The First Pass of the Red Star finished two centuries ago. Pern has been free of Thread (the parasitic spore that travels in the wandering planet’s wake) for all that time, but signs are indicating that it will soon begin again. Most of Pern is preparing for it but Lord Chalkin of Bitra is refusing to fall in line with everybody else, and is fomenting dissent with his lack of trust in the evidence that the Pass is about to begin…
Anne McCaffrey writes in a way that is effortlessly easy to read. This leads a lot of people to dismiss her work as light and formulaic. The continuing dramas that roll out with every solution causing new problems can also delude you into thinking that she is quite soap operatic in her intentions. But this style just reinforces how realistic her plots can be: we see in our own world how solving problems begets new problems with the solutions to them creating more new problems.
It can be regarded as “commercial” and “populist” but it’s also an effective way of telling stories. But it’s definitely not formulaic: you just have to compare the differing lengths of each of her novels to the annual tomes produced by other popular authors which are all the same length and follow the same story beats. To judge a series that gives us such differing tales like the boarding school saga of Dragonsinger to the doomed colony story in Dragonsdawn as “formulaic” is completely missing what a “formula” is. I wouldn’t accuse these books and stories of being “high literature” but they are better than a lot of people would have you believe.
So let’s look at Red Star Rising, or Dragonseye, as it was known as in some markets (the retitling was purely for commercial reasons, he said, gamely shooting the previous paragraph’s theory in the foot).
In this volume we travel back in time to the beginning of the Second Pass. In addition to the oncoming Threadfall there is also the problem of diminishing technological resources and a cultural crisis that Pern is undergoing because of the lack of ties to Earth. It’s a great mix of factors that produce a really compelling story.
There’s some ideas that we have seen before: the denial of the oncoming Thread is taken directly from Dragonflight, while the change of direction in technology is the storyline of All The Weyrs Of Pern, albeit in an opposite direction.
The people of Pern have been facing a very slow and steady decline in their technology: because their settlement on the Northern Continent was made in a hurry and under emergency conditions they have been behind the eight-ball in restoring their lifestyle to the style they were accustomed to in the early pages of Dragonsdawn. And since the vast majority of their equipment was left behind at the original colony site, they have had to be very careful in how they use the resources that are left to them.
We know that they have some limited computer power because it’s the victim of a lightning strike early on in the story. This leads them to formulate the idea of creating monuments similar to Stonehenge that will help them to identify and predict when a Pass is going to begin. We know they are going to succeed because the Stones are mentioned in the earlier books – later books? In the future years of the series? – so that isn’t an issue.
What is astonishing is how they resolve the issue of declining technology and access to their previous database of knowledge.
On hearing about the destruction of the computers, Clisser (the current Masterharper) basically invents a new education system and social order for Pern. He decides that, since they don’t have access to the digital archives, they will need to prioritise the knowledge that is taught and how it is taught. He solves the challenge by triaging the knowledge available and spreading it out as widely as possible for maximum dissemination. Earth history will not be abandoned completely, for example, but its relevance to the average Pernese makles it less of a priority than being able to survive on their world. It’s incredible but it also reflects the challenge his generation now faces: the technology of their ancestors is fading away and they must come up with new solutions to keep themselves as a viable society – an anti-Renaissance, if you will.
We also get a glimpse at the declining society through the story of Debera, who has been selected for Search (the process of deciding if a person is suitable to Impress a dragon) but has not been informed about it because her father believes that she would be of more use being married off to a neighbour’s son to cement an alliance between the two families. Debera manages to escape her situation and impresses Morath, a green dragon, but it does make you wonder what other stories like this are beginning to occur as the societal safety net of their technology begins to fray.
But what impressed me most in this novel was the prescience that McCaffrey displayed in the creation of her villain: Chalkin is a prominent Holder who makes a lot of money from gambling and by not paying people who have provided him with services – he dismisses them with the statement that their work isn’t to his satisfaction. He also believes that Thread is a myth created by the Dragonriders to preserve their elite status and to con the population: the chronic weather and seismic activity that heralds the onset of a new Pass is just freakish and unusual, or exaggerated by people pushing their agenda.
Chalkin is also not terribly well-educated and enjoys finding ways of distracting people from major issues with trivialities. But he does love schmoozing with the Riders and other Lord Holders and Craftspeople in order to pick up information and make clandestine deals.
In addition to this, he also wants to keep his holders uneducated and ignorant of their rights. He does this by banning Clisser’s harpers from their duties of educating people and spreading news. He also runs a troop of rough and violent guards to protect his borders (admittedly to stop people leaving, but still…).
As one of the other characters says:
“Chalkin hates losers.”
But by the end of the novel he’s deposed from his position – the word used is in the text is “impeached”! And, as a capper, there’s mention of releasing information about what has happened to prevent conspiracy theories spreading…
For those of us reading this 30 years later it gives the story an eerie contemporary feel.
Red Star Rising does wrap up a little too pat for my liking – Thrread falls, the dragonriders are vindicated and the social crisis is averted or at least put at bay – but as a story about a part of Pern’s history that I didn’t know I needed to read it’s a pleasant and exciting read.
Coming Up Next: The Masterharper Of Pern
