Pern Appreciation Month was born out of the realisation late last year that this April would have marked Anne McCaffrey’s 100th Birthday. As the books have been fairly important to me over the last 40-something years, I wanted to commemorate the occasion. In January of this year I decided on what it would look like and began rereading the books and taking my notes and writing down my impressions of them.
It’s the first time I’ve done a really comprehensive reread of the books in over a decade and, frankly, I was just glad they didn’t suck, as some other series of books I’ve returned to over the years have done. Because they represent a pretty hefty investment of time.
Fifteen novels, eleven short stories, three source books. I also mentioned the boardgame. I didn’t discuss the computer game here or the two folk albums, or the stage play (based on Dragonsong) because they had very little input from Anne McCaffrey beyond a consultancy stage (and I was only limiting myself to the month).
But I’m glad I did it because I managed to get hold of some information and editions of books that I hadn’t read before – The People Of Pern was a completely new text for me, while the Wildside Press editions of “Rescue Run” and “The Dolphins’ Bell” were also lovely new versions of those stories for me. Robin Roberts’s biography was also a great help.
And there were a lot of things about the series that I looked at differently as well: the plague in Moreta: Dragonlady Of Pern and Nerilka’s Story being the most obvious, with AIVAS and the Abominators coming a close second (I’m going to state outright that I’m not a fan of Generative AI or LLMs, so being on the side of an AI – albeit one who knew when to butt out and leave humans to their own devices – did amuse me a little).
But what this celebration reminded me most of, though, was the reasons why I like the series as much as I do.
They’re optimistic: Lessa and F’lar and everyone they inspire, remind me of just how we can improve our world positively. Unlike a lot of novels in SF and Fantasy, there isn’t a heap of conflict in the Pern books and stories: even the battles with Thread are described very sparingly. What is described is the agonising over duty and doing the right thing that characters do whenever they are faced with a dilemma – unless it’s Lessa, of course, who charges through with what she needs to get done without thinking about it.
They’re exciting: that goes without saying. There is a wide variety of stories being presented here and they all present people making difficult choices in trying circumstances.
They’re not formulaic. When I look at some other long-running series’ that I enjoy, one thing stands out: they are frequently comprised of books that are roughly the same length, featuring a lot of the same sort of plot or story beats in each volume.
McCaffrey’s books are all different (mostly: The Dolphins Of Pern does bear some uncanny resemblances to Dragonsong, but given that the resemblance only comprises a fairly small portion of the novel, I’m not that fussed). You only have to look at the differing lengths of each of the novels to know that McCaffrey was planning on telling the story until it was done.
I also love the huge range of characters. Pern feels a lot less cozy in terms of plot and population than a lot of other book series because the stories are being told from so many different points-of-view. And it gives us the opportunity to see the characters from different perspectives as well. But the fact that, while there might be a small subset of characters running the show on Pern, it doesn’t stop us from seeing that there are dozens of other characters doing the actual work to achieve everything.
And I love watching the series change as the author grew older as well. McCaffrey was regarded as a feminist icon for many years, which baffles a lot of younger readers, who don’t realise just how sexist and misogynistic SF was before Second Wave Feminism. The issues that they raise about just how awful it is to be a woman on Pern – being, of course, a metaphor for Earth – are exactly the reasons why so many women were attracted to the series in the 1970s. I mean, the Weyrs might be run by men, but their selection is entirely dependent upon what the senior Weyrwoman and her dragon decide! And the accusations of condoning sexual assault and rape of characters because of the telepathic relationships dragons have with their riders that have been hurled against McCaffrey are, in fact, a pretty good exploration of what a symbiotic telepathic relationship between two different species might actually look like.
Having said that, it’s terrific to realise that McCaffrey took a lot of criticism on board and refocused a lot of her attention to other aspects of life on Pern in the later books.
It’s also that rare book series that makes me hungry for more. I always look forward to reading the next tale of Pern when I’m going through the series. And the finality that comes when I get to “Beyond Between” (regardless of how I feel about the story itself) always leaves a bit of a book pang.
I’m not going to go into the novels written by her children, Todd and Gigi, because they were not written by Anne. I have read most of them, and enjoyed them in the main, but I’d really prefer to see what they can produce when not constrained by the rules of the “family business.” I appreciate them for going into places, occupations and times we hadn’t explored before, though.
But what I miss is McCaffrey’s own perspective on the place: while I can enjoy countless movies and TV shows about the same characters being written, directed and acted by different people, I don’t have the same thoughts about other people writing the characters and places that I love. The same spark that engaged me first is very rarely there when other authors try their hand in that world.
And Todd and Gigi’s books were set in the past of where the series finally wound up. I like the ending of The Skies Of Pern because it suggests that things are going to be all right for our heroes in the future. It’s a good place to end things.
I know that there is a draft for what would have been a final book called After The Fall, but it was never published. I’ve read what purports to be an outline… and it sounds ghastly, to be honest – although I’ve read enough books to know that a summary can never really do the final product justice.
However, McCaffrey’s publisher rejected it. This doesn’t really bother me too much: I’m content with what we have, but knowing that there were plans for more books – that the series could have gone on – is comforting and makes the pain of finishing those last words less awful, even if I will never get a chance to read the next book. Because I know the story goes on. It reminds me of life: there’s always a hope for the future, even if we don’t know what it holds.
Thank you for sharing Pern Appreciation Month with me.
