Brave New World (Dragonsdawn - Anne McCaffrey)

Member Name: campb3ll

Product:	Dragonsdawn - Anne McCaffrey
Date:	01/09/01 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Inventive, Essential background material for the Dragon series

Disadvantages: Sometimes the vast array of characters becomes confusing

Colonists from the Federated Sentient Planets set out on a 15 year journey to the planet Pern, to establish a new home in a remote corner of the galaxy. This immediately throws up common themes from the science fiction genre - the main one being that in the future, we will set aside our petty conflicts and colonize our galaxy. A very pretty idea, which I've no doubt we'd all like to believe in after years of being jaded by various wars that have sprung up across Earth.

In this 9th novel in the Dragon series by McCaffrey, we get an explanation of how and why colonists set out for Pern and, also, how the fantastic dragons were created. This seems rather odd as, ordinarily, you might expect an explanation of a strange new world to come at the start of a series. I suppose this may be an afterthought on McCaffrey's part to make this fantasy series seem more like traditional science fiction or perhaps to address questions by her fans.

The main characters in this novel are Sallah Telgar, Sean Connell and Sorka Hanrahan. Sallah is one of the pilots who guided the 3 colony spaceships to Pern, Sean is an Irish traveller or gypsy and Sorka is the daughter of an Irish vet. We follow their new lives on Pern quite happily for the first half of the novel without any major incidents: Sallah marries a geologist, Tarvi Andiyar, and Sean and Sorka settle down together as serious young co-habiting vets.

Part I, "Landing," covers chapters 1 to 8 and essentially introduces us to dragonets a.k.a. fire-lizards. If you can imagine a small dragon with wings, tail, claws and the ability to expel fire then you can imagine a dragonet. The species is first discovered by Sean and Sorka and the colonists immediately warm to the beautiful creatures, keeping them as pets.

Part II, "Thread," covers chapters 9 to 17 and marks the first fall of thread that the colonists have witnessed. A good description of thread is given in chapter
9: "They both heard the hiss of the terrible rain that fell on Landing. They could see the individual elongated 'rain drops' strike the surface ... leaving behind engorged slug-like forms which rapidly attacked anything green in their way. [The] nicely sprouting garden was a waste of squirming greyish 'things,' bloating larger within seconds on each new feast." Thread attacks and consumes all carbon based material including plants and humans within a few seconds. It's a devasting and disgusting horror to unleash on unwary colonists, so, naturally, McCaffrey sets out to save them. Water and fires kills thread and the little dragonets, previously dismissed as pets, can flame the terrifying substance in the air and avoid getting hit by teleporting out of danger. As one of the characters, Kitti Ping, rather handily happens to be a biologist with training in the Eridani techniques of manipulating gene patterns, the solution is simple: tinker with dragonet gene material and create a larger version as an aerial defence force.

Part III, "Crossing," covers chapters 18 to 21 and finally shows the new "dragons" in action with their plucky ol' human riders. Sadly, part III also demonstrates the courage and loyalty of Sallah, who hasn't seen a lot of the action up till now. One of the dissatisfied colonists, determined to cause trouble, steals a small spaceship and tries to make a break for the nearest inhabited part of the galaxy. Unfortunately, this colonist, Avril Bitra, also kidnaps Sallah en route to her destination. Avril tortures Sallah in a bid to persuade the pilot to plot a navigation course for her and then dumps her on one of the orbiting deralict colony ships before zooming away to freedom. Of course, bad guys never win even when they're gals, so Avril ends up flying into a comet. Sallah, on the other hand, is stuck on a dead colony ship, badly wounded, with little oxygen and no means of returnin
g to the surface of Pern. Like a true heroine, though, she still manages to do her duty and send vital information to the colonists before, well, the inevitable occurs. On a happier note, the brand new dragons and their riders, under the leadership of Sean and Sorka, learn how to fly and flame in tight aerial formation to become the "Dragonriders of Pern." Without the dragonriders and the dragons, thread would consume all carbon based material unchecked and we'd have no basis for the slew of Dragon novels that McCaffrey created.

There is huge amount of characters stuffed into this novel, so you must remember which ones are important. The array of characters and incidental background events do, however, add a great deal of interest to the novel and help convey the idea of a suddenly crowded planet of colonists. McCaffrey manages to keep a tight grip on her characters throughout the novel - it is always irritating when an ambitious author starts mixing names up. The story itself is too fantastical to be fully believable, in my opinion, which leaves the novel a tad mired in the fantasy genre. It is the only novel in the Dragon series to touch on what you might term 'true' science fiction themes but it is also the only novel in the series to have characters from 'real life' that you can easily relate to; the rest of the series focuses solely on the dragonriders and their unique lifestyle. It's not really a ground-breaking novel - like many science fiction authors, McCaffrey has relied on an 'accepted' version of the future. Moreover, McCaffrey has, like many authors, used the same elements in this novel as she has in many others e.g. the Federated Sentient Planets have their fingers in the pies of most planets she writes about.

So there you have it: a familiar yet inventive novel, in the middle of a series instead of the start, with a profusion of characters in a fantastic yet 'ordinary' sci-fi world. R
ead it if you're a McCaffrey fan, you like science fiction and you don't mind slightly tenuous links (ancient Earth tea drinking customs can only go so far). Before you read the rest of the series though, ask yourself if you believe in dragons (clap your hands 3 times if you do) - the rest of the novels are fantasy, which you may not realise if "Dragonsdawn" is the first one you read.

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