Anne McCaffrey: The Skies of Pern (2001)

Edition: Bantam, 2001
Review number: 1020

This latest Pern novel reads as though it is meant to round off the series. It is one of the most successful series of novels in science fiction, both long running and consistently high selling. The general trend has been for the novels to become more like soap opera episodes as time passes - a trend matched by the way that all of McCaffrey's output has become more homogeneous and unchallengingly predictable.

There are two main aspects to the story. The major dramatic event is a comet impact in Pern's oceans, a massive disaster. This is of course something inspired by the Schumacher-Levy impact on Jupiter, and is a dramatic yet extremely unlikely event. McCaffrey cites impressive technical assistance with the impact description, including oceanographic analysis of tsunami patterns based on the geography of Pern. The sort of panic this event can generate is shown by the way that governments have financed research to try to prevent it happening on Earth, while less dramatic but far more likely scenarios are much less sexy ways to spend money. (To be fair, it is relatively easy to see how to attack the problem of astronomical impacts, compared to, say, making the world's roads safe, or persuading Americans that spending a few minutes going through airport security is a worthwhile precaution.)

The other theme, continued from Masterharper of Pern, is the attacks of the Abominators, violent opponents of the changes brought by the information stored in Aivas, the computer which had survived from the original colonisation of Pern. People oppose technological advances for all kinds of reasons, but in her simplistic depiction of these Luddites as not too bright traditionalists, McCaffrey is going against the trends of the modern world. Rather than feeling that all advances are, by definition, evil, current unease about technology is partly due to the perception of past failures to correctly forecast and allow for the results of new applications of science (such as the link between increased burning of fossil fuels and global warning), and also apprehension at the dangers inherent in what we can do now or will soon be able to do, given the human race's past lack of restraint - I'm thinking of nuclear weapons and developments in genetics and biotechnology. It seems to me that fear for the future is a perfectly reasonable - and, indeed, intelligent - emotion to feel, especially as the sort of leaders the world has are not really such as to inspire much confidence.

This is, of course unlike the situation on Pern. There, rather unrealistically, de facto world rulers F'lar and Lessa have managed to be right in every crisis through the entire series of novels; their opponents have always turned out to be too wedded to tradition or to have their own agendas which are usually about personal power rather than the good of people generally, the motive of the two dragonriders. This is the sort of thing which makes this series less significant than it might be; easy to read, but not very deep.

Anne McCaffrey: Restoree (1967)

Edition: Corgi, 1970 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 904

A common theme in science fiction and fantasy - and one which succeeds admirably in attracting would be escapists to the genre - is the sudden travel of a normal person to an alien environment. It also, in the science fiction context, ties in with the idea of alien abductions, though this is something that has become much more widely talked about since Restoree was published.

What McCaffrey does in Restoree is an unusual version of this idea. The adaptation of the individual concerned to their new environment is usually taken as a matter of course, but here the stress and terror involved in her abduction send her temporarily insane. She is almost catastrophically unfitted for the role she ends up having to assume when she escapes from an asylum with the Regent for the Warlord of the planet Lothar, drugged to appear insane by his political enemies.

The novel itself, though ringing the changes on one of the clichés of the genre, is easy reading. It is in McCaffrey's habitual light, slightly romantic style, and is one of the novels which leaves the reader with a silly grin on their face.

Anne McCaffrey: Pegasus in Space (2000)

Edition: Bantam, 2000
Review number: 639

The third and last of the Pegasus series, linked very decidedly to the Tower series which follows but which were written first, Pegasus in Space remains a reasonably self-contained novel. It is about the adolescence of Peter Reidinger, an important if slightly peripheral character in the later novels.

The book is dedicated to Christopher Reeves, the Superman actor who was disabled in an accident, and is the story of how Reidinger regains his own mobility, at least in part, recovering from injuries caused when a wall collapsed on him in childhood. Its portrayal of disability is the issue at the core of the novel, and though rather trite it is a massive improvement on the picture of homosexuality given in the next most recent McCaffrey novel I have read, The Tower and the Hive. The implication that happiness comes with recovery from disability is part of Pegasus in Space; though I am sure that the vast majority of disabled people would like to become fully mobile, I am also sure that many of them experience at least a degree of happiness as they are. Pegasus in Space is clearly meant to be a "feel-good" novel, but it left me feeling rather uncomfortable.

Anne McCaffrey: To Ride Pegasus (1974)

Edition: Sphere, 1976
Review number: 629

To Ride Pegasus is not only an early McCaffrey novel which has now become the first of a series, it is also in fact a collection of four novellas, three of which had been previously published. They are all about what might happen if telepathic powers of various kinds were proven scientifically, and the early problems of an institute formed to develop and exploit these powers and protect those who possess them.

There certainly doesn't appear to have been a great deal of rewriting done, which leaves the four stories rather superficially united. The first one sets the scene, and they are ordered by their internal chronology. The oldest story, Apple, which is also the best, was published again in the later collection Get Off the Unicorn.

To Ride Pegasus is not one of McCaffrey's best novels. In the shorter structure of the novellas, her characterisation never becomes more than perfunctory. Her style is not fully formed, and much is reminiscent of earlier writers (E.E. "Doc" Smith's First Lensman and A.E. van Vogt's Slan frequently come to mind). There is a logical problem, of which it is clear that McCaffrey is aware, in her treatment of several of the psychic abilities, particularly precognition and the ways in which foreknowledge might change events and invalidate a prediction. There are also other difficulties, such as where the energy comes from and how it is channeled - at one point, the clothing on a fashion store mannequin is stolen by a telepath; it just disappears and reappears elsewhere, something that would require vast amounts of energy.

Anne McCaffrey: Dragonsinger: Harper of Pern (1977)

Edition: Corgi, 1978
Review number: 597

Although, one of the lightest novels in the Pern series, Dragonsinger is one of my favourites. I find it very evocative of what it feels like to take pleasure in making music. McCaffery is of course musical (she was an opera producer before taking up writing), and music plays an important part in a fair number of her novels (the Crystal Singer series and The Ship Who Sang as well as several of the Pern series).

Dragonsinger follows on immediately from Dragonsong, which tells of the early history of Menolly, whose musical nature is despised as impractical by her family. She finally arrives at Harper Craft Hall at the start of this novel, and the story is about how she finds her feet in her new environment, amazed to be somewhere where her gift is not just accepted but encouraged. She is talented even by the standards of the craft, as many people who have had to overcome grave disadvantages in their backgrounds to do what they really want to tend to be. This helps her form relationships with some people, but brings jealous resentment from others.

The secret of the way in which Anne McCaffrey writes about music is that she doesn't try too hard. Music is extremely difficult to describe in words, and the experience of music making even more so. Rather than resorting to metaphor or relying on musical knowledge in the reader, McCaffrey concentrates on the emotional content of the music. This is most easily seen in the scene in which Menolly plays in a chamber group for the first time. The impression given to the reader is the based on how Menolly gets caught up in the music, exhilarated by the experience, in the way in which the various parts fit together intricately, and how time means nothing - a lengthy rehearsal seems really brief.

The character of Menolly is not without literary faults. She is superhumanly gifted - as a composer of songs (both words and music), as a performer on many instruments that she never seems to practise of have had the opportunity to learn, as an instrument maker. She is too good to be possible. Dragonsinger is not, of course, intended to be a major work of literature, and it succeeds admirably on its own level.

Anne McCaffrey: The Tower and the Hive (1999)

Edition: Bantam
Review number: 419

The fifth, concluding, novel in The Tower and the Hive sequence is, unfortunately, something of a disappointment, even in a series which has already declined from its best. The books are among McCaffrey's most juvenile and have few redeeming features other than being fun to read.

The plot continues the story of the telepaths' leading of the resistence to the genocidal attacks on human and Mrdini planets of the insectile Hivers. The issues raised - xenophobia, pacifism, alien cultures, and so on - are treated at a superficial level. The telepathic Talents are always right, and it is made clear that any reasonable person would agree with what they do (opposition always comes from "fanatics"). A far better analysis of the issues involved in such a war, with a similar social insect style alien, is contained in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and its sequels. (They are also aimed in part at the younger end of the science fiction market.)

McCaffrey also here includes a subplot seemingly based on ideas frequently associated with homophobia. A homosexual character - a rarity in science fiction even in the late nineties - is "reformed" when he is manipulated into falling in love with the "right" woman. The main aim of both men and women is seen to be to have a family. McCaffrey's writing about sexuality has been more interesting and less potentially offensive in the past, for example in the early Pern novels.

Anne McCaffrey: Black Horses for the King (1996)

Edition: Corgi, 1997
Review number: 198

Anne McCaffrey was never going to write an Arthurian story, because she felt put off by the Hollywood-style image she had of the legends, presumably that put about by films like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In this novel, written for the 'young adult' market, she has changed her mind. But she has not really written an Arthurian novel; the setting (other the fact that it is early medieval Britain, with the presence of a charismatic leader) is pretty irrelevant.

The idea behind the book is that the only thing that would produce a string of Saxon defeats like those attributed to Arthur would have been British use of heavy cavalry; and that would have meant large horses. In the sixth century, the average horse was the size of a small pony today, not enough to carry a large man and not a platform to take advantage of the major weapon made possible heavy cavalry - the charge. They would be fine for skirmishing from a distance with light bows (tactics used by Saracen light cavalry against Crusaders), but would not give an advantage in close combat.

So, at the beginning of his rule, Arthur (or rather, in this book, Artos) sets off to southern France where he will be able to buy a herd of Libyan horses, large and black. The book is told from the point of view of one of his companions, the boy Galwyn, who then becomes one of Artos' trusted grooms.

As a book aimed at teenagers, Black Horses for the King is well done; McCaffrey generally writes excellently for this age group. To someone with a bit more experience, it is perhaps rather predictable and certainly fits very snugly within the bounds of the standard plot type of a young boy growing up and discovering his destiny. It would be especially interesting to anyone who likes horses, though no specialist knowledge is needed to enjoy it.

Anne McCaffrey: The Masterharper of Pern (1998)

Edition: Bantam, 1998
Review number: 29



This is the biography of the character Robinton, who appears in many of the Pern novels and appears to be one of McCafferey's favourite characters. It takes the story of his life up to the events of the first half of Dragonflight, the earliest written Pern novel. Even though she's now spent some time writing novels in the pre-history of the original Pern series, I've felt that its still best to read McCafferey's novel's in publication order.

I also felt that her style softened somewhat after Dragonflight, became more "young adult". Masterharper of Pern marks a return, after quite a few novels, to a novel where important issues are worked through rather than romanticised. This novel is centred around Robinton's relationship with his parents, particularly with his distant father, Petiron. Petiron is so engrossed in his music that he doesn't notice anything about his son. Masterharper of Pern is not a book where everything turns out right in the end; it is more mature than that. It is a little difficult to get started, but I felt it was well worth the effort.