The Skies Of Pern is the last novel written in The Dragonriders Of Pern series that was written solely by Anne McCaffrey. Like a lot of the novels before it, it ends with a sense of closure and with hope for the future. But things aren’t necessarily going to be easy for our heroes.
Let’s take a look at what happens in it…
It’s honestly lovely to see F’lessan again. He is portrayed with a lot more depth and evenness in this novel, seeing as how he is the major viewpoint character. He also comes across as a more interesting person, as well: the lovely detail about how this apparently supremely gifted human being, the child of two of the most important people on the planet, is apparently tone deaf and has an awful singing voice, make him sympathetic right from the start. There’s also the idea that he is staring down the barrel of becoming a weyrleader without really thinking that he wants to due to his awareness of his own strengths and weaknesses. His growing concern and love for Tai, rider of green dragon Zaranth, also makes him a sympathetic protagonist.
But F’lessan, his hormones, and his professional prospects aren’t all that’s happening here: the conspirators from All The Weyrs Of Pern are back, and they’re slightly better organised this time.
However, our characters also have to deal with some consequences from that earlier book as well: the explosions that AIVAS coordinated on the Red Star with the old engines from the colony ships in its plan to stop the parasitic spore known as Thread from falling on Pern have had unexpected consequences: fragments of comet are about to crash into Pern. The resultant firestorms and tsunamis make incredibly dramatic reading, but it is the dragonriders who literally and actually save the day: using their ability to travel through time, they are able to coordinate a massive rescue operation and save nearly everybody who might have been in the path of the disaster.
It’s incredibly dramatic and inspiring and exciting but reading it after the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 And the Fukushima disaster of 2011 des make it feel a little unreal and fantastic. This is not McCaffrey’s fault, though – this book was first published in February, 2001, years before those events.
The first part of the novel sets up and foreshadows the tsunami quite nicely. It also gives us some more glimpses of Weyr/Hall/Hold life interwoven with the plot, with one of the major storylines being the resurfacing of the Abominator and their plot to destroy the nascent renaissance happening on Pern. Having been hinted at previous novels, we finally get a glimpse at the prison mines where some of the conspirators had been sent.
A meteor from the halo of the comet crashes into the prison and enables a prisoner to escape – the son of Norist, a former MasterCraftsman exiled for his part in the plot that contributed to Robinton’s Death in Weyrs. This man, incapacitated and deafened by the aftermath of the attack on AIVAS has regained his hearing and gets back in touch with his old colleagues, and they are about to stir up trouble again.
Honestly, these conspiracy theorists are depressingly believable. They are people who distrust the technology that has been released from the newly-discovered archives because they find those sort of changes threatening to the fabric of the society that they live in. Interestingly, a lot of them are folks who believe that they will be made redundant by the new technology, or just can’t cope with the changes because they are changes to their familiar ways of life. The obvious comparison is to the Luddites of the Industrial Revolution, but they were at least opposed to the rapidity of change and the fact that the materials being produced by the new weaving machines were of poorer quality than that produced by hand. Which parallels the battle the Abominators have against AIVAS and its technology. McCaffrey tries to generate some sympathy for them but we’ve seen this sort of reaction to new technology too many times since the book was published to really care too much about pinning down a specific example. They also try and use the burgeoning printing revolution to produce their own pamphlets decrying the changes in society that they disagree with, just as some radicals were doing on the internet at the time of publication, and are currently doing at the this time of writing. In a society where some members find that they could be made redundant in a few short years because of automation, there are real concerns being expressed.
Their first attack targets several major centres on Pern that have benefitted from the rediscovered technology and are synchronised to take place at the same time. That this was a strategy used by actual terrorists in our world during the 1980s and 90s is a depressing piece of history – that it was also a strategy used by the 9/11 bombers and the July 25 bombers in 2005 lends a horrible authenticity to the threat that these characters pose to what we love on our favourite lost colony.
The fact that they are also funded by a major political and financial power on Pern – Toric, who controls a large chunk of the resources needed on Pern, and wants more – is also a thoroughly depressing modern parallel.
And to really heighten the idea that things are changing on Pern, there’s a real sense of torches being passed on with F’lar and Mnementh showing signs of age and some previously secondary characters taking centre-stage.
But I do have to mention the elephant in the room: dragon telekinesis. Back in All The Weyrs Of Pern AIVAS suggested that the only limit to the dragon’s capabilities might be their own imaginations, seeing as how they could breather fire, teleport, communicate telepathically, and – as we discovered in that book – carry items of nearly limitless weight.
In this book, the dragons learn that they can also transport objects they can see by combining their telekinesis and powers of teleportation. It’s logical and presented sensibly, but I bloody hate it: the dragons were already a flying bundle of powers and wish-fulfilment, but this just makes them impossibly overpowered to really suffer from anything.
Foryunately, mcCaffrey appears to have that base covered as well, because F’lessan and Golanth are attacked by felines, giant cats who already have a bad rap on Pern because of their role in spreading the plague back in Moreta: Dragonlady Of Pern.
F’lessan and Golanth suffer from terrible wounds but are saved by the intervention of other dragons who joyfully practice their new powers of telekinesis by exploding the felines in a wonderfully gory scene that seems almost out of place in the pastoral paradise that the books have become. Their healing process is slow and there are fears that Golanth may never fly again, but again, the new powers come to the fore as our heroes realise that they can levitate Golanth to a height where he is able to glide and flap.
It’s sickly and corny and quite a bit cliched, but it does lead to a moment of genuine hope for the future, suggesting that there are clear paths ahead for the characters and their society.
As I said above, this was the last Pern novel that Ms McCaffrey wrote on her own and I’m glad that she managed to leave it in a way that gave some hope for the beleaguered colony.
Coming Up Next: “Ever The Twain”
