Subject: Oh, yes, I rememb-- SHARDS AND SHELLS!
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Posted on: 2019-10-04 10:40:00 UTC

SINCE WHEN IS THERE A NEW PERN BOOK?!?!

"Dragon's Code is a book in the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. It was written by her daughter, Gigi McCaffrey. Dragon's Code was first published by Ballantine Books in October 2018.

"In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Dragonriders of Pern series, Gigi does her mother proud, adding to the family tradition of spinning unputdownable tales that recount the adventures of the brave inhabitants of a distant planet who battle the pitiless adversary known as Thread."

!!!!!

Okay, so that's my news for the day... back to actually replying. ^_^

I remember the couple in Red Star Rising (I see the title was changed because the American publishers 'felt the book would sell better with Dragon in it', which makes sense, though RSR was kind of pitched as a followup to First Fall); they were... cute, I think? It's been a while. I remember primarily liking the book because of how well it portrays a society in decline, but not decay. They're losing stuff, but also forging new traditions.

Also, it does a great job of showing Bitra Being Bitra, which was mostly just told to us in other books.

... hmm, the wiki asserts that 'unconfirmed information' has RSR being ghostwritten by Todd, which makes a certain sense; it does have a different feel even to Dragonsdawn.

Anyway. I feel like Anne locked herself in with her original idea, which was that dragonriders were all some kind of polypan setup. Their promiscuity is frequently referenced in the early parts of Flight, and she quite clearly imagined that none of them cared a whit who they were with during a mating flight.

Which can make perfect sense, given that telepathic dragons are involved not only in the Search process, but in Impression itself. You just have an un-explicated criterion that a dragon will only Impress someone who's very open in their sexual orientation. Heck, you can even justify it on the basis that they have to be able to unconditionally love a dragon, which is a gigantic carnivore that will irrevocably take over their life. You need people who don't get hung up on this stuff.

Only she very quickly realised that she didn't want to write that. What she wanted to write was heterosexual near-monogamy. Which is why she created a female Green rider right out of the gate; why she gave Brekke her hangups (and arguably why she then killed Winreth); why she decreed that Only Mnementh Flies Ramoth; why she spent so much time condeming Kylara for doing... exactly what she initially claimed dragonriders do. &c &c.

And she never really improved on that score, even when she tried; even if P'tero and M'leng aren't Todd's work, they're still emphatically monogamous, and Skies of Pern... well, there's a subplot which can be summed up as 'female riders being forced to have sex based on their dragon's needs is kind of icky... but I'm nice, so it's okay'.

Seriously.

(I've just been reminded that there's a fairly charming gay couple in Moreta; I have vague memories of that but can't give any details.)

Anyway yeah: dragons. :)

hS

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