Book 1 of Dragonriders of Pern
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Some time in the far future, mankind has conquered space and colonized planets, one of these planets being Pern. Having made lives for themselves away from their home planet, the people of Pern lost contact with Earth along with most of the technological advancements that helped them reach their new home such that humans have settled in a way of life similar to that of the time of Earth’s High Middle Ages.
But Pern has a secret, undiscovered by the first colonizers that came to the planet. She has a sister, the Red Star, whose orbit brings her close to Pern approximately every 200 years. It is during this period that the Red Star’s inhabitants, in the form of silvery “Threads” make the journey to the more fertile Pern where they cause death and destruction in anything that comes across their path. However, Pern’s inhabitants have an answer. One of the technological knowledge that was not lost was the science of genetics with which humans used to evolve small native flying lizards into what would be called dragons. These dragons would telepathically bond with one young human as soon as they hatched from their eggs and forge a bond that would last a lifetime. It is from this partnership that the dragonfolk would emerge and which would make them the masters of Pern. They would be the main defense against the Threads invasion, a cycle that would last millennia.
However, at the start of the book Dragonflight, the Red Star has not come for 400 years and most people, including some of the dragonfolk have begun to think that the Threads will never ever return and becoming lost in the shadows of Pern’s history. Normal folk now have begun to ignore old traditions. They began to see dragonfolk as tyrants living off the people’s tributes and livestock when they have no use anymore. What’s worse, of the six dragonfolk Weyrs (realms), five of the six have been abandoned and the last one remains underpopulated.
Some of the minor lords like the ruthless Fax have become ambitious and began grab and consolidate power for him conquering neighboring kingdoms including the mountain Hold of Ruatha, of whom Fax destroyed and killed off the ruling family. Unknown to him, one daughter, Lessa, has escaped and is hiding among Ruatha’s common folk plotting to have her revenge one day.
Meanwhile, one person believes that the Threads will come back and that time is closing. F’lar of the dragonfolk knows in his heart that the Red Star is nearing and is hatching a plan of his own to prepare his badly outnumbered kin. He has to find ways to convince people of the reality of the approaching menace, suppress the rising rebellion among the other lords of the land, and find a way to combat the dangerous Threads with what he has. And Lessa has a part to play in that plan.
Dragonflight, though set in a world that is similar to fantasy, is actually a science fiction story. McCaffrey’s dragons do not have the mystical quality of their fantastical counterparts. They have been genetically engineered from small lizard-like reptiles. They chew something called “firerock”, which the dragonriders carry in sacks, to enable them to breathe fire. They can teleport between spaces and also between times. The latter ability would have a very important role in the story. And the bond between rider and dragon is a psychic bond, not a magical bond, and is something similar to how ducklings or goslings bond to their mother as soon as they hatch.
McCaffrey’s writing in Dragonflight itself is easy reading, though doesn’t have the depth of Herbert or Tolkien. Still it is an entertaining tale and there has been no other like it. And it is good enough to attract its own dedicated followers that the Dragonriders of Pern series, of which it the first chapter, has become one of the most beloved stories in speculative fiction, and whose tale is still on-going at this point of time.
