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Anne McCaffrey: Dragonriders
- Thread starter Prolixic
- Start date
Hi Proloxic and Dawn,
Honestly I do not know.
Or perhaps better I no longer know. I used to love the series and tend to get bored with it.
I came to the series when I was looking for something similar to Vance's stuff which was partly inspired by celtic themes, and the covers (In Belgium you get magnificent paintings by Wojtek Siudmak (but that's another matter but that's also what brought me to SF) looked pretty much similar.
Stories looked great to me in the first instance, very imaginative and exploiting a rich possibility of rethinking what technology mihgt be all about. Yet, there is an increasing 'hic' for me with the series:
- Too many women, even some male characters look more female than male in their behaviour, as someone told me once there is something abusively 'feminist' in it - quite similar in fact to the overwhelming presence of Bene Gesserit in the last three Dune by Herbert's son (the three Houses byzantine tragedy). Is it always necessary to fall into the man vs. woman and technology vs. nature pitfall? See the Dosadi cycle by Herbert (again I know but the relationship between McKie and the Dosadi female leader and their sexual intermixing is a great piece of imaginary literature).
The consequence is too softy and idealistic to my taste as far as McCaffrey's Dragonriders are concerned in my opinion. Riders fight but wounds seem pretty insignificant. Women give birth but motherhood disappears somewhere. Fatherhood? People fight, where is the blood (Not that I want bloody scenes at every page)? People die where are the emotions? People revolt , where is anger? (Kyara is an exception). To sum up: the books construct a promising imaginary reality but do not go in depth with it. I can't get from where the thing is going wrong though...
- Other point: The series has no chronological continuity in its writing stage, AMcC shifting from one Pern period to is future, then the past and so on so forth - OK the dragons do not care -yet from the point of view of the human characters they quite lose depth in the process... As far as the first three are concerned, characters are great and obviously there is a great effort in trying to get them as realistic as possible despite being somewhere else in imaginary worlds. Moreta is still good but is she that different from the Queenrider in Dragonflight? A group of good stuff seemed to have emerged from the harpists' development... but is there a need in expanding the same exhibits of human relations about the healers and to recreate a full-fledged picture of the plague from another stance? The Dolphins of Pern just made me grin after that... Worse still with the Renegades of Pern. Can we leave Earth and its traditional 'good-vs.evil' 'reality' canevas? 
I do not want to be abusively hard on the cycle though: I really love coming back to it when I have spent some times reading more arduous stuff and more complex stories or when I need to hear nice stories after hard days work. In brief my - temporary recurrent - objection to the cycle is its lack of metaphysics (cannot find another word now), but I always come back to it. And honestly, I'd love to know what other people think of it...
Best as always,
Morry
Honestly I do not know.
Or perhaps better I no longer know. I used to love the series and tend to get bored with it.
I came to the series when I was looking for something similar to Vance's stuff which was partly inspired by celtic themes, and the covers (In Belgium you get magnificent paintings by Wojtek Siudmak (but that's another matter but that's also what brought me to SF) looked pretty much similar.
Stories looked great to me in the first instance, very imaginative and exploiting a rich possibility of rethinking what technology mihgt be all about. Yet, there is an increasing 'hic' for me with the series:
- Too many women, even some male characters look more female than male in their behaviour, as someone told me once there is something abusively 'feminist' in it - quite similar in fact to the overwhelming presence of Bene Gesserit in the last three Dune by Herbert's son (the three Houses byzantine tragedy). Is it always necessary to fall into the man vs. woman and technology vs. nature pitfall? See the Dosadi cycle by Herbert (again I know but the relationship between McKie and the Dosadi female leader and their sexual intermixing is a great piece of imaginary literature).
The consequence is too softy and idealistic to my taste as far as McCaffrey's Dragonriders are concerned in my opinion. Riders fight but wounds seem pretty insignificant. Women give birth but motherhood disappears somewhere. Fatherhood? People fight, where is the blood (Not that I want bloody scenes at every page)? People die where are the emotions? People revolt , where is anger? (Kyara is an exception). To sum up: the books construct a promising imaginary reality but do not go in depth with it. I can't get from where the thing is going wrong though...
- Other point: The series has no chronological continuity in its writing stage, AMcC shifting from one Pern period to is future, then the past and so on so forth - OK the dragons do not care -yet from the point of view of the human characters they quite lose depth in the process... As far as the first three are concerned, characters are great and obviously there is a great effort in trying to get them as realistic as possible despite being somewhere else in imaginary worlds. Moreta is still good but is she that different from the Queenrider in Dragonflight? A group of good stuff seemed to have emerged from the harpists' development... but is there a need in expanding the same exhibits of human relations about the healers and to recreate a full-fledged picture of the plague from another stance? The Dolphins of Pern just made me grin after that... Worse still with the Renegades of Pern. Can we leave Earth and its traditional 'good-vs.evil' 'reality' canevas?
I do not want to be abusively hard on the cycle though: I really love coming back to it when I have spent some times reading more arduous stuff and more complex stories or when I need to hear nice stories after hard days work. In brief my - temporary recurrent - objection to the cycle is its lack of metaphysics (cannot find another word now), but I always come back to it. And honestly, I'd love to know what other people think of it... Best as always,
Morry
fluffyfluff
New Member
I have read most of The Dragonrider books. Clean and easy to read books. I remember the first time I read any of them it was 3 book volume the Dragonriders of Pern. For a month or so afterward I would have lovely dreams about my own dragon and fighting threads. Then I would wake up disappointed and very sad to realize that alas I have no dragon of my own LOL.
fluffyfluff
New Member
I still want my own dragon!!!