All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
For my final Pern novel, I read All the Weyrs of Pern, which returns to the Ninth Pass of the original trilogy. It wasn't the last novel of the Ninth Pass ever written, but many people consider it the last good one, and the synopses of the later ones didn't appeal, so I was happy for it to be my last one too. I did skip The Renegades of Pern because it also sounded dull, but this created a bit of a discontinuity, as All the Weyrs picks up right from the end of Renegades, and it's at the end of Renegades where the Pernese rediscover the original landing site of colonists and make contact with AIVAS, the computer system who guided the original colonists, but I was able to figure out what was going on without much difficulty.
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Published: 1991 Acquired and read: June 2023 |
So on the one hand, I'm glad I read this. It makes a fitting end to the story of the Ninth Pass: the Pernese don't just solve the problem of the Thread in terms of imminent Threadfalls, but also solve the problem of the Thread forevermore. Plus, an enormous number of changes begin working their way through Pernese society, thanks to the technological and scientific knowledge of AIVAS. There are some neat sequences of the dragons in space and on the Red Star itself, and the book has some satisfying tie-ins to Dragonsdawn and The Chronicles of Pern.
On the other hand, the characters don't really do anything. AIVAS gives them orders, and they obey, repeat, for hundreds of pages. It never really feels like anything is in jeopardy. Some characters are opposed to the changes to Pern society, but only bad, off-stage ones; wouldn't it have been more interesting if, say, F'lar and Lessa, had been more worried about the loss of status for dragonriders in a post-Thread society? But the book is a bit of plod as the characters all work together to executive AIVAS's plan with little conflict. The use of time travel drains even more suspense: you know things are going to work out before they happen because they have to work out based on the predestination paradoxes.
It's funny to read this shortly after Dragonsdawn and Chronicles because AIVAS is so significant here, but only mentioned in a couple brief asides, not even by name, in Dragonsdawn and Chronicles. From this book it would seem indispensable to the colonists, but it doesn't do anything at all in the early books! Also I think the explanation of the Red Star and the Thread we get in this book and Dragonsdawn makes a lot more sense than what we were told about in the original trilogy. No longer do we have a planet somehow reaching through space, but a planetoid disturbing objects found in the Oort cloud. The problem, though, is this new explanation doesn't account for the fact that there is no nighttime Threadfall!
The last Pern book I want to read is the one that doesn't exist. I want to read the book where a vessel from the Federated Sentient Planets comes to the Pern system... and promptly finds itself overwhelmed by a force of teleporting firebreathing dragons tearing it apart from the inside! What would dragonriders be like as a spacegoing defense or exploration force? Where is Dragons in Space!?
This is the final installment in a series of posts about the Pern novels. Previous installments are listed below:
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