Pulp Fantasy Library: Dragonflight

In my old age, I have become very set in my ways, particularly when it comes to literature. My tastes have hardened and it's rare that I'm willing to give something new a try – and rarer still when I enjoy something new. Such was not always the case, though. In my long ago youth, my prejudices were fewer and I devoured almost any book I came across with a dragon or a spaceship on its cover. 

This was especially the case after I discovered Dungeons & Dragons more than four decades ago. I was so enthralled with D&D that I looked everywhere I could for ideas to incorporate into my games. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time haunting the local public libraries, checking out any fantasy or science fiction book I could get my hands on. Fortunately for me, there were a lot of them and, over the course of a couple of years, I found myself reading books by authors whose names I recognized as well as those I hadn't. 

In the latter category was Anne McCaffrey, whose name I first came across in the "Inspirational Source Material" section of Tom Moldvay's Basic Rules. By this time – late 1981 or early '82 – McCaffrey had already published quite a few books in her "Dragonriders of Pern" series, so I figured the best place to start was at the very beginning, the novel Dragonflight.

Dragonflight was first published in 1968, but portions of it had appeared as novellas in the pages of Analog the previous year. The version my library had was a hardcover edition with cover art by Michael Whelan, but I liked the original paperback cover so much that I included it in this post instead. That said, what I most remember about Dragonflight is the reaction I had to reading its introduction, which begins as follows:

When is a legend a legend? Why is a myth a myth? How old and disused must a fact be for it to be relegated to the category "Fairy-tale?" And why do certain facts remain incontrovertible while others lose their validity to assume a shabby, unstable character?

Rukbat, in the Sagittarian sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, and one stray it had attracted and held in recent millennia. Its third planet was enveloped by air man could breathe, boasted water he could drink, and possessed a gravity that permitted man to walk confidently erect. Men discovered it and promptly colonized it. They did that to every habitable planet, and then – whether callously or through collapse of empire, the colonists never discovered and eventually forgot to ask – left the colonies to fend for themselves.

When I read this, I was, if not exactly dumbfounded, I was at least surprised. There was a dragon the cover, wasn't there? The book was called Dragonflight, after all, and part of a larger series that had come to be known as "the Dragonriders of Pern." What was going on?

I've mentioned in other contexts that, at this time in my life, I often disliked fantasy that included science fiction elements and vice versa. In the years since, my stance on the matter has changed considerably, but, when I first read McCaffrey's introduction, I wasn't sure what to think about it. My confusion was amplified once I started to read the novel, which, on the face of it, very much seems like a fantasy novel. Nowadays, I'd call it a "secret sci-fi" novel – one where the characters don't realize the science fictional underpinnings of the world they inhabit.

Dragonflight tells the tale of Lessa, the daughter of the rulers of Ruatha Hold, whose parents were killed in a coup led by a usurper called Fax. Lessa had escaped death after experiencing a premonition of danger and now lives as a menial laborer, plotting the downfall of the man who slew her family. Meanwhile, F'lar, a dragonrider, travels to the court of Fax at High Reaches Hold, seeking a woman who could "impress" – mentally bond – with the soon-to-be-born queen dragon. Without such a "weyrwoman," the queen will die and, with her, the dragons themselves. 

This is a terrible fate, because dragonriders, we learn, exist to fight against the Thread, an alien enemy that descends from the sky every couple of centuries to bedevil the inhabitants of Pern. Fax, however, does not believe the Thread will return and thus he sees little cause for concern when F'lar discovers that there's no woman in High Reaches Hold. F'lar then wonders if perhaps he might have more success if he were to travel to Ruatha Hold, whose inhabitants were once reputed to have had families with "Weyr blood." Unsurprisingly, the former ruling family of the hold, believed to be extinct, had such blood. Believed to be extinct, since Lessa still lives …

My brief synopsis, I hope, isn't unfair to the overall story of Dragonflight, because I certainly don't mean it to be. Rather, my intention is simply to highlight the ways in which its plot resembles many of the elements common to fantasy literature: a usurper, the last survivor of a royal family living in obscurity, the imminent arrival of an ancient enemy, ancestral powers, and of course dragons. In its form and presentation, Dragonflight is largely indistinguishable from many of the stories I write about in this series. Again, that's not a criticism, merely an observation and one I bring up because of the way that "fantasy" and "science fiction" are so often set at odds with one another. 

In any case, I enjoyed Dragonflight at the time, though I never read any further books in the Pern series, though I occasionally considered doing so. If any readers have any thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear them.