Hitting the Books

Fardles, as Sorka Hanrahan, the first Dragonlady, might say.

I just finished Dragon’s Fire, the latest installment in the Pern series, and am less than impressed. In fact, I’m downright disappointed.

The story is so-so to begin with, but what I found on page 194 ruined it for me. I did a double take, flipped back to the beginning of the book, and sure enough, the authors had repeated themselves. Almost word for word.

p. 31

A wing of dragons suddenly appeared in the sky, well below the queens, and moments later the loud booms of their arrival shook the air.

“They look small, ” Cristov said, surprised.

“They’re weyrlings,” the harper said. “They’re just old enough to fly between and carry firestone.”

p.194

A wing of dragons suddenly appeared in the sky, well below the queens, and moments later the loud booms of their arrival shook the air.

“They look small, ” Cristov marveled.

“They’re weyrlings,” Britell replied. “They’re just old enough to fly between and carry firestone.”

Okay, a small cut and paste error–anyone could make one of those. But there was another, larger instance in the same scene.

p. 32

A ripple of overwhelming sound and a burst of cold air announced the arrival of a huge wing of dragons, flying low over the crowd.

“Telgar!” The crowd shouted as the dragons entered a steep dive, twisted into a sharp rolling climb, and came to a halt, their formation intermeshed with the weyrlings so perfectly that it looked like the two wings of dragons had been flying as one, even though the fighting wing was head to head and a meter underneath the weyrlings.

Cristov gasped as a rain of sacks fell from the weyrlings only to be caught by the riders of the great fighting dragons. Looking at the jacket worn by the bronze rider leading the fighting wing, he saw the stylized field of wheat set in a white diamond–it was the Weyrleader himself!

As one, the fighting wing of dragons turned and dove again, flawlessly returning to hover in the same place where it had come from between. As the dragons hovered, their great necks twisted and their heads turned back to face their riders, who opened the sacks they had caught to feed the firestone to their dragons.

“Nasty stuff, firestone,” Cristov heard the harper mutter behind him. “Nasty stuff.”

Then, on page 195:

A ripple of overwhelming sound and a burst of cold air announced the arrival of a huge wing of dragons, flying low over the crowd.

“Telgar!” The crowd shouted as the dragons entered a steep dive, twisted into a sharp rolling climb, and came to a halt, their formation now aligned just below the weyrlings so perfectly that it looked like the two wings of dragons had been flying as twins, even though the fighting wing was head to head and a meter underneath the weyrlings.

A rain of sacks fell from the weyrlings and were caught by the riders of the great fighting dragons. Cristov looked at the jacket worn by the bronze rider leading the fighting wing and gasped when he saw the stylized field of wheat set in a white diamond: It was the Weyrleader himself!

As one, the fighting wing of dragons turned and dove again, flawlessly returning to hover in the same place where it had come from between. The great great necks of the flying beasts turned back and the riders opened the sacks they had caught from the weyrlings to feed the firestone to their dragons.

And a few lines later…

“Nasty stuff, firestone,” Cristov heard the Lord Holder mutter behind him. “Nasty stuff.”

So there were a few minor word changes here and there, but it is quite obviously the same scene being recycled.

Also, on p. 49, we’re told that Ima, Camp Natalon’s hunter, is a woman. But on p. 56, Ima is called “him.”

(and don’t get me started on the fact that Pellar is only 13, albeit a very mature 13, when he experiences his first mating flight.)

Little things, but things that made me feel like neither one of the McCaffreys (or their editor) really cared all that much about the quality of their writing. Sloppy, thrown-together, formulaic–that’s what the Pern stories have become.

I’ve read all the Pern books (except Dragonsblood–Wind Blossom was not a sympathetic character in Dragonsdawn, so I was surprised to see her as a main character in this one). I used to read and reread them, but now I think the series has gone on long enough. The new stories are tired, the characters bland, the writing almost insipid.

Or maybe I’ve just gotten too critical. But that’s another post.

A blurb on the back cover says, “The torch has been passed and burns more brightly than ever…”

That may be true, but I think the torch has passed to Naomi Novik, not Todd McCaffrey.