Anne McAffrey - An Overview

                      By James Judge

This isn't really a book review as I wouldn't know where to start.
Instead it is just a little bit of praise for an authoress.

About two months ago I found, in a lone corner in the book stand
at a local jumble sale, three Anne McAffrey books. Picking them up
'cos they had dragons on their cover I looked at the back of the
book and thought' yep, might be worth a go some rainy afternoon',
so I asked the lady behind the table how much and she charged me
1p per book - how kind.

That was probably one of the kindest things to happen to me
because apart from saving me money, she introduced me to the
wonderful world of Pern and Anne's mind.

Pern is where the dragonriders live, in their great weyrs,
protecting all they survey and, erm, riding dragons. The Pern
series starts off with Dragonflight. Then there is Dragonquest,
The White Dragon and Renegades of Pern. Also, running along side
those four books are Dragonsong, Dragonsinger: Harper Of Pern,
Moreta: Dragonlady Of Pern and Dragonsdawn. And now there is a
Dragon Lovers' Guide To Pern and a new series continuing from
Renegades of Pern, starting with All The Weyrs Of Pern.

Pern is the third planet that orbits the sun Rukbat, in the
Sagittarian sector. Man colonised it millions of years ago and
they ignored the erratic orbit of the Red Star, another satellite
in the system.

When this Red Star passes within the reach of Pern a deadly spore,
nicknamed 'Thread', travelled the distance between the two planets
and tried to occupy Pern. The spore was a parasite that spread
doom and destruction wherever it went, burrowing into any type of
foliage or flesh, to multiply.

The only way that the humans could fight Thread was to create a
genetically engineered creature that had the power to stop the
thread before it reached Pern's surface. They created the dragons
(although, in later books, it seems that the dragons weren't
created) and with them, a new breed of men was born - the
dragonriders.

When the riders reached a certain age, and there was a gold clutch
in the weyrs hatching ground, the riders would stand amongst the
dragon eggs and, hopefully, impress a dragon. No-one knows why a
particular dragon chooses a certain person, but when the two meet
they are forever bonded in something more than love, it is
complete dependency on one another. If a rider dies the dragon
will commit suicide and if the dragon dies the man is no longer a
man, he is just a shell for a long time after.

The dragons and men then fly around the skies of Pern, chewing
firestone and belching gouts of flame into the spore that tries to
invade their homeland.

Every time the Red Star passes Pern, the time the thread falls is
called a Pass, and the interval between is called an Interval.
Sometimes, due to the Red Stars' erratic orbit, there are
extremely long intervals, only two have been recorded up until
now.

During the second Long Interval dragonriders fell into disrepute
as the holders and Lords of Pern decided that the threat of Thread
was finally over and why should they support the free-loading
dragonriders? To make the issue of Thread being gone forever even
more convincing, five out of the six weyrs just disappeared,
leaving no trace.

At the end of the second Long Interval Benden's (the remaining
weyr) queen and rider were dying and so F'lar and his fighting
wing, the only one left to still practice the fighting drills, set
upon a search for a new weyr woman. F'lar, and his brother, found
the woman, a drudge in Ruatha hold, but she wasn't really a drudge
- she was the last remaining person of Ruathan blood, going into a
life of drudgery when Fax killed all the remaining members so he
could rule the strongest and most respected of the holds.

This is where the first book in this epic series starts and from
there the story just gets better and better, with more and more
found out about the abilities of dragons and their cousins, the
pesky fire lizards, who are a smaller version of dragons
themselves. Also at the end of The White Dragon and all books
following that, Perns' inhabitants starts to find out more about
their past and where they came from, and why the southern
continent was abandoned.

There has been no author, in my mind, that can quite weave words
the way Anne McAffrey does. There have been a couple of authors to
come close to her standard, but none have yet reached it or
excelled her in her inventiveness and sheer ingenuity.

With Pern Anne manages to create an alternate world that is so
believable, you start to dream dreams about it and, in a way, live
out the lives of those in Pern. When you are reading a book of
hers you get the feeling of being there and having done that,
suffering all that hurt when someone dies and all the exhilaration
when something new is discovered or something happens.

If you haven't tried one of Anne's books - whether they are in the
Pern series or not (she has written many other books, and
co-written even more) I recommended her to you here and now. You
may not enjoy them quite as much as I am, but I assure you -
you'll enjoy them.

I hope Anne continues to write for many years to come as there are
so many unanswered questions that need answers and no-one will be
able to answer them like she does. Pure class.

@~There are a couple of cartoon books on Pern too - Sue.







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