skygiants | (no subject)

As I mentioned on my last Pern post, Dragonsdawn was always the most memorable Pern book for me -- for my sins, and sins indeed they are. That said, having reread it, I can understand exactly why I found this so compelling. This was the book that sold me on the fantasy of planetary exploration and colonization as a delightful and desirable experience! You could go to a beautiful new world and discover baby dragons and have random islands named after you! You could build a new Utopian society! Is Anne McCaffrey's vision of a Utopian society uncomfortably libertarian? Sure, but I was ten, I didn't know what libertarians were, I just understood that Sorka was having a very cool time as a happily free-range child exploring the Pernese landscape. I don't think it was until I read Mary Roach's Packing for Mars as an adult that I fully came to terms with the fact that going to space actually sounded like a deeply unpleasant time, logistically speaking, and let the faint wisps of the Dragonsdawn dream of First Feet Down on a beautiful new planet that's functionally just like Earth with bonus charming telepathic fauna dissipate into the ether.

I mean, it is sort of an open question though: early Pernese culture, potential paradise or libertarian cult? I do think McCaffrey knows that the colonist's blissful vision of If Everyone Has Enough Land For Themselves We Can All Just Be Chill And Not Actually Bother Society-Building is doomed to some degree of failure on account of bad actors, even before it's interrupted by Thread. She could have just made it a book about dealing with Thread and developing dragons about it, and it would probably be a better book if she did, but she's so grimly determined to put some bad actors in just to demonstrate she knows they exist. This at least is my theory of how we got Evil Sexy Avril Bitra, perpetrator of history's most inexplicable heist. "If I go on this fifty-year mission, I can steal some diamonds, steal an escape pod, launch myself back out into space, and get picked up back in a society that's moved on a hundred years from the one I left! Probably they'll still want diamonds and I'll re-adapt just fine!"

So, I can understand, I guess, why Avril Bitra. I don't understand and don't think I will ever understand why Avril Bitra's narrative foil is a would-be tradwife who nonconsensually aphrodisiaced her way into marriage with a man who has never shown any romantic interest in anything except cave systems and then spent the next eight years making a shocked Pikachu face about the fact that he continued to not be all that into her. Why is Sallah Telgar's plot in this book? What is it doing here? Why is Avril Bitra evilly torturing Sallah on the spaceship given so much page space and weird psychosexual intensity when literally nothing about this plot actually impacts the colony's situation IN ANY ACTUAL WAY? I thought a reread would leave me less confused about all this than I was when I was ten and in fact I think it did the opposite. Anne, please ... you must have had some thoughts about this, thematically, structurally ... I'm coming to you, hat in hand, asking for answers.

I do think it's very funny that in the years between 1968 and 1989 Anne McCaffrey decided that it was a bit embarrassing that she'd built biological differences into her dragons such that the queens don't breathe fire, and decided to blame it on the fact that the dragons were genetically designed by an Extremely Traditional Chinese Grandma instead. Is it also racist? Yes, extremely. But if we start talking about all the unfortunate well-meaning racism in Dragonsdawn we'll be here all day and I don't have that much day left. Racism aside I did find myself unexpectedly somewhat moved by the subplot I did not remember at all in which Kenjo Fusaiyuki, a guy who has made a Profound Mistake in moving to an isolated colony planet that's dedicated itself to being low-tech and abandoning spaceflight, desperately hoards fuel for as long as possible to put off the time when he will have to at last give up for good and all the thing he loves most and is best at in all the world.

And you know who could've saved Kenjo Fusaiyuki's life, if she had stopped to help the two guys Avril Bitra clonked on the head instead of uselessly pursuing her into space? YES, IT'S ANOTHER SALLAH TELGAR CRIME. Sallah Telgar, you have so much to answer for.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sheliak

The thing about Avril Bitra that confounded me even as a credulous child is that someone named Bitra Hold after her. WHY.

The only reason I can think of now is that they knew there was a narrative niche for villains and they wanted to honor the first Pernese antagonist by naming Villainville after her.

(Telgar Hold/Weyr at least has the excuse of Sallah Telgar's noncon husband having issues after all that.)

Anyway, on a brighter note: I adored the Michael Whelan cover to this book and still do. Amazing cover. Definitely makes the planet enticing.

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/dragonsdawn/

From:

skygiants

The fact that someone named a whole hold after her is my FAVORITE thing about Avril Bitra. Okay Yes She Was Pretty Evil But Also Too Sexy To Be Forgotten. We Commemorate Our Hold In Loving Memory Of That Ass.

You are so right about the cover; a Pern all-timer IMO.

From:

sovay

Racism aside I did find myself unexpectedly somewhat moved by the subplot I did not remember at all in which Kenjo Fusaiyuki, a guy who has made a Profound Mistake in moving to an isolated colony planet that's dedicated itself to being low-tech and abandoning spaceflight, desperately hoards fuel for as long as possible to put off the time when he will have to at last give up for good and all the thing he loves most and is best at in all the world.

I did not remember that either. Did McCaffrey know how to pilot a plane? She loves flying so much on the page. [edit] I realize I am responding just as much to the presence of characters who have been or are facing being grounded, which is a slightly different thing.

Edited Date: 2026-04-17 06:55 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

It's a good question! I think the fact that her father was in the Air Force accounts for a lot of it -- it's seems really clear that she was tremendously influenced in her writing by her father and his colleagues (and The Ship Who Sang is dedicated to him.)

Also in looking this up I've learned that later in life she befriended NASA astronaut Pamela Melroy, who was not only a huge fan but brought a copy of Crystal Singer into space with her which is I have to admit incredibly cute.

From:

sovay

I think the fact that her father was in the Air Force accounts for a lot of it -- it's seems really clear that she was tremendously influenced in her writing by her father and his colleagues (and The Ship Who Sang is dedicated to him.)

I keep forgetting about that! I keep forgetting about whole parts of The Ship Who Sang. It's probably a defense mechanism.

Also probably because I read her so young, McCaffrey is a writer about whose life I know comparatively little, even though it is space-obvious that she wrote from the seat of her id in a way that I find really fascinating resulted in groundbreaking awards and a massive career. Mostly I remember that she trained as a singer, paralleled the dragonriders with the RAF, and had a case of Ireland to rival John Ford.

Also in looking this up I've learned that later in life she befriended NASA astronaut Pamela Melroy, who was not only a huge fan but brought a copy of Crystal Singer into space with her which is I have to admit incredibly cute.

"The book had to be patched up with duct tape on orbit."

That's great.

From:

genarti

Oh my god I remember almost NONE of this. (But as we have discussed, I read it once and was like "well THIS isn't what Pern is fun for" and never reread it, so it was one of the least memorable ones for me. And the whole planetary colonization thing never really captured my id in the same way.)

...I thought I had more useful comments but I just keep scrolling up to the plot points and going, WHAT. WHAT!! Oh, Anne McCaffrey.

From:

skygiants

To be fair Dragonsdawn I think is perhaps one of the most WHAT! WHAT!! of Anne's career. Without the Sallah Telgar plot it would be mostly kind of a normal book, but here we are.

From:

sovay

And the whole planetary colonization thing never really captured my id in the same way.

I imprinted on the mechanics of colonizing a planet for the same reasons I enjoy narratives of heroic engineering and managed to tune out a vast quantity of what actually happened between its characters in the process, cf. remembering some of the more random psychosexual details of Avril Bitra's torture of Sallah Telgar and one hundred percent not remembering to blame dragon sexism on the Chinese grandma.

From:

thistleingrey

I couldn't make sense of either Avril or Sallah at the time (in high school), so I'm glad of your helpful partial explication!

By high school the world already looked a certain way to me, so Kitti Ping was no surprise, almost too boring an addition even to count as racist. But you're right. (Also, since I've remembered her name this whole time, I guess it did matter a bit to younger me. Avril and Sallah I recognize, certainly, and I remember the Hold names, but I would've needed some moments to come up with those two characters' names if unaided.)

From:

starlady

Kitti Ping?? What is this, Turandot?

From:

thistleingrey

There's some Puccini to Dragonsdawn (uncomplimentary), definitely.

From:

skygiants

To be fair I don't even think Kitti Ping is as bad as Kitti Ping's fail grand/daughter* WIND BLOSSOM.

*apparently she's a daughter in the UK edition but a granddaughter in the US edition?

From:

rachelmanija

LOL.

From:

sheliak

Poor Wind Blossom. That name, and then everyone judges her for making watch-whers.

(I had forgotten the name, but remember feeling vaguely indignant on her behalf re: watch-whers. She was doing her best! The watch-whers were also doing their best!)

From:

sovay

There's some Puccini to Dragonsdawn (uncomplimentary), definitely.

Don't forget that names with more than one identifiably ethnic component mean we're in the future.

From:

skygiants

I also remembered Kitti Ping way disproportionately to how often she actually appears in the story -- she's really only present for maybe 2-3 scenes but she makes a huge impression. And her whole deal ("extremely elderly alien-trained geneticist who decides to take her retirement on a low-tech colony planet for mysterious reasons") is tbh very compelling, Were It Not Also For.

From:

thistleingrey

*nods* At least McCaffrey gave the character, on the page, a reason for mystique(tm)!

From:

slashmarks

I figure a lot of this can be explained by the fact that all of the adults have megaPTSD from space WWII. But... yeah.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, I had completely forgotten the fact that Pern is canonically set up by traumatized veterans and it truly does explain a LOT.

From:

osprey_archer

It's been years since I read this so I've forgotten most of the plot points but I DID remember Sallah Telgar aphrodiacking her soon-to-be husband in a cave (at least she picked the right environment, he IS very into caves) and then being just SHOCKED that he remains not particularly into her for the rest of their marriage. Even as a teenager I felt that this outcome was predictable and was puzzled that Sallah did not, in fact, predict it.

Completely forgot Avril Bitra and everything else though. Did she go into the fifty-year mission with this terrible heist plan, or did she make up a desperate heist plan after deciding the low-tech life was Not For Her? The second one would at least kind of make sense (yes it's a terrible plan but she's backed herself into a corner here), but I suspect it's the first.

From:

skygiants

It is indeed deeply predictable ... Sallah why are you so fixated on this poor man. Leave him alone! He's doing fine!

She's definitely planning a gem heist before they even get to the planet -- her grandma was one of the initial surveyors and brought back Gems Galore that Avril has been lovingly toting around with her all through the trip. Now, her alternate plan seems to have been Seduce Paul Benden, Become First Lady of Pern [sidenote: did I remember that Paul Benden existed? I absolutely did not. deeply boring man] but a.) that plan fails before the book even opens and b.) very unclear if she signed up intending to seduce Paul Benden or if she started out with Plan A: Extremely Stupid Jewel Heist, met Paul Benden, dated Paul Benden, thought "huh! what if instead of the stupid jewel heist, I became queen of Pern!," broke up with Paul Benden, and went "NEVERMIND, BACK TO PLAN A."

From:

sovay

[sidenote: did I remember that Paul Benden existed? I absolutely did not. deeply boring man]

I remember in the broad sense that he existed because even at age fifth grade I found it weird that there had been no drift of names after two and a half thousand years. I could not tell you thing one about his personality, though.

Edited Date: 2026-04-18 06:29 pm (UTC)

From:

larryhammer

Yeah, I remember none of this, just my reaction that this wasn't fun in the way Pern was otherwise fun. I was already iffy on Pern books beyond the canonical initial six, in part because I was meh on Moreta but very much loved Nerilka's Story but everyone else I knew had the exact opposite reaction.

From:

skygiants

You are indeed the only person I've ever met who loved Nerilka's Story! I don't remember it all -- what did you like so much about it?

From:

larryhammer

From what I remember (which honestly isn't much after so long), I much preferred Nerilka's actual arc over what we were given in Moreta. Much more agency, not that I had the word at the time, and a more interesting adventure. Plus I liked the recursion of a "now here's the real story" to a book that itself was a "now here's the real story" thing that was, honestly, a little boring.

From:

thistleingrey

I liked both Moreta and Nerilka, but the latter felt a bit boring. I remember thinking that the former played better to McCaffrey's strengths; it would've been interesting if someone else could've written Nerilka. But I haven't reread either one, so these vague impressions are trapped in the amber of 1987, when I found the books together on the library shelf.

(I mean, I also remember thinking that having someone else write it would be really weird, and post-fic challenges and remixes plus then Yuletide, that's no longer the case!)

Edited (fixed ambiguous antecedent) Date: 2026-04-18 02:37 pm (UTC)

From:

starlady

Kenjo Fusaiyuki is the worst "Japanese name made up by a white person" I've heard in a long, long time.

For some reason I never read this one, and I am not going to change that decision based on this review.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, I have some strong fond nostalgia for it for all its Problems but I Do Not really think it's worth prioritizing as a standalone experience.

From:

annotated_em

I was always weirded out that after Sallah Telgar dies, her husband just goes All In on mourning her like he actually did secretly love her all along. Like. Wot?

From:

skygiants

I feel like maybe that's the thing that Anne thought would make it, like, beautiful and tragically satisfying, the id element of the book -- your marriage WAS a success and your aloof husband DID secretly love you to death all along, so much so that he subsumes his whole identity into grieving you! you'll die a HEROINE and they'll hold a FUNERAL and everyone will CRY -- but, unfortunately, the whole context makes it gross and baffling. This poor man never even wanted to be married and just because his wife made bad choices with good publicity he doesn't even get to keep his own name about it!

From:

chestnut_pod

Having never read Pern, I read these dispatches with great interest and 0 understanding, which honestly is what it sounds like it was like to read the books themselves.

From:

skygiants

A pretty good approximation, I think!

From:

rachelmanija

The only thing I remember about Sallah Telgar is that she dies from getting her toe cut off in zero g. Is that actually correct?

From:

skygiants

Pretty close! She gets knocked unconscious and captured in zero-G by Evil Avril, tethered with some sort of razor wire, gets a big chunk of her foot cut off, loses a lot of blood, and also gets her boob Viciously Tweaked. Presumably it's the blood loss and not the boob tweak that does her in.

From:

rachelmanija

LOL.

I know I've read the book and I also read your review, and I still don't understand why any of that happened. I think it's so nonsensical that it it instantly evaporates from my memory.

From:

cofax7

God, I have no memory of this book. I was in college when it came out, and maybe had just moved on from McCaffrey to Cherryh and various more "serious" writers. Probably just as well...

From:

skygiants

I started Pern in the mid-90s so for me Dragonsdawn was absolutely 'canonical' Pern on par with the early two trilogies -- it's everything after this where the books start getting fuzzy.