In the Yes column–the anthropologic detail of Pern, it’s structure and culture are fascinating. I have trouble here, though, because my opinion of the rest of the books is much more vague, harder to draw down into a distilled “yes, these are good/ no, they aren’t good” label that one expects from a book review. (Seriously, that’s what the cover art of one of the novels claims.) When all is said and done, though, I ended up making a strange sort of detente with that aspect of the book. Are they all willing to dismiss a man repeatedly violently shaking a woman who is a third of his size? Oh, it’s not so bad to react physically when a person upsets you or challenges you in any way! Anne McCaffery says so! She’s the Queen of Dragons. A LOT of people read these and admire these stories and get caught up in them. I have to admit that conversation really has coloured my opinion on these three novels. When I mentioned to a group of life-long Anne McCaffery fans that I found the partner violence very disturbing they looked momentarily confused and then said “well, he shakes her. That’s sort of why I’m surprised at the sheer amount of physical abuse that passes for story in the first half of that novel. ![]() I’ve read lots of reviews which claim that story was pre-feminist, but I don’t really think that 1968 was pre-feminist at all. ![]() I myself never read the books when I was younger most people I’ve mentioned them to say that they first read them in sixth grade or eighth grade or “when they were just a kid.” It seems like the Pern novels were a rite of passage which passed me by.Ĭoming to them fresh, 45 years after the first book–Dragonflight–was published, is an interesting experience indeed. I hesitate to review this omnibus edition of the first three volumes in the Pern series because that series is so beloved I feel a bit as though I’m reviewing people’s spouses, parents, childhood best friends.
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