I mentioned that I'm a fan of Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern series, which I've been revisiting with my sons as we travel to and from school. They listen to the audiobook and read along as we go, which has helped both of them improve their reading abilities (one is in first grade, the other in fourth). This is satisfying on a couple of levels, not the least of which because it means that they're enjoying the incredible world of Pern.
I'm anxious to get out of the Todd McCaffery stuff (written with his mom, Anne), which, while enjoyable because it's on Pern, is nothing compared to what the original books could do.
What the late Anne McCaffery managed to build in the world of Pern was, to my mind, impossible to recreate. Though she admits that she was a soft-science fiction writer (one where the science behind the fiction isn't feasible or realistic; as opposed to hard-science fiction, which is where the science is, perhaps theoretical, but still accurate), she imbues Pern with so much well-thought out verisimilitude that it's hard not to be impressed by her world building talents.
One small example: Thread, the mycorriza (or fungal) threat to the planet, devours anything that's organic. As a result, the plant life that would survive in that sort of frequently hostile environment (fifty years of Thread attack followed by two hundred years' reprieve, only to have it happen all over again) would evolve into something that could reproduce quickly. Hardwoods and other centuries' old forest can't actually grow on Pern because of the regularity of Threadfall. The society adapts, of course, but it fits in very well with the logic of the whole world.*
The idea that the people came from Earth to settle a far-flung planet that they wanted to be low-tech gave McCaffery a reason to create a more 'traditional' fantasy setting, even though the books are technically taking place upwards of two thousand years from now. And, though telepathy doesn't have a lot of hard science behind it, McCaffery's other books, many of which take place in the same galaxy/universe, demonstrate that empaths and other telepathic abilities are a part of her cosmogony, thus allowing teleporting, telepathic dragons to fit in with the reality she's created.
I'll admit that some of the information of the books is retconned in order to fit in with more recently published stories, and sometimes there are contradictory pieces. It's been many years since I've read the books, but I seem to recall that time-traveling dragons couldn't actually come in contact with their past/future selves--they had to remain aloof--because that would cause them to mutually self-destruct. Or that was the concern, anyway. But in Dragon's Kin, one of the "new" books of Pern from Todd McCaffery, there's a pretty clear example where that wasn't the case. It could be that I misremembered the old books, and this isn't a contradiction, but I'm fairly confident that I'm right.
What I love about Pern is that it feels real. It doesn't have the Tolkien-esque vibe of ancient history, the way that Vikings and Norse sagas feel real because of their historic value. Indeed, the language is clearly English (though they call it Pernese), and McCaffery doesn't make any attempts at allowing a shifting of language despite 2,500 years of history on the planet. The "realistic" feeling, then, isn't linguistic, as Tolkien's is, but thorough, instead. While you can scratch your head and wonder all you want how Hobbits actually reproduce, Pern has sex, violence, politics, and the "adventures" of being alive. Thread is a threat during many of the books, but there's no world-ending villain that characters quest to defeat. It makes it mundane, but since there are dragons, it's fantastical, too.
One area that I would have liked to see is greater diversity. There aren't different races (like dwarvish and elvish and orcish), but neither are there different human races. Pern definitely feels like the British Isles in a lot of places. Though there aren't other species of sentient beings (besides the dragons, which are man-made), the diversity of human races--anything other than white, it seems--don't show up in the pages. This is a shame, but certainly part of the time in which the book was written. It's also strange, since the advanced humans that arrived on Pern to settle it were a diverse crew (as explored in Dragonsdawn) and so you'd think that would proliferate over millennia. The only thing I can think of was that, when McCaffery first sat down to write about this world, she started at the end of the story--which was a fantasy-style locale with typical high fantasy tropes. Only as she worked backwards did the diversity of the past become more glaring, but by then it was too late. I'm only surmising here, so I can't say for certain. I would love to see more people of color in the Pern books, but since I'm not in charge, it's not a thing I get.
I should say that McCaffery frequently cast females as the lead roles of her books, and she continued that tradition in a fair number of the books she wrote. These were likely of a greater impact on my young mind than I knew. It meant that, though I wasn't getting a lot of strong female leadership in the movies and TV I watched, I was still getting a lot of positive female role models in my reading. Lessa is a small, scrappy, brilliant woman who essentially saves Pern from destruction using smarts, tenacity, and a golden dragon the size of a jet. That is pretty amazing. Though much of Pern relies on patriarchal stereotypes, McCaffery subverts these ideas frequently. Again, as a child, I didn't notice what was going on there--I just liked the stories. In many ways, I feel that's the proof of why diversity is important to fiction: When it's there, it enriches and enhances the story; when it's missing, the world feels incomplete.
Though this ending is a far way off from where I started, I want to go on record saying that, as far as building new worlds, few--if any--can do so as well as Anne McCaffery in her Dragonriders series. In her waning years, her prolific output dropped substantially, as did the quality of the work. But the masterpieces that she put together in the height of her career are phenomenal pieces of speculative fiction, despite their flaws. And, in some ways, that's what makes these built worlds seem like our world: They aren't perfect.
----
* Marks, which are small wooden chips with the hold or hall's emblem stamped on it, make up the common currency of the world. Wood is not as abundant there as it is here, which makes the 'coinage' of Pern reflect the resources that it has in order to demonstrate value.
 |
| With awesome '70s hair like that, Jaxom is sure to get all the ladyfolk of Pern! |
What the late Anne McCaffery managed to build in the world of Pern was, to my mind, impossible to recreate. Though she admits that she was a soft-science fiction writer (one where the science behind the fiction isn't feasible or realistic; as opposed to hard-science fiction, which is where the science is, perhaps theoretical, but still accurate), she imbues Pern with so much well-thought out verisimilitude that it's hard not to be impressed by her world building talents.
One small example: Thread, the mycorriza (or fungal) threat to the planet, devours anything that's organic. As a result, the plant life that would survive in that sort of frequently hostile environment (fifty years of Thread attack followed by two hundred years' reprieve, only to have it happen all over again) would evolve into something that could reproduce quickly. Hardwoods and other centuries' old forest can't actually grow on Pern because of the regularity of Threadfall. The society adapts, of course, but it fits in very well with the logic of the whole world.*
The idea that the people came from Earth to settle a far-flung planet that they wanted to be low-tech gave McCaffery a reason to create a more 'traditional' fantasy setting, even though the books are technically taking place upwards of two thousand years from now. And, though telepathy doesn't have a lot of hard science behind it, McCaffery's other books, many of which take place in the same galaxy/universe, demonstrate that empaths and other telepathic abilities are a part of her cosmogony, thus allowing teleporting, telepathic dragons to fit in with the reality she's created.
I'll admit that some of the information of the books is retconned in order to fit in with more recently published stories, and sometimes there are contradictory pieces. It's been many years since I've read the books, but I seem to recall that time-traveling dragons couldn't actually come in contact with their past/future selves--they had to remain aloof--because that would cause them to mutually self-destruct. Or that was the concern, anyway. But in Dragon's Kin, one of the "new" books of Pern from Todd McCaffery, there's a pretty clear example where that wasn't the case. It could be that I misremembered the old books, and this isn't a contradiction, but I'm fairly confident that I'm right.
What I love about Pern is that it feels real. It doesn't have the Tolkien-esque vibe of ancient history, the way that Vikings and Norse sagas feel real because of their historic value. Indeed, the language is clearly English (though they call it Pernese), and McCaffery doesn't make any attempts at allowing a shifting of language despite 2,500 years of history on the planet. The "realistic" feeling, then, isn't linguistic, as Tolkien's is, but thorough, instead. While you can scratch your head and wonder all you want how Hobbits actually reproduce, Pern has sex, violence, politics, and the "adventures" of being alive. Thread is a threat during many of the books, but there's no world-ending villain that characters quest to defeat. It makes it mundane, but since there are dragons, it's fantastical, too.
One area that I would have liked to see is greater diversity. There aren't different races (like dwarvish and elvish and orcish), but neither are there different human races. Pern definitely feels like the British Isles in a lot of places. Though there aren't other species of sentient beings (besides the dragons, which are man-made), the diversity of human races--anything other than white, it seems--don't show up in the pages. This is a shame, but certainly part of the time in which the book was written. It's also strange, since the advanced humans that arrived on Pern to settle it were a diverse crew (as explored in Dragonsdawn) and so you'd think that would proliferate over millennia. The only thing I can think of was that, when McCaffery first sat down to write about this world, she started at the end of the story--which was a fantasy-style locale with typical high fantasy tropes. Only as she worked backwards did the diversity of the past become more glaring, but by then it was too late. I'm only surmising here, so I can't say for certain. I would love to see more people of color in the Pern books, but since I'm not in charge, it's not a thing I get.
I should say that McCaffery frequently cast females as the lead roles of her books, and she continued that tradition in a fair number of the books she wrote. These were likely of a greater impact on my young mind than I knew. It meant that, though I wasn't getting a lot of strong female leadership in the movies and TV I watched, I was still getting a lot of positive female role models in my reading. Lessa is a small, scrappy, brilliant woman who essentially saves Pern from destruction using smarts, tenacity, and a golden dragon the size of a jet. That is pretty amazing. Though much of Pern relies on patriarchal stereotypes, McCaffery subverts these ideas frequently. Again, as a child, I didn't notice what was going on there--I just liked the stories. In many ways, I feel that's the proof of why diversity is important to fiction: When it's there, it enriches and enhances the story; when it's missing, the world feels incomplete.
Though this ending is a far way off from where I started, I want to go on record saying that, as far as building new worlds, few--if any--can do so as well as Anne McCaffery in her Dragonriders series. In her waning years, her prolific output dropped substantially, as did the quality of the work. But the masterpieces that she put together in the height of her career are phenomenal pieces of speculative fiction, despite their flaws. And, in some ways, that's what makes these built worlds seem like our world: They aren't perfect.
----
* Marks, which are small wooden chips with the hold or hall's emblem stamped on it, make up the common currency of the world. Wood is not as abundant there as it is here, which makes the 'coinage' of Pern reflect the resources that it has in order to demonstrate value.