As much as I have loved this book in the past, I love it in different ways now, as well as severely dislike parts of it I hadn’t noticed before. Anne McCaffrey is one of the great world builders of fantasy fiction. The planet of Pern is so detailed and thought out, that one could imagine it to be a real place, and all the characters based on historical persons. Part of this is undoubtedly because McCaffrey was so prolific with her Pern novels, but it is easy to fall into the beauty and social interactions that she develops even within the first novel.
After the first read, I was enchanted with the level of sophistication of the society on Pern. There was a distinct hierarchy, but McCaffrey finds characters who are able to break through barriers and triumph under the most desperate circumstances. Lessa, for instance, goes from being an orphaned girl working as household labor, to being one of the most powerful people on the planet through a combination of determination, luck, and pride. Jaxom, a young man being groomed as a Lord Holder (something like a governor, but more directly involved with the people he is responsible for), creates a potentially hopeless situation at a young age, grows up in a loving but oddly affectionless home, and through his ability to carry on regardless of his chances, helped turn the tide of knowledge and opened an unknown part of the world. Granted, these are extraordinary circumstances, people, and places, even for the series, but somehow, they fit and make Dragonriders that much more enjoyable.
I believe that I first read this book (a collection of three novels really) probably when I was in early high school. I hadn’t learned much about literary criticism or cared about what made a good novel. I also hadn’t taken any classes that delved into feminism or gender hierarchy, so I found Dragonriders to be unbelievably fantastic. It’s only after finishing my degree and gaining a better understanding of the socio-politic nature of humans, and a better understanding of my own beliefs, that I now have problems dealing with certain aspects of the culture McCaffrey created on Pern.
Issue 1: Pern is a horrendously male-dominated planet. Women are constantly subjugated and forced to do as their fathers, brothers, or leaders bid them. This idea rankles simply on the basis that it is a situation that used to exist in our own world, but is something that modern society has worked hard to end. In a different part of the series, Menolly is another example of how rigid and strict the male-female dichotomy can be. It is also apparent that women are married off at their family members discretion, regardless of the girl’s or woman’s own desires. For instance, Lord Groghe was said to have wanted Jaxom to have married one of his daughters, whether Jaxom or the daughter were interested or not. In Dragonflight, Lessa, who lived at the mercy of cruel estate managers, triumphed over them only to now take orders from dragonriders (almost all men) who may or may not know what kind of instruction and help she might need. She could not ride her dragon, take up some traditional responsibilities, or go anywhere outside the Weyr. When reading this section, I got the impression that she was under some sort of house arrest.
On the subject of dragons, women are only allowed to bond to female queen dragons, even though there are four other colors. Men are the privileged ones who may bond with green (also female dragons, which is odd), blue, brown, and bronze dragons, and only bronze dragon riders can take the leadership of a Weyr (where the dragons live). Mirrim becomes an exception to the rule, but not after a great deal of argument against it.
Issue 2: The hierarchy of the planet itself. My initial impression was that Pern was a lot like feudal Europe, without worldwide rulers, but with dragons. It was intriguing, until I began to notice the living circumstances differences, as well as how the upper classes treated the lower. Again, this was something that I picked up after I started to take classes specifically about class distinction and discrimination. The Lord Holders, Craftmasters, and Weyrleaders basically were at the top of the hierarchical food chain and could do practically anything they wished. Craftmasters tended to be conservative in their actions, but Lord Holders and Weyrleaders (even other dragonriders) had the capacity to be greedy, cruel, and overreaching.
There are several examples in Dragonquest and The White Dragon, and a good number of them involve “Oldtimer” riders and the older generation of Holders, who would believe that their greed was within their own rights. Most everyone else on Pern was subject to the orders and whims of these powerful people. Some leaders were kinder and more understanding that others. Some examples of the better ones would be Fandarel, Robinton, F’lar, D’ram, N’ton, and Asgenar. Some examples of the worst of the greedy and power-hungry would be Fax, Meron, T’ron, T’kul, Kylara, and Mardra. The latter list cared nothing for the people around them, the ones they protected, or the ones who cared about them. (How anyone could care about Fax or Meron, I’ll never know.)
Issue 3: (Not a real issue, but one to be wary of when reading an early edition): TYPOS. There are so many times in the edition of The Dragonriders of Pern that I have where it’s not only typos, but characters are misnamed, or renamed, or mistakes with places, objects, crafts, circumstances are carelessly made. I could probably point out over 75 such errors in this collection. That’s about 70 too many for my taste. One such error that really made my brain cry was the replacement of the name T’ton in Dragonflight with T’ron in the subsequent novels. This made no sense whatsoever and I could only attribute it to the author changing her mind, or some typist having freakishly odd dyslexic and forgetful typing errors.
In spite of these personal issues of mine (which is exactly what they are, personal), these three novels make up one great adventure and successfully explore human (or Pernese) relationships as well as what happens when a civilization has to start from scratch. It’s interesting to read about what McCaffrey thinks would happen if a group of humans had to leave Earth to live somewhere else, and how they would adapt to that situation. Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon encompass a delightfully emotional romp through a fantasy world that, once you get past the obvious gender and social issues, might become a favorite on your bookshelf.
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