Take me away, Anne. Take me far away to a place where I can forget the mundanity of my everyday life. Take me to a place where dragons fly, and where the survival of an entire world depends on the heroism of a few brave souls. I want to forget the rain outside the window, the job I have to go to in the morning, the pile of laundry in the hallway, and the ageing Chinese food in the refrigerator. Take me to another place. Take me to Pern.
Characters & Plot
It has been four hundred turns since the deadly
thread rained on the surface of
Pern, since dragons took wing to sear it from the skies. The old ways have been forgotten, and the Lord Holders have allowed greenery to infest their firepits and clog their courtyards. The dragonriders of
Benden Weyr do maintain a muted presence on Pern, sustained by the grudgingly tithing Holds that are bound to them. Marginalized by hundreds of turns of peace, they are in danger of losing their place in the world altogether. The red star, however, grows steadily brighter in the dawn sky, and only
F’lar, rider of bronze
Mnementh understands what it portends. The thread is returning to a Pern that is woefully unprepared for it.
In the bowels of Ruath Hold,
Lessa ekes out a miserable existence as a drudge, a slave to the Lord of the High Reaches, the cruel and merciless
Fax. The last of her line, she wages a slow war of attrition against the occupiers of her ancestral home. Nothing would please her more than to bring about the death of her oppressor, and the arrival of dragonriders on Search provide her with just the opportunity she needs. With Fax out of the way, she will be able to reclaim her family’s home, but does a greater destiny call her? A queen egg has been laid at Benden, and the position of Weyrwoman must be filled.
As the red star hurtles ever-closer to Pern, an undermanned and underprepared Weyr must overcome the lassitude engendered by four hundred turns of peace in order to protect a populace that considers them a nuisance. The stage is set for acts of desperation, for acts of heroism. The time has come for the dragonriders of Pern to perform the task to which they were born. Will they rise to the challenge?
Analysis
Like a newly-hatched dragon,
Anne McCaffrey’s
Dragonriders of Pern trilogy starts out on shaky legs, self-conscious and ungainly. It is as if Ms. McCaffrey is fully conscious, at the outset, that the world in which she plans on setting her story must be built slowly and steadily, and she embarks on her journey with slow and measured steps, placing her feet carefully, as though walking on dragonshells. Thus we find a lyricism in the initial chapters of
Dragonflight that manages to be a hairsbreadth away from contrived. The descriptions are poetic, but ever so slightly stilted, and engagement with the story comes gradually. It does come, though, and in spades.
On a superficial level, the novel is set up to succeed from the beginning. We have a strong, beautiful heroine, who is more than she initially appears to be. We have a strong, handsome hero, possessed of considerable strength of will, who is willing to bet his life on an ancient truth that few but he recall. We have a threat to the very existence of humanity in the form of
thread, an ancient, unfeeling, unthinking scourge. And, of course, we have
dragons, majestic, noble, benevolent, and mighty, and guaranteed to command attention on book covers. We have, perhaps, seen these elements before, but the engaging manner in which McCaffrey weaves them together allows a light, fresh narrative to emerge that avoids becoming mired in cliché. Let us not forget, too, that in the late 1960s, when
Dragonflight was published, the fantasy genre had yet to experience (as far as I know) the influx of abominable writing that marked later decades. Dragons, at that time, were not yet a routine, sales-boosting addition to your standard fantasy novel.
There
are a few rough patches in
Dragonflight that can detract from the flow of the story. While attempting to compass various points of view in the narrative, the author chooses to change perspective fairly frequently at times. A deft hand can surmount the problems associated with this technique, but McCaffrey, still early in her career at this point, falls short a few times. Also, an occasional awkwardness infects the phrasing and dialogue where explicit statements take the place of subtler descriptions. None of these issues, though, detract too much from the story as a whole.
Final Thoughts
This, the first novel set in the world of Pern, is an eminently-readable, thoroughly-absorbing book. The characterizations are vivid, and though they border on archetypes, are nonetheless compelling and believable in their humanity. The story, also, is set up along the lines of standard fantasy, with a somewhat-predictable, against-all-odds feel to the ending. All of this, though, is stated from an objective perspective, a few days after finishing the book. Subjectively, the vague predictability of the plot resolution makes not a shred of difference to the development of tension in the narrative. The pages seem to turn faster and faster toward the end, and though the final few paragraphs exude the slightest odor of schmaltz, the book concludes on a triumphant note. Despite its flaws,
Dragonflight is a worthy first novel in a worthy series. Instead of the trite, pedestrian writing of some contemporary fantasy series, why not take a look at a more venerable novel, one that remains interesting and appealing after over 30 years? I, for one, am glad to have revisited McCaffrey’s work, and look forward to rereading the rest of her Pern novels in the coming weeks.
© SL, 2004
Other McCaffrey novels reviewed by yours truly:
Dragonquest
The White Dragon
