Tehani and Marisol bonded over Pern (and Doctor Who) at a science fiction convention, decided that it was time for a reread of the series, and really, they should blog about that. They are reading in Anne McCaffrey’s preferred way, which is basically publication order.  

Pern Series – Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern / Nerilka’s Story

T: In Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern, we go back in time several hundreds of years (turns), and read the story of “Moreta’s Ride”, a ballad we were introduced to in earlier books.

M: This is one of those great tiebacks where you realize the ballad in no way reflects the reality of the situation. And given the nature of the entire pandemic, I doubt it could, anyways. Most poignant fact being that no one wanted to admit she was on Holth and not Orlith. Nor was the last wink between as heroic in the story as it sounds in the ballad. It was a terrible accident brought on by exhaustion.

I mean, it’s still heroic, but it’s not the same.

T: One of the things that struck me was how McCaffrey did a pretty good job of making some small societal changes that made it clear it was a different era. Nothing hugely significant, but just tweaks that may logically have changed before we get to the “present day” Pern.

Continue reading “Revisiting Pern, the great McCaffrey reread: MORETA/NERILKA” →

A few weeks ago, at Conflux, I happened into a conversation with the delightful Marisol and we discovered a mutual passion for Pern (among other things, like Doctor Who — Marisol is good people… 🙂 ). When she mentioned she really thought it was time she reread the series, I realised that although McCaffrey and Pern were definitely formative in my early years of reading speculative fiction (I talk about that in the SF Signal post on “The books that made us love science fiction and fantasy”), I hadn’t revisited the world for a really long time. So I suggested that not only should we both reread the books, but we totally needed to blog about that!

In the weeks ahead, Marisol and I will be chatting about our discoveries in the world of Pern as we work our way through the series once more. We’ve chosen to read only the novels (although we may have to take a look at one or two of the short stories, just because…), only the books written by Anne herself, and we’re going basically in publication order (as opposed to internal chronological order), as Anne preferred them to be read.

First up will be Dragonflight — join us so that you, like me, can be stunned by the fact this book was published almost fifty years ago…