In 1968, Dragonflight
was astonishing. It was a novel involving sympathetic, telepathic
dragons, ridden into battle against a peril that fell from the skies
threatening a civilisation that was apparently primitive but which at
one stage had travelled between the stars. Now, there are numerous
novels that use the same ideas and images, but when it first
appeared, Anne McCaffrey's original novella, Weyr Search, was like
nothing else then in fiction.
If it had only had that
inventiveness it would still have been successful. But it also had a
strong female central character who does not need rescuing, who makes
her own future and who wins against all the odds – and has sex with
the handsome male lead as well.
The feel of the early
books is firmly that of a fantasy setting. The science fiction
rationale for Pern which becomes far more visible in later books does
not prevent the books being primarily fantasies, rather than SF.
I have seen detractors
claiming the books are just poor fantasy soft-core erotica. Absolute
rubbish – they are good stories, with strong characters and an
ever-more complex world. There are flaws – Terry Pratchett, in the
Colour of Magic, mercilessly lampoons the bland characterisation of
the dragons themselves, and there are aspects of McCaffrey's world
that she hadn't thought through fully. (I take my hat off to her for
recognising the inevitable effects of the telepathic links between
the male riders of green – female – dragons, and accepting the
effect and being open about it even though it detracted from the
masculine image she wanted for her dragonriders).
McCaffrey wrote a
string of sequels and parallel novels set in the same world. The
first of the Pern novels I read was Dragonsong – which didn't make
a vast amount of sense to me at the time, but persuaded me to read
some more. None of the others have quite the impact that Dragonflight
has – it deserves its status as one of the all-time best fantasy
novels.
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