So what I'm gathering from this thread is that I should gleefully embrace my love of dragons and dubcon and read more Pern. Anyone have a guide to reading order/what's good ect?
Shoot, is there a reading order? Dragonflight is the first book and what you need to read first, though, unless you want to start with the Harper's Hall trilogy, which is meant for young readers and still an enjoyable read and will set up the series for you. But it will also spoil the series for you since it goes rapidly through what takes a long time in the adult reader books. I reccoment starting with the original Dragonflight.
The main series is Dragonflight, Dragonquest, the White Dragon. The events of the Harper Hall trilogy occurs during Dragonquest and the White Dragon. Masterharper should probably be read after reading the Harper Hall trilogy. Chronologically following White Dragon is Renegades of Pern, All the Weyrs of Pern, Dolphins of Pern, Skies of Pern. There's also the Girl Who Heard Dragons, which provides some background for Renegades of Pern. Dragon's Dawn should be read maybe after All the Weyrs of Pern, maybe after Dolphins of Pern. Chronicles of Pern comes after Dragon's Dawn. Moretta and Nerilka's tale go somewhere, probably after White Dragon. I have no idea about the books Todd wrote, because I never cared about any of them enough to read them.
Many thanks for guide! I'm pretty sure I only "own" (read: still have littlewhitemouse's copy because stealing books is a thing all siblings do, right) Dragonflight, so idk when I'll get to read past that, but hey. I have one. And the Harper Hall trilogy, but wellp. already read that one. Read the first of the harper hall trilogy first when I was like..13, with no prior knowledge about the series at all that prologue/hey here's how the world works and what's happened in the history of this universe preamble was so, so very confusing. also really hard to explain when trying to do a book report speech I got a C on that speech
I love this series. Had completely forgotten about the gay dubcon orgies, but like. Dragons. Dragons make up for everything.
I tend not to think much about the series before All the Weyrs other than the Harper Hall trilogy. All the Weyrs is where it really starts being a science fiction series rather than just a fantasy series that is supposedly set on another planet.
Joke's on you I have two copies of Dragonflight and I think I took one out of your bookshelf to bring to my new place A little needlessly confusing, actually, especially to read the first few books. You can start reading convinced that this is 100% a fantasy and the Thread is a mysterious substance with unknown origins and know as much as the characters do in the beginning. They don't know about the hard science to come! The rest is explained with time and is unnecessary to enjoy the original series. I mean I can babble about it if anyone wants and get explainy because I think the set up it really cool but hell you can start reading Dragonflight knowing two things: 1. The people of the planet Pern used to be under attack by a mysterious substance called 'Thread' which falls from the sky, destroys everything, doesn't burn out for weeks, and can only be destroyed by dragonfire. Because of this, dragons have been bred to be sentient fighting creatures that bond mentally with their riders to assure teamwork. 2. This Thread used to come in regular intervals of about 50 years of Threadfall every 200 years but, as of chapter one, hasn't been seen in several hundred years, so many people don't believe in it anymore and think it's unnecessary to keep dragons to fight it. As a consequence, there aren't many dragons anymore. The rest of the stuff about space travel and dragon abilities and the history of Pern is talked about as you read the book. Like, I could take about how they got there and vaguely how their history has gone but the book, it will tell you as you read, the primer is unnecessary for book one but admittedly useful as a refresher if it's been a while. I really haven't read a lot beyond the original trilogy. Believe me, I will, I just don't have the tenacity to barrel through five books in a series at once, I usually read one or two and then put it down for several years. -u- Now I'm super interested to know how Pern changes in the future... ETA: fact misremembered
I WAS CURIOUS SO I LOOKED UP THE WIKI PAGE FOR 'ALL THE WEYRS OF PERN' AND IT COMES WITH THIS COVER IMAGE DRAGONS IN SPACE!!! THIS IS THE BEST SERIES
I read these when I was in... middle school? And I think a lot of stuff just kind of went over my head. I also seem to be not-that-great at picking up on problematic things in books/other media (besides the really obvious things), so maybe that contributed as well. When I saw the whole bit about greens in the other thread I was just like "??? I don't remember this at aaaaalllllll." I didn't care so much about dragons but FIRE LIZARDS. YES. PLEASE. Dawn was my favorite when I read it because yesss, genetic engineering to overcome obstacles!!!
All the Weyrs is about a society making the glorious and super rocky transition from middle fantasy to early industry and space exploration via teleporting dragons. Also threadfall is for 50 years, not 12.
Pern is a rare series where, when I'm in the mood for fic, I tend to seek out OC fic? Because while I loved Menolly and the other Harper Hall folks, most the rest of the characters are generally too caught up in the Weyr creeptastic gender politics for me. And the fandom addressed a lot of the deficiencies of the canon before the McCaffreys got around to it (if they ever did) -- eg, letting lesbians exist. Also properly tagging the gay dubcon orgies as dubcon. =P Besides, the OCs are almost invariably Impressing dragons, which is what I'm in the mood for if I want to get a Pern fix. My Pern OC was a queen dragon whose rider was mute and had a silver fire lizard and they accidently time-traveled Between to the Benden Weyr of the books. The rider took a job as a drudge. Lessa and the rest were very ??? because none of the dragons would say where this strange queen dragon came from or who her rider was. Also the dragon outflew all of the Bronzes and the rider hide herself in the kitchen and so there was no ensuing orgy. (Younger me was very sexphobic and normally I facepalm over expressions of that, but I think I'm pretty okay with it in this case.)
Yeah, I'd say that Pern is really primed for OC fic. And OC worldbuilding in different eras. I've found couple crossover fics where the premise is mostly "these characters copypasted into Pern" which is awesome, because they play around with a lot of the worldbuilding and change whatever they feel like getting rid of. It helps that most of the canon characters themselves aren't... really people I care to know more about? Or the things I do want to know about are already addressed. If I want to read that story, I'll pick up a book or something.
Speaking of OC fic... Glory be, Dragonchoice 3 exists now! And they have ebook versions of all three!
oh man these books. theeeeeese books. I think we had a handful of the dragonrider ones and slightly more than that of other McCaffrey books while I was growing up. did anyone else notice how much Anne likes red meat, the cooking of meat, ensuring that there is meat around whenever it's remotely plausible? it shows up in a couple different series. I think the dragon sex pollen always sat strangely with me, but I can't say that for sure on account of how fuckoff long ago it was. but like. she doesn't even like this dude, and not in a fun hate-relationship way either, and then they passionately bang? because dragons. tbh I think sex-that-makes-you-fall-in-love* was just one of her preferred tropes.** I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT THE GAY DUBCON ORGIES. or maybe I forgot. now I really do have to read these books again. *in which 'love' translates as 'a genital-based tolerance of an otherwise unlikable being' **I don't remember which short story specifically but something something Catteni aliens oh whoops let's have sex with the one that just caught me
...well i just checked and there's still a copy of dragonflight in my bookshelf so we're both good. Good call on two copies of dragon book ...do either of us remember who technically owns the copy of dragonsong? I hoarded it for a long time but I really don't think I bought it
They're pretty implied to my memory but appear to be canon. I don't remember any description of said orgies for sure... though I do remember shit like green riders that seemed pretty gay and were preeeeeetty close to the riders of their dragons' mates but I was sure I was just being silly and it was all in my head. I was silly, but it was not in my head. Greens canonically bond with gay ass motherfuckers who then go out of their way to gay up other, totally heterosexual dragon riders. Which is something so weird that I cannot possibly dislike it. Green dragon: this is my gay bff we go out shopping and burning thread together omg he's so sassy Two copies of that too. One belongs to mom and one to me -u- That one tho I don't need go wild
Anyone else read Edgar Rice Burroughs, and similar pulpy scifi/fantasy of the early 1900s? Because I feel like the lines from that to Pern are ... really enlightening; she was clearly trying to write a feminist Princess of Mars, and succeeding tolerably well given that that's what she seems to have grown up with. -chinhands- But man, yeah, Pern is so id-tastic. I just cringe at the economy and want to fix it.
I always was very puzzled about how F'lar and Lessa worked. I could never see the transition from "we're on the same side, mostly, but god you are a fuckhead" to "working partners with respect and love, but still a lot of shit in between because people are complicated". It was very ???, so I mostly just read on to get to the rest of the story. TELL ME ALL ABOUT HOW YOU WOULD FIX IT PLEASE
So Pern was part of my exploration into my budding sexuality. I remember a scene - I don't know what book - where two riders, I think it was for a green and a blue or maybe a green and a brown, where having some nice sex in the Southern Continent, and they got attacked by the wildcats (I think they called them felines?) And I liked the scene a fair amount. It was probably post-first contact with Aivas but before he turned off. I reread that scene a few times. It was funny because mom and dad had read a bunch of the books beforehand to make sure I wasn't reading stuff that would disturb me, and asked me to go talk to them after I finished the book containing that scene. It turns out they wanted to talk about the gay sex, and I think the dubcon in one part. Mom asked me if I understood why they wanted to talk to me, and I was all "yeah, society is full of weird ideas of sex and gay sex, and you wanted to check with me if I get weirded out and stuff, but its just adults having sex." My parents were reassured, emphasized that if I felt confused or curious about anything there that I could ask them, no problems, and little 12... 13? year old me went back to reading pretty unmoved. I think my favourite sex scene was Brekke and F'nor, but I cannot be sure. Spoiler: Ended up on a tangent on sex ed and my parents In retrospect, my parents really are cool. I mean, I knew that already, but it is nice to know they made sure that we weren't getting fucked up by sex myths and taught us basic sex ed and tried to be open so we could always come to them. I still am not over the time I got called upon to demonstrate how to put on a condom on a wooden model in front of an audience in one of dad's NGO's young adult-teenager workshops for rural communities which included sex ed and the importance of family planning and the impact of becoming a parent early on. But you know, that's an ok trauma to have, even if I then somehow blocked most of the information on how to put on a condom beyond "you put it on the tip and roll it down and there is a right side to put it". I had to relearn the whole pinch-the-tip, er, in need, when I was 20.
