Dragonflight

I was nervous to re-read this book.

See here's the thing: Once upon a time, I was thirteen and perfectly willing to read any book with a dragon on the cover. My Dad had (and I assume still has) a large collection of McCaffrey's works and I plowed through them during my formative years as a reader. I don't remember them too well, but I remember a series of female heroines kicking ass and riding dragons. I was nervous to go back and look at these books with grown-up eyes, and some of those fears were founded.

In a lot of ways, this book and Pern in general are popcorn to my fantasy-loving heart. They have all the tropes 13-year old Valerie devoured. You've got a clever heroine constantly kept down by The Man, you've got attacking sci-fi Thread things, you've got massively confusing time travel arcs, and DRAGONS! FREAKING AWESOME TELEPATHIC DRAGONS. Reading it was like sinking into an armchair so ancient it's permanently molded to your body. When I settled back to just enjoy the dragons, I had a lovely time.

I still love Pern. I love the concept of colonizing a Dragonworld, and the Threads remain a unique antagonist in the genre. I like the complexity of Pern's politics, even within the Weyr, and the different personalities and roles for dragonkind. It's a wonderful world to revisit and her skill with settings is my absolute favorite part of McCaffrey's books.

Lessa was more of a problem for grown-up me. She keeps secrets in not-smart ways. She gets annoyed with people for not telling her things when really she could think her plans through for herself. She's a bit too 60s Strong Female Character for me to really enjoy. However, when I step back and think about McCaffrey's perspective, I see a stronger allegory that makes me more forgiving of Lessa's character. The whole concept of “Queens don't fly. Because.” echoes from all the modern male characters, and it takes the Thread battle to find out Queens actually fly quite well if you stop tying them down. Lessa is tamed as much as Ramoth by her time period telling her she should be barefoot in the Weyrkitchen. She tries to do something about it, but she's often ineffective because she's denied information. This is the cause of all her recklessness, and only a kind author makes sure she comes through her spontaneous schemes all right. I don't like Lessa much, but I think she's a character very reflective of the novel's themes.

Speaking of themes, it always shocks me to reread my favorite middle school books and discover they were filled with sex. Did I just ignore those chapters as a kid? I must have. The sex in this book, particularly F'lar's relationship with Lessa, makes me deeply uncomfortable, though. The idea that they are a couple because their dragons mate and neither of them really gets a say in the matter is unsettling. Still, I could roll with that and a relationship growing out of it if F'lar didn't essentially admit to raping Lessa when they weren't dragon-linked. Yet she never seems more the coquettishly annoyed with him, and accepts their relationship as part of her duties. I don't remember this part, and it put a definite damper on my enjoying the novel. It's mostly glossed over, and we're left to infer most of their feelings, but I found their relationship even more confusing than the time travel.

I'm not going to go into the time travel. It always hurts my head, but I enjoy it anyway.

I can't say I love it as much at 30 as I did at 13, but I can say that it was still thought-provoking all these years later. Also, telepathic dragons are always awesome.