Pern's earliest history revealed at last!

Sometimes I just don’t know what to write. Case in point: my current review of Dragonsdawn. I finished the book weeks ago, and have procrastinated until now the task of putting my thoughts down on screen. I’m not sure whether this is common to all reviewers or not, but I’m sure it’s a fairly widespread phenomenon. Either way, I had a serious case of writer’s block with this one. It wasn’t until I was sitting at my computer trying to scan a boatload of 35mm slides (a time-consuming process, let me tell you) that I decided to finally pick the book up and attempt a review. Still, I suppose there’s nothing better for writer’s block than just sitting down and writing, so that’s what I’m doing. On that note, I’ll just get on with the review, eh?

Characters & Plot

“The trip was one-way—it had to be, considering the cost of getting over six-thousand colonists and supplies to such an out-of-the-way sector of the galaxy.”

After a decade and more of war, Admiral Paul Benden has had his fill of conflict. So too have nearly 6,000 men and women who want nothing more than to retire quietly and gracefully from galactic politics. It is with great excitement, then, and a modicum of fear, that colonists find themselves, after a journey of fifteen years, nearing their destination. Pern offers the hope of a new life, a new way of living. Working with only the barest minimum of technology, the settlers will forge a new society, dependent on no one, and beholden only to the land in which they make their homes. The lure of such an uncomplicated life has brought many, scarred by battle, to the venture: Emily Boll, former governor of First Centauri, Sallah Telgar and Kenjo Fusaiyuko, pilots, Pol Nietro, zoologist, Joel Lilienkamp, quartermaster, Tarvi Andiyar, geologist, and Kit Ping, geneticist. Even children, a generation as yet unaffected by war and death, have made the journey along with their parents.

“Avril had her elbows on the table, her handsome face marred by the arrogant, supercilious sneer she affected, her black eyes glinting as she leaned forward toward homely Bart Lemos… Nabhi was wearing his perpetual expression of hauteur, an expression not far removed from Avril’s sneer… Their attitudes were enough to spoil anyone’s appetite, Sallah thought.”

Not everyone, however, shares the mindset of the expedition’s leaders. Indeed, some of the colonists don’t seem to fit in at all. Avril Bitra, in particular, seems distinctly out of place in the community of colonists. Beautiful but callous, she seems to attract the worst the expedition has to offer. She almost certainly has an agenda of her own that has nothing to do with those of the colony, but Pern, as the colonists remind themselves regularly, has room to spare for everyone. The question may be, though, will Bitra be satisfied with Pern?

“‘Felicia, run a comparison on the biological succession around those crazy polka dots,’ Ted Tubberman went on. ‘There’s something about that configuration that still bothers me. The phenomenon is all over the planet.’”

Despite the best efforts of the researchers, not everything about Pern has been explained ahead of time. There is the question of the strange circular patterns that the advance team discovered. No one has been able to explain them as yet. In addition, a small, eccentric body in orbit around Pern’s sun Rukbat has a most irregular trajectory. Of course, it poses little threat to the colony, as it only passes near to Pern every couple of hundred years. Certainly it cannot affect Pern to any great degree. Or can it?

Analysis
Published in 1988, almost two decades after her bestseller Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey takes us back to Pern’s earliest history, when a group of intrepid colonists chose to forsake a galaxy recovering from too many years of war. The tantalizing hints we were afforded in the initial Pern novels are now fleshed out, given life and breath in the persons of the planet’s first settlers. In a sense, this is comforting. We have already pieced together portions of the colonists’ history from earlier stories, so the outlines, at least, of the plot are familiar. Having said this, a reading of Dragonsdawn certainly does not require any prior knowledge of Pern. McCaffrey’s seasoned hand guides the story in such a manner that both novices and veterans of her Dragonriders of Pern series can be comfortable.

It is a testament to Ms. McCaffrey’s skill as a writer that the reader’s interest is held through almost the first third of the book before a major crisis occurs. Granted, the novelty of exploring a new world is intriguing, but the day to day events that are depicted as the colonists settle in could easily have become dull in the hands of a lesser author. Here we see in action the truism that a story lives and dies by its characters, as it is the characters that pull the narrative along until its first significant event. While on the subject of the characters, I must comment on the exceptional skill with which McCaffrey creates her characters. Often with only a few sentences, she injects true individuality into her creations. In the short quote concerning Avril Bitra above, one can see that a couple of adjectives suffice to establish a thoroughly unlikable character, one which only grows more detestable as the story progresses. This facility with description extends to almost every character the author creates, and manufactures the wonderful illusion of a whole world filled with different personalities.

There are very few flaws of note in Dragonsdawn. Most of the minor annoyances I found could be attributed to deliberate choices made by the author that I didn’t quite like. Sean Connell, a character that plays quite a central role in the latter half of the book, is at first an irritating, precocious young good-for-nothing whose cantankerous attitude bothered me quite a bit at first. This is, of course, a personal preference; I have very little patience with annoying children. Thankfully his character developed into a more nuanced adult, and became much more palatable as the story progressed. In a similar vein, McCaffrey chooses to create a despicable, irredeemable villain in the character of Avril Bitra. Her callously mendacious nature and her utter lack of morality do not make for pleasant reading. As I said, though, these were deliberate characterization choices, and though they may have bothered me somewhat, cannot precisely be labeled writing flaws. On the whole, the writing is confident, competent, and exceedingly readable.

Conclusion
Overall, Dragonsdawn is a worthy addition to the Dragonriders of Pern series. It succeeds in several crucial areas. First, it fills in, in great detail, the outlines of Pern’s history that had been hinted at in earlier novels. Second, it successfully juggles a large cast of characters, investing each of them with their own slice of individuality and creating a believable social structure. Finally, the main action, when it finally does arrive, is presented in an extremely compelling manner. These characters whom we have spent a hundred or more pages coming to know must now fight for their very lives against a mindless, faceless, tireless foe. The desperate ingenuity with which the protagonists react is both gripping and gratifying. Anne McCaffrey has, for many years, been a popular and prolific author. If you have yet to enjoy her work, start with Dragonflight and read through its many sequels and prequels. You will find Dragonsdawn an entertaining and satisfying addition to the series.

© SL, 2004