Return to Pern: Tales of the Sixth Pass

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
Nerilka's Story: A Pern Adventure
by Anne McCaffrey

With these two books, I jump back to the Sixth Pass, a set of events occasionally alluded to in the Ninth Pass books through the epic song "Moreta's Ride"; these were McCaffrey's first attempts at telling stories outside of the framework of the original Ninth Pass. Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern tells the story of a plague that swept across Pern and the desperate attempts to stop it, particularly by the Weyrwoman Mortea, her lover Alessan, and the Masterhealer Capian. Nerilka's Story is a very lean novel (possibly a novella by actual word count?) that retells the story of Moreta from the perspective of a minor side character in Moreta.

Published: 1983
Acquired: March 2008
Read: May 2023

Moreta is an unintentionally familiar read in the COVID era, a story about a respiratory disease that can kill you, quarantines, defiant leaders, and vaccine distribution. It's fairly effective, mostly because of its main protagonist, the eponymous Moreta. She is an older woman, one who has had children and as Weyrwoman, has had a lover, but has clearly never known love. The scenes between Moreta and Alessan are the emotional core of the book and its most effective. Moreta is a Weyrwoman: she must manage her weyr and assist her Weyrleader. Alessan is a Lord Holder; recently widowed, he needs to remarry to ensure the continuation of his bloodline. The two fall in love over runnerbeast (i.e., horse) racing and dance together, but then duty pulls them as the epidemic worsens across Pern. Yet, they manage to snatch moments together. There's an effective feeling of doom layered across the whole thing, and some decent uses of the time travel abilities dragons were revealed to have in the original trilogy. I like that McCaffrey was trying something a little bit different here, and I overall found it an enjoyable, occasionally moving, read.

Published: 1986
Acquired: April 2023
Read: May 2023

Spoilers for Moreta: at the end, following the death of Moreta, Alessan marries minor character Nerilka "Rill." Nerilka's Story retells the plague from her perspective. It follows some Pern tropes that will be familiar to anyone who's read Dragonsong and Masterharper: Nerilka's family is mean to her even though she's gifted, Nerilka strikes out on her own, everyone realizes how awesome Nerilka is, the end. It's 182 pages long, but there are pictures and generous typography; I blew through it in one day. Though I was generally entertained, I feel like the central question I had—how did Alessan come around to Nerilka so quickly—was largely unaddressed, going by very fast at the end.

I think the publishers knew this wasn't up to much; the dust jacket insists this is a gift to Pern fans (a gift you had to buy yourself in hardcover?) and the pictures—which are not very good—and the maps and other appendices seem like padding.

This is the fifth installment in a series of posts about the Pern novels. The next covers Dragonsdawn and The Chronicles of Pern. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Introduction
2. Dragonsong / Dragonsinger
3. Dragondrums
4. The Masterharper of Pern