragon riders are quarantined as well, unable to help for fear of spreading the illness into the Weyr’s and reducing their strength just as it is most needed. So now the holds are on their own. Can Kindan and his clever friends find a way to combat the virus? And they have to do it soon: the Holds are just as important to the survival of Pern as the Dragon Weyrs; Dragon’s must eat, and it is the Holds who feed the Dragons and their people. Thread can not be fought on empty bellies, and if there are no Holders, who will grow the food?

The plague story arc takes up the later half of the book, and to go into more detail would be too much of a spoiler. But this book harks back to an earlier Pern Novel, Moreta which also dealt with a pandemic. This book, set at an earlier time, uses less advanced solutions, carrying a continuity that speaks well for the overall body of work, and prevents this novel from just being a retread.

The issues that occupy the first half of the book, social status, the role of women in Craft and Hall, illicit romance and getting good marks, all are thrown out the window in the face of simple survival. Everything that they think is important is redefined and clarifies down to simple survival. So much of what we surround ourselves with and worry over is simply not that important.

This is a darker novel than many of the Pern novels, but remains true to their basic principles.

The Dragon rider books are wonderful fun reads, elegant in their simplicity. The McCaffreys have a unique style, rich in sociology, driven as much by interpersonal relationships as by the action. They are perhaps a little “romance enhanced” for male sensibilities, but this same quality appeals to female readers, and introduces them to science fiction, and they are in no way ‘bodice rippers’. They also appeal to a wide age range. Simple enough for younger readers, the books are well enough constructed to appeal to a mature reader as well.

The world of the Dragons is especially appealing; after all, who would not want to be bonded to a soul mate, a source of unconditional love and acceptance, with the power to not only take you flying, but to teleport. Freedom, power, prestige and love, all in one package. Brilliant.

Beyond that, Pern is a simpler, less complicated world, and one I happily escape to each time they publish a new one.