'Dragonflight' by Anne McCaffrey is the first book in the 'Dragonriders of Pern' series, introducing readers to the world of Pern where telepathic dragons bond with their riders to protect the planet from a deadly alien threat known as Threads. The story follows characters like Lessa and F'lar as they navigate through political intrigue, time travel, and the responsibilities of being dragonriders, all set against a backdrop of a unique blend of science fiction and fantasy elements. McCaffrey's writing style is described as easy to read, with a focus on world-building and character development, creating a captivating and original narrative that has stood the test of time.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include problematic depictions of consent, gender inequality, and instances of violence.
Has Romance?
The romance aspect is present but is often problematic, focused on the dynamics between Lessa and F'lar.
From The Publisher:
On a beautiful world called Pern, an ancient way of life is about to come under attack from a myth that is all too real. Lessa is an outcast survivor-her parents murdered, her birthright stolen-a strong young woman who has never stopped dreaming of revenge. But when an ancient threat to Pern reemerges, Lessa will rise-upon the back of a great dragon with whom she shares a telepathic bond more intimate than any human connection. Together, dragon and rider will fly . . . and Pern will be changed forever.
Ratings (92)
Incredible (15) | |
Loved It (36) | |
Liked It (25) | |
It Was OK (15) | |
Did Not Like (1) |
Reader Stats (171):
Read It (92) | |
Want To Read (54) | |
Did Not Finish (2) | |
Not Interested (23) |
2 comment(s)
Original review: ****5****
2015 review: ****3****
I first read this series when I was ... mmm, maybe 13-14 years old, and I utterly adored it. I gobbled it up, re-read it obsessively, and imagined myself riding a glorious gold dragon of my own.
Yesterday, I decided that I felt like a re-read. It has probably been 20 years, after all, and I still remember the series so fondly, as one of my all-time favorites.
Sadly, the re-read as an adult diminished the book for me a little. It also made it clear I needed to add the book to my alpha-douchebag shelf.
There's still lots to love about this series - the dragon riding is just thrilling, and the suspense as they figure out how to solve the problem of the shortage of dragons, and deal with the Holders, all of that is just as exciting as it ever was.
But the dynamics of Lessa and F'lar are agitating to me. To be honest, I don't know that I ever liked F'lar as a hero, and that's probably because, at 13-14, I thought boys were irritating, and in my young head, F'lar was just another obstacle to be overcome, rather than a love interest. So I didn't care about F'lar, and it didn't grate on me that he treated Lessa as a ridiculous, idiotic, spoiled child... probably because I was a child myself, so it was perfectly reasonable. Love didn't really come into play for me.
Which is good, because frankly, I don't buy the love in this book at all now, as an adult.
F'lar is a manipulative douchebag. He doesn't tell Lessa anything, he doesn't treat her as an equal... and in fact, I'm fairly appalled at how sidelined women as a whole are in this world, by all the characters and by the hero. They're baggage at best, a nuisance at worst, and they're treated as children. Lessa is a 21 year old survivor of a massacre, who displays incredible intelligence in handling and overcoming a situation more difficult that F'lar could ever possibly even fucking imagine, and he continually belittles her and refers to her as "that girl!" as if she's a brat that won't just stay in whatever place he puts her.
The scene of them "coming together" is frankly a rape... and it's just impossible to view it in any other way. She's not told what to do, or what to expect. She's yelled at, slapped and shaked as they demand she remain in control of a situation they've done nothing to prepare her for. And then he has sex with her, while she's quite literally out of her head.
The number of times that F'lar grabs her violently (like in the argument with R'gul) or shakes her or tosses her aside is... too many to count. The belittling way he treats her, the way he discounts her, the way she's not even given an iota of respect - she doesn't get to see the Red Star framed in the Star Stone, she doesn't get to know the plan with the Holders, she doesn't get to learn to even ride her dragon until she does it for herself - it is all distressing and nauseating to me. And even worse to me was the fact that, over the course of this book, her character actually becomes LESS compelling. In the beginning, she was a cunning girl who worked tirelessly towards her goals... and at the end, she had pretty much morphed into the petty, whining child that F'lar treated her as.
This is a book that child-me will forever love because of the dreams of dragonriding that it inspired... but as an adult, I'm overwhelmed by its flaws. To be honest, I wish I hadn't gone back to read it, because now this character who was one of the strong, defining female characters of my teenage years has really been diminshed, both because she let herself be treated that way, and because she fell into and embraced the treatment, becoming a snide, bratty girl alongside her big alpha hero.
*sigh*
DNF at 39%
I've heard so many good things about this series over the years, and with it having such a strong presence in fantasy's history as a genre, I felt I should try it out! I didn't DNF this book out of any feelings of disgust or outrage (although, according to other reviews I've read now, that might've been inevitable down the line) but out of disinterest.
Lessa started as an interesting character, having worked towards revenge against the man who killed her entire family and overtook her lands for over ten turns (years?). This revenge plot resolved rather quickly, however, and we were thrust into a new setting filled with dragons — and more politics than I would've thought. If anything, that should've been an overall positive in my experience, but everything I saw from both POVs used in this book made me like this new development less and less.
In the end, I couldn't see myself learning to like these characters enough to keep reading and I decided to put the book down.
What can you read after
Dragonflight?
About the Author:
Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American-Irish writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction and the first to win a Nebula Award. Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list. In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction.
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