Dragonflight

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

(Book #1 of the Pern series)

Rating: 🍁🍁🍁

Link to Blurb

The Good Stuff:

1) What an interesting world! I enjoyed the fact that this was a lost colony of Earth, which then developed its own culture. And yet you could still see bits of "ancient" Earth if you squinted a bit (like with the existence of flame-throwers). I also enjoyed the almost feudal set-up, with the different holds and their mostly tense relationship with the Dragon men. In my head, it was similar to how I imagine our own feudal history, except replace the Dragon men with the Church.

2) The very real threat presented by the ominous Red Star. I have no idea what the threads are, but they definitely work as an enemy to be reckoned with.

3) Here thar be dragons! I think they're my favourite part of the Pernian world. I'm still not sure what all the different colours represent, other than gold and bronze respectively representing the queens and their potential mates. There was a hint that browns were soldiers? And male? And greens were females, but didn't get pregnant? What were blues? Eunuchs? Hermaphrodites? Something else entirely? There's so much left to explore here.

4) The plot was well paced, and the characters, while sometimes frustrating, were believable and well fleshed-out.

The Not-So-Good Stuff:

1) Holy misogyny, Batman! I am so thankful not to be a Pernian woman. They're essentially chatel, completely controlled by the men of the world. Which isn't to say they're one-dimensional, or not a presence in the story. Even Lessa, a wonderful main character in so many ways, was basically subjugated to F'lar through his constant patriarchal superiority and emotional/physical abuse. Not that either one of them saw it as abuse. I can't really condemn Ms. McCaffrey for this attitude, since it's consistent with the type of culture she's created for Pern, but I don't have to like it.

2) The whole "our dragons are mating, so we're mating" thing was kind of rape-y. Not that I think authors shouldn't write about rape, but at least call it what it is. The fact that Lessa became obsessed enough with bathing afterwards (a common response for rape victims) that bone-headed F'lar noticed and commented on it is a huge indicator to me that she was not okay with things. But it's all okay because they couldn't help it, and F'lar tried to be nice, and they eventually fell in love. Right?

Still, it was an enjoyable read and a world that I'm definitely interested in revisiting.