How would you redesign the Pern series?

[Phillip Thorne]

I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.

The first two trilogies ("Dragonriders of" and "Harper Hall of") were
written between 1968 and 1979. The people of Pern had only a vague
idea of their history and the astronomical nature of their enemy, the
voracious Thread. Subsequent books refined this understanding... sort
of. Less charitably, it's gotten kludgy and crufty.

I like to think of certain large works of fiction as "first drafts,"
especially if they've been repeatedly adapted in different media by
different authors focusing on different aspects. In that spirit, how
would you redesign the world and society of Pern, and what
consequences would the changes have on the plot? I'll start:


1. The regularity of Threadfall. Thread does not originate *on* the
so-called Red Star, a terrestrial planet with a 250-year cometary
orbit. Instead, it inhabits the system's Oort cloud, samples get
dragged in-system, and Pern collides with them meteor-style. But I
can't think of any way that the samples would both (a) fall at
specific locations on a predictable seven-day schedule in four-hour
bursts, and (b) do so for 50-years-on, 200-years-off.

If Threadfall were irregular and unpredictable, Weyrs would need to be
a rapid-response force. There'd also be incentive to preserve
high-power telescopes for skywatch. "Timing it" would also be handy
(see #2).


2. Dragons are telepathic, teleporting, time-travelling... and also
quasi-telekinetic ("dragons can lift as much as they think they can,"
per _All the Weyrs of Pern_). Psi powers were all the rage in
1970s-era SF lit, but nowadays they feel a bit too /deus ex machina/.


3. Size of the dragons. Apparently McCaffrey somehow confused "feet"
and "meters" and Ramoth is meant to be 45 *feet* long, *not* the size
of a passenger jet (as shown in a comparative illustration in _The
Dragonlover's Guide to Pern_).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern#Economic_considerations>

Make this unambiguous, and suddenly weyr size, dragon appetites, and
number of passengers become much easier to visualize.


4. In the books, there's impetus to recolonize the southern continent
because the North's metal mines are finally running out -- but there's
no mention of depletion of firestone (chewed by the dragons to produce
flame). How common can a phosphene-containing rock be?

If the resource is finite, it adds a sense of urgency to the
colonist's long-term plan (the one that involves grubs and gradual
dragon upsizing).


5. No alien visitations. Pern was colonized by humans from an
interstellar (and probably interspecies) civilization (depending on
whether it's the same "Federated Sentient Planets" as appears in
McCaffrey's other series). But in 2,500 years, nobody else visits --
no waves of alien colonizers, no xenobiologists, no follow-up
expeditions searching for "the lost colonies of Earth."

--
** Phillip Thorne ** ***@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

[Greg Goss]

Post by Phillip Thorne
But I
can't think of any way that the samples would both (a) fall at
specific locations on a predictable seven-day schedule in four-hour
bursts, and (b) do so for 50-years-on, 200-years-off.

Any author who could be confused at what "metres" are is not to be
trusted with orbital mechanics. I just shove her orbital stuff into
"suspension of disbelief" and don't look too closely at it. I haven't
read much of the series since the mid-seventies, and was unaware that
the thread didn't come directly from the red planet.

Post by Phillip Thorne
If Threadfall were irregular and unpredictable, Weyrs would need to be
a rapid-response force. There'd also be incentive to preserve
high-power telescopes for skywatch. "Timing it" would also be handy
(see #2).

I think of them as rapid-response. Is optical glassmaking still known
on Pern?

Post by Phillip Thorne
2. Dragons are telepathic, teleporting, time-travelling... and also
quasi-telekinetic ("dragons can lift as much as they think they can,"
per _All the Weyrs of Pern_). Psi powers were all the rage in
1970s-era SF lit, but nowadays they feel a bit too /deus ex machina/.

I stopped reading because the dragons were getting overpowered.

Post by Phillip Thorne
4. In the books, there's impetus to recolonize the southern continent
because the North's metal mines are finally running out -- but there's
no mention of depletion of firestone (chewed by the dragons to produce
flame). How common can a phosphene-containing rock be?

Suspension of disbelief.

Post by Phillip Thorne
If the resource is finite, it adds a sense of urgency to the
colonist's long-term plan (the one that involves grubs and gradual
dragon upsizing).
5. No alien visitations. Pern was colonized by humans from an
interstellar (and probably interspecies) civilization (depending on
whether it's the same "Federated Sentient Planets" as appears in
McCaffrey's other series). But in 2,500 years, nobody else visits --
no waves of alien colonizers, no xenobiologists, no follow-up
expeditions searching for "the lost colonies of Earth."

Systems with wild orbital mechanics are probably viewed as unstable
and unlikely to produce a working ecosphere. I'm not too familiar
with the FSP, but once such a colony was lost, it may be that followup
missions "know too much" to bother looking at a system that would
obviously be useless for colonization.

[Mike Stone]

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Phillip Thorne
5. No alien visitations. Pern was colonized by humans from an
interstellar (and probably interspecies) civilization (depending on
whether it's the same "Federated Sentient Planets" as appears in
McCaffrey's other series). But in 2,500 years, nobody else visits --
no waves of alien colonizers, no xenobiologists, no follow-up
expeditions searching for "the lost colonies of Earth."

Systems with wild orbital mechanics are probably viewed as unstable
and unlikely to produce a working ecosphere. I'm not too familiar
with the FSP, but once such a colony was lost, it may be that followup
missions "know too much" to bother looking at a system that would
obviously be useless for colonization.

And conscious authorial fiat.

I remember hearing Anne McCaffrey say at an sf con in the 80s or 90s.(sorry,
memory fades) that the series would stay totally separate from her other
work. No ship from outside (whether it sang or not) was ever going to find
the Pern system. The original colonists had been looking for isolation, and
"sometimes you get what you want".


--

Mike Stone - Peterborough, England

"Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of
Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work
strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby in the
reservoir, he turns to the cupboard only to find the vodka bottle empty".


P G Wodehouse - Jill the Reckless

[Phillip Thorne]

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Phillip Thorne
But I
can't think of any way that the samples would both (a) fall at
specific locations on a predictable seven-day schedule in four-hour
bursts, and (b) do so for 50-years-on, 200-years-off.

Any author who could be confused at what "metres" are is not to be
trusted with orbital mechanics. I just shove her orbital stuff into
"suspension of disbelief" and don't look too closely at it.

I fully agree (though she's hardly the worst -- see Hogan, James P.),
which is why redesigning that aspect of the premise makes for an
interesting exercise.

Post by Greg Goss
I haven't read much of the series since the mid-seventies, and
was unaware that the thread didn't come directly from the red planet.

McCaffrey or someone finally realized there was no way to get it *off*
the planet's surface; hence when _Dragonsdawn_ was written, the
first-generation colonists were able to discover its free-space origin
(and make obscure comments about "the theories of Wickramansinghe and
Hoyle" -- i.e., panspermia).

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Phillip Thorne
If Threadfall were irregular and unpredictable, Weyrs would need
to be a rapid-response force.

I think of them as rapid-response.

They can move *quickly*, yes, but because Thread falls reguarly,
they're never surprised. Therefore Weyrs can schedule downtime and
Holds can schedule Gather Days.

If Thread fell from a clear blue sky without warning, that would alter
the social dynamic. It'd be like every anime in which the heroes have
to sortie against the invading /kaiju/. :) Or, more prosaically,
pre-radar air raids.

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Phillip Thorne
There'd also be incentive to preserve high-power telescopes for skywatch.

Is optical glassmaking still known on Pern?

As of the Ninth Pass, glass yes, optical no, given that they're trying
to reinvent flying goggles and finally discover a microscope and
telescope in a couple of Weyr attics. The book _Dragonseye_ explains
how, roundabout the Second Pass, the Star Stones were erected on the
Weyr edges to give warning of the Red Star's approach.

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Phillip Thorne
2. Dragons are telepathic, teleporting, time-travelling... and also
quasi-telekinetic ("dragons can lift as much as they think they can,"
per _All the Weyrs of Pern_). Psi powers were all the rage in
1970s-era SF lit, but nowadays they feel a bit too /deus ex machina/.

I stopped reading because the dragons were getting overpowered.

Exactly. In RPG parlance, they were becoming "munchkins" -- all
plusses. Where are the counterbalancing detriments? (Aside from
telepathic spillover to all and sundry during mating flights.) Too
many to feed, CHON loss because they go /between/ when they die,
collapsing the neighborhood's quantum wavefunction and thereby
annoying aliens ... that sort of thing.

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Phillip Thorne
4. [...] How common can a phosphene-containing rock be?

Suspension of disbelief.

Oy! The entire *point* of this thread, if you please, is to find
*answers* to these questions. Or rearrange the questions so they
*can* be answered.

Post by Greg Goss

Post by Phillip Thorne
5. No alien visitations [...] in 2,500 years, nobody else visits --
[...]

Systems with wild orbital mechanics are probably viewed as unstable
and unlikely to produce a working ecosphere.

Rukbat System's not *too* wild -- it's just that one eccentric planet.
Though you'd think it'd perturb the two asteroid belts, so Pern would
be subject to meteors in addition to Thread. (Another good reason to
hide in caves.)

Post by Greg Goss
I'm not too familiar with the FSP, but once such a colony was lost,
it may be that followup missions "know too much" to bother looking
at a system that would obviously be useless for colonization.

Depends how expensive long-distance interstellar travel is. We only
get a few clues about the society the Pern colonists are fleeing;
apparently it has megacorps who like to indenture planetary
populations (always popular in dystopian SF) and mine planets (always
likely to annoy readers familiar with gravity wells).

(Caveat: I haven't gotten around to re-reading _Dragonsdawn_ yet, so
I'm working from 15-year-old recall.)

--
** Phillip Thorne ** ***@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Phillip Thorne

Post by Greg Goss
I haven't read much of the series since the mid-seventies, and
was unaware that the thread didn't come directly from the red planet.

McCaffrey or someone finally realized there was no way to get it *off*
the planet's surface;

I always wondered about that. Not too hard, since it's pure fantasy,
but still...

[JohnFair]

5. No alien visitations.  Pern was colonized by humans from an
interstellar (and probably interspecies) civilization (depending on
whether it's the same "Federated Sentient Planets" as appears in
McCaffrey's other series).  But in 2,500 years, nobody else visits --
no waves of alien colonizers, no xenobiologists, no follow-up
expeditions searching for "the lost colonies of Earth."
--
*  RPI CompSci 1998                                    *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

For what it's worth, Pern did get a visit from an FSP survey vessel in
response to an emergency drone sent off by the colonists but by the
time they got to the planet there were only a small number of
colonists waiting for them the rest having fled to the Northern
continent and the crew of the vessel were assured that everyone else
was dead so the system was posted as a danger zone.

Whether this proscription would last 2500 years is another matter,..
--
John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.co.uk

[Peter Huebner]

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.
The first two trilogies ("Dragonriders of" and "Harper Hall of") were
written between 1968 and 1979. The people of Pern had only a vague
idea of their history and the astronomical nature of their enemy, the
voracious Thread. Subsequent books refined this understanding... sort
of. Less charitably, it's gotten kludgy and crufty.
I like to think of certain large works of fiction as "first drafts,"
especially if they've been repeatedly adapted in different media by
different authors focusing on different aspects. In that spirit, how
would you redesign the world and society of Pern, and what
1. The regularity of Threadfall. Thread does not originate *on* the
so-called Red Star, a terrestrial planet with a 250-year cometary
orbit. Instead, it inhabits the system's Oort cloud, samples get
dragged in-system, and Pern collides with them meteor-style. But I
can't think of any way that the samples would both (a) fall at
specific locations on a predictable seven-day schedule in four-hour
bursts, and (b) do so for 50-years-on, 200-years-off.

I don't even want to go there, as far as the whole 'how and why' of
threadfall is concerned. It's cock-a-mimi astrophysics and biology, I
take it as fantasy, handwavium, author's fiat, read with utter
suspension of disbelief and take as a given.

The one thing that's bugged me about the Pern books is the operatic
thing - all the characters behave like they're on stage in an opera. And
the same things get wheeled out again and again, I simply don't want to
see the words Piemur and bubbly pie in the same sentence ever again. NOT
EVER.

Having said that, I enjoyed reading them for the first time, that is the
6 you mentioned and a few after (until they find the buried settlement
on the southern continent to be exact), and I enjoyed re-reading them
once or twice since, but I think I'm done with them. Don't need to read
the same cliches over and over again, and, as you said, they got more
and more kludgy. The whole socio-economic setup of guild masters, Lord
Holders and Weyr Leaders forming some kind of anarchic nobility that
rules by comity holds about as much water as Lisa's bucket, and that, in
conjunction with the over-acting of the characters sank the series for
me in the end. If the society and the characters were more believable,
it might just have continued to work for me.

-P.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.
The first two trilogies ("Dragonriders of" and "Harper Hall of") were
written between 1968 and 1979.  The people of Pern had only a vague
idea of their history and the astronomical nature of their enemy, the
voracious Thread.  Subsequent books refined this understanding... sort
of.  Less charitably, it's gotten kludgy and crufty.
I like to think of certain large works of fiction as "first drafts,"
especially if they've been repeatedly adapted in different media by
different authors focusing on different aspects.  In that spirit, how
would you redesign the world and society of Pern, and what

I would have the people who wanted to settle the Southern Continent,
against the wishes of their "betters," be actual human beings, capable
of making and operating firearms, and resist being told that they
could not settle in land that is fairly safe from thread and thus free
of obligation to the noxious dragon-riders. I would have this conflict
settled in a manner consistent with human history instead of having
the decision come from consensus, enforced largely by psychological
dominance. I would not insist that this "war," as we call it, end with
either side winning but I would be cheering for the dragon-riders and
the holders and the harpers to find out that they had to stop pushing
people around. I would prefer that the dragons not be exterminated. I
suppose.

Ever since I read the scene where one of the more sensible characters
gets chastised by an older and "wiser," but also sympathetic,
character for bad-mouthing a dragon-rider who is also a scumbag I have
wanted something like this to happen.

--
Will in New Haven
"When Adam toiled and Eve span, who was then the gentleman" from an
old song

[Joel Polowin]

Post by Phillip Thorne
If Threadfall were irregular and unpredictable, Weyrs would need to be
a rapid-response force.  There'd also be incentive to preserve
high-power telescopes for skywatch.  "Timing it" would also be handy
(see #2).
2. Dragons are telepathic, teleporting, time-travelling... and also
quasi-telekinetic ("dragons can lift as much as they think they can,"
per _All the Weyrs of Pern_).  Psi powers were all the rage in
1970s-era SF lit, but nowadays they feel a bit too /deus ex machina/.

[etc.]

Some years ago I came up with a premise which I refer to as "Pern
in Flames" (after Niven's "Down in Flames"). Starting with the
assumption that Thread couldn't have evolved naturally with the
behaviour that we see, we have to presume that it was bioengineered.
But if so, by whom, and why?

So we have the Federation of Sentient Planets, aware that they're
about to face an enemy force which is slow-moving but unbeatable
with their current technology. They comb through their data archives
looking for potential novel technology, and find records about this
out-of-the-way no-resources planet that has these lizards that seem
to be able to naturally teleport -- and even to teleport through time.
Nobody has any idea how they could do this. It's never been a
high priority for anyone to follow up on.

Aha! they say. If the lizards were intelligent, we could use their
brains in brainships. Because the brain perceives the ship as
its body, the entire ship would be able to teleport, through time.
If we breed these guys up to be dragons, we could connect their
natural fire-breathing ability up to weapons control. And we can
do it as a long-term project, as long as it doesn't require our
guidance, because at the end of it, they can come back in
time and save us _now_.

So the entire situation is a setup, with a bioengineered threat
to provide an evolutionary push for the lizards' development.
The colonists aren't aware of the situation they're being stuck
into; even the ship's command crew don't know the truth,
except perhaps for implanted information and some mental
conditioning which will lead them in the right direction. The
ship's computer systems have the full data, and are set up
to nudge the program along as needed. Maybe drop the
occasional hint, "by accident", to the geneticists and other
researchers, who think they're coming up with this "fire-
breathing dragon" stuff on their own.

[Maureen]

Re: Pern in Flames scenario

Joel, I bow and scrape in your general direction. It makes a great
deal of sense, and explains a great deal of the inexplicable. Why are
the harpers' songs so very influential? Why is any religion so very
fringe an interest, after thousands of years of separate development
and great stress? Why are there so few real differences in culture, or
indeed language, among the various settlements?

Mind control. On a Second Foundation level, even.

However, it's not clear to me that this could be done without any
outside intervention whatsoever. If there's another supercomputer
around (this one telepathic), and/or a staff of human controllers who
wake up every once in a while and check on developments to repress
mentally what they don't like, that might help a lot.

The Ship Who Played God.

[Wayne Throop]

: Maureen <***@gmail.com>
: Why is any religion so very fringe an interest, after thousands of
: years of separate development and great stress? Why are there so few
: real differences in culture, or indeed language, among the various
: settlements?
:
: Mind control. On a Second Foundation level, even.

Heh. Well, for an "isolated colony kept on a planned path
with a (sort of) mind control", see Steven Gould's "Helm".
Even though the Helm comes packaged with a sort of countermeasure.

Or, I suppose for that matter, see A Fire Upon the Deep.


Wayne Throop ***@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

[William December Starr]

Post by Joel Polowin
Some years ago I came up with a premise which I refer to as "Pern
in Flames" (after Niven's "Down in Flames"). Starting with the
assumption that Thread couldn't have evolved naturally with the
behaviour that we see, we have to presume that it was
bioengineered. But if so, by whom, and why?
So we have the Federation of Sentient Planets, aware that they're
about to face an enemy force which is slow-moving but unbeatable
with their current technology. They comb through their data
archives looking for potential novel technology, and find records
about this out-of-the-way no-resources planet that has these
lizards that seem to be able to naturally teleport -- and even to
teleport through time. Nobody has any idea how they could do
this. It's never been a high priority for anyone to follow up on.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
!!!!!!!!!!!

That would actually rival the universal non-curiosity about the
origin of spice in DUNE for "You people are all fucking braindead!"

-- wds

[Joel Polowin]

Post by Joel Polowin
So we have the Federation of Sentient Planets, aware that they're
about to face an enemy force which is slow-moving but unbeatable
with their current technology.  They comb through their data
archives looking for potential novel technology, and find records
about this out-of-the-way no-resources planet that has these
lizards that seem to be able to naturally teleport -- and even to
teleport through time.  Nobody has any idea how they could do
this.  It's never been a high priority for anyone to follow up on.

         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
!!!!!!!!!!!
That would actually rival the universal non-curiosity about the
origin of spice in DUNE for "You people are all fucking braindead!"

The surveyors file a report, with the anomaly flagged, and move
on to the next planet. The no-imagination, no-curiosity bureaucrat
who reads the reports thinks "yeah, right, another stupid joke
from the surveyors" and doesn't bother with any follow-up. It's
not of any obvious urgency for further research, from the point of
view of someone who's not inclined to see such anomalies as
starting points for great discoveries.

[Phillip Thorne]

Post by Joel Polowin

Post by Phillip Thorne
2. Dragons are telepathic, teleporting, time-travelling... and also
quasi-telekinetic [...]

Some years ago I came up with a premise which I refer to as "Pern
in Flames" (after Niven's "Down in Flames").

Hmmm. Intriguing, but IMHO needs work to patch some logic holes.

Post by Joel Polowin
[The FSP] comb through their data archives
looking for potential novel technology, and find records about this
out-of-the-way no-resources planet that has these lizards that seem
to be able to naturally teleport -- and even to teleport through time.

The teleport ability might be noted by the survey party, but how could
they establish time-travel?

Actually, I don't recall if fire-lizards have ever been shown "timing
it" in the novels. It might be an emergent ability that arose only
when human partners were added to the equation.

Post by Joel Polowin
Aha! they say. If the lizards were intelligent, we could use their
brains in brainships. Because the brain perceives the ship as
its body, the entire ship would be able to teleport, through time.

Nit: despite the name, McCaffrey's "brainships" (_The Ship Who Sang_,
etc.) are not built around naked brains. The "shell people" have
complete bodies, they're just (teratogenically, I presume) deformed.

Post by Joel Polowin
If we breed these guys up to be dragons, we could connect their
natural fire-breathing ability up to weapons control.

Wouldn't need to -- fire lizards can chew firestone and flame too.
That's their natural behavior, to protect their clutches, and what
gave the colonists the idea to geneer them.

Post by Joel Polowin
And we can
do it as a long-term project, as long as it doesn't require our
guidance, because at the end of it, they can come back in
time and save us _now_.

Unless the Threat force notices this and uses time-travels themselves.
(Per the second "Bill & Ted," only one side can win.)

Post by Joel Polowin
So the entire situation is a setup, with a bioengineered threat
to provide an evolutionary push for the lizards' development.
[...]

There's a term at TVTropes.org for this: a "Xanatos Gambit." It's
unnecessarily contrived. If the FSP wants to exploit the lizards by
enhancing their intelligence, why not do it under controlled
conditions? Leaving it to the vagaries of a colony, rapidly losing
its high tech, under lethal threat, seems risky.

--
** Phillip Thorne ** ***@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

[Joel Polowin]

Post by Phillip Thorne
Actually, I don't recall if fire-lizards have ever been shown "timing
it" in the novels.  It might be an emergent ability that arose only
when human partners were added to the equation.

I *think* that they were shown "timing it" in _The White Dragon_,
following Ruth on a couple of his covert "missions" (and
possibly something about the volcano?). It's been quite a while
since I've read the books.

[Robert A. Woodward]

In article

Post by Joel Polowin

Post by Phillip Thorne
Actually, I don't recall if fire-lizards have ever been shown "timing
it" in the novels.  It might be an emergent ability that arose only
when human partners were added to the equation.

I *think* that they were shown "timing it" in _The White Dragon_,
following Ruth on a couple of his covert "missions" (and
possibly something about the volcano?). It's been quite a while
since I've read the books.

IIRC, Ruth followed a firelizard queen to the stolen queen egg
(which was hidden in time).

[William December Starr]

Post by Phillip Thorne

[The FSP] comb through their data archives looking for potential
novel technology, and find records about this out-of-the-way
no-resources planet that has these lizards that seem to be able
to naturally teleport -- and even to teleport through time.

The teleport ability might be noted by the survey party, but how
could they establish time-travel?

A dragon pops into existence in front of several survey party
members, including Fred, and spits up Fred's head at their feet.

(And everybody else in the party takes a big step away from Fred.)

-- wds

[Howard Brazee]

How I would redesign the Pern series depends on *why* I would redesign
the Pern series.

For me, the first redesign would make it much shorter.

The second design would be to stop pretending it isn't pure fantasy.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Post by Howard Brazee
How I would redesign the Pern series depends on *why* I would
redesign the Pern series.
For me, the first redesign would make it much shorter.
The second design would be to stop pretending it isn't pure
fantasy.

Not that there's anything wrong with science fantasy (Star Wars, for
example, seems to have done well), but yeah.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Howard Brazee
How I would redesign the Pern series depends on *why* I would redesign
the Pern series.
For me, the first redesign would make it much shorter.
The second design would be to stop pretending it isn't pure fantasy.

Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.

[Howard Brazee]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Howard Brazee
The second design would be to stop pretending it isn't pure fantasy.

Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

Don't need to convince him anymore.

[David Goldfarb]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

Only the very first.

[Walter Bushell]

Post by David Goldfarb

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

Only the very first.

Well, by the time the next novel came out, she could convince a real
publisher to publish it. Magazine rates are great for a beginner, but if
you have a track record, not so much.

[Walter Bushell]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Howard Brazee
How I would redesign the Pern series depends on *why* I would redesign
the Pern series.
For me, the first redesign would make it much shorter.
The second design would be to stop pretending it isn't pure fantasy.

Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

It was a great story for a magazine, and if you squinted enough it
could pass for science fiction.

[Joseph Nebus]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Howard Brazee
How I would redesign the Pern series depends on *why* I would redesign
the Pern series.
For me, the first redesign would make it much shorter.
The second design would be to stop pretending it isn't pure fantasy.

Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

As it happens I was thinking of reading a book containing the
Very First Pern Story last weekend, but put it off, showing what my
timing is like.

Anyway, I'm mildly curious why the desire (expressed by more
than one person in this thread) to get Pern declared Fantasy And *Not*
Science Fiction. Granted I tend towards being inclusivist in where I
draw the limits of science fiction, but it seems to me having some
background of science fiction tools for the dragon armada and whatnot
gives the Pern setting all manner of interesting tools to play with,
and if we can't give clear explanations for how all the elements make
sense how is that very different from any other popular science fiction?

Why kick it out other than that somewhere in the first forty
books it gets a little creepy-or-tedious? And, well, that since the
days of John W Campbell we've gotten a little more sensitive about
including psychic powers unless they have a really sound biologically
rigorous explanation like Larry Niven would have given us?

[Remus Shepherd]

Post by Joseph Nebus

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

Anyway, I'm mildly curious why the desire (expressed by more
than one person in this thread) to get Pern declared Fantasy And *Not*
Science Fiction. Granted I tend towards being inclusivist in where I
draw the limits of science fiction, but it seems to me having some
background of science fiction tools for the dragon armada and whatnot
gives the Pern setting all manner of interesting tools to play with,
and if we can't give clear explanations for how all the elements make
sense how is that very different from any other popular science fiction?

There are two schools of thoughts on what science fiction *is*. An
adherent to one school of thought often gets angry when confronted with
the other.

One school of thought is that science fiction has to include scientific
credulity; the science need not be exact, but it has to be good enough to
convince the reader that it might work. This has the disadvantage of being
subjective, so readers will disagree. It also disqualifies some of the
outrageously unrealistic science fiction out there, like _Star Trek_.

The other school of thought is that science fiction is any fiction that
uses the scientific method; the story must explain some phenomena through a
process of examination, trial and error, and logical conjecture. This
definition includes Pern. It also, however, includes things like _Perdido
Street Station_ and _The Compleat Enchanter_.

So...there are disagreements.

Having read only the first four Pern novels, I'd class them as fantasy.
I think the only non-fantastic element by that point was the discovery of
a crashed starship, which had no effect on the plot and seemed unimportant
to the rest of the book. But the author disagrees. I suppose from this
perspective, some books in a series may be fantasy while others are science
fiction.

... ...
Remus Shepherd <***@panix.com>
Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/remus_shepherd/

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Remus Shepherd

Post by Joseph Nebus

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Well, she convinced John Campbell it was SF: he published the
first segment (first several segments?) in Analog.

Anyway, I'm mildly curious why the desire (expressed by more
than one person in this thread) to get Pern declared Fantasy And *Not*
Science Fiction.

I'm not sure why they have this desire. I've declared it fantasy
many times, most recently in this very thread. They should be
satisfied.

Post by Remus Shepherd
There are two schools of thoughts on what science fiction *is*. An

There are more schools of thought under heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in your philosophy.

Post by Remus Shepherd
One school of thought is that science fiction has to include scientific
credulity; the science need not be exact, but it has to be good enough to
The other school of thought is that science fiction is any fiction that
uses the scientific method; the story must explain some phenomena through a

Another school of thought is that the distinction is primarily based
on tropes and story-telling technique. Stories with the tropes of
guild halls and lords and dragons are so heavily weighted towards
the fantasy end of things that it would take a pretty coldly analytical
narrative voice to move them even slightly towards the center. McCaffrey
does *not* have that voice.

On the other hand, the Killishandra Ree stories have enough SF tropes
that her voice doesn't move them into the fantasy end of things.

Post by Remus Shepherd
Having read only the first four Pern novels, I'd class them as fantasy.
I think the only non-fantastic element by that point was the discovery of
a crashed starship, which had no effect on the plot and seemed unimportant
to the rest of the book.

Well said.

[Remus Shepherd]

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Remus Shepherd
There are two schools of thoughts on what science fiction *is*. An

There are more schools of thought under heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in your philosophy.

Post by Remus Shepherd
One school of thought is that science fiction has to include scientific
credulity; the science need not be exact, but it has to be good enough to
The other school of thought is that science fiction is any fiction that
uses the scientific method; the story must explain some phenomena through a

Another school of thought is that the distinction is primarily based
on tropes and story-telling technique. Stories with the tropes of
guild halls and lords and dragons are so heavily weighted towards
the fantasy end of things that it would take a pretty coldly analytical
narrative voice to move them even slightly towards the center. McCaffrey
does *not* have that voice.

You've stated it better than I did. The 'scientific method' is just
one trope used in science fiction. It's the presence of tropes from the
appropriate genre that some people use to classify stories.

An example that might cause more argument is _Perdido Street Station_.
It uses tropes from many genres, yet somehow it has landed in the 'sci-fi'
category.

... ...
Remus Shepherd <***@panix.com>
Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/remus_shepherd/

[Phillip Thorne]

Post by Joseph Nebus
Why kick it out other than that somewhere in the first forty
books it gets a little creepy-or-tedious?

Creepy and tedious are, it shouldn't need to be said, defining
elements of any particular genre.

Post by Joseph Nebus
And, well, that since the
days of John W Campbell we've gotten a little more sensitive about
including psychic powers unless they have a really sound biologically
rigorous explanation like Larry Niven would have given us?

I see your sarcasm and raise you modern psi. (It's all quantum!)

(To wit: Catherine Asaro's "Ruby Dynasty" series. Which must be
classed as a "science fantasty/romance" hybrid. She's the Principal
Speaker at the 2009 Philcon in November, BTW.)

Post by Joseph Nebus
Anyway, I'm mildly curious why the desire (expressed by more
than one person in this thread) to get Pern declared Fantasy And *Not*
Science Fiction. [...]

Wasn't it John Campbell who insisted on only one impossible premise
per story? Fifty-foot creatures that fly by flapping their wings in
an Earthlike atmosphere and gravity are certainly impossible. But do
they count as one thing, or four? (Telepathy, teleporting, time
travel, bio-antigravity.)

But we read lots of stories with impossible things (mechanical
antigravity, casuality-free FTL) and we don't relegate them to the
ghetto of outright fantasy. We've invented new categories for those
situtations: "semihard SF" and "science fantasy." And on that axis,
there are plenty of worse offenders than Pern (I'm looking at you,
egregious biology in "Doctor Who").

* It has hard SF (i.e., plausible) elements: interstellar
colonization, an alien ecosystem, genetic engineering. And soft SF:
the cultural adaptations to technology loss and this specific natural
environment.

* It has elements with the details wrong, but which are not /a priori/
impossible: the orbital mechanics of the Rukbat system.

* Physically impossible: the dragons.

* Characteristic fantasy elements that are *absent*: para-humans
(fairies, dwarves), magic, supernatural beings.

By those measures, the series is much closer to the "SF" end of the
spectrum than to "fantasy." But if we dislike what it *is* that's why
I raised the question of *redesigning* it. If you (I'm speaking to
everyone here) like certain elements of the premise, characters and
story, but what to impose harder science on it -- What Would You Do?

--
** Phillip Thorne ** ***@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:07:06 -0400, Phillip Thorne

Post by Phillip Thorne
(To wit: Catherine Asaro's "Ruby Dynasty" series. Which must be
classed as a "science fantasty/romance" hybrid. She's the Principal
Speaker at the 2009 Philcon in November, BTW.)

Her books full of psi surprised me, seeing that she is a physicist.

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Howard Brazee
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:07:06 -0400, Phillip Thorne

Post by Phillip Thorne
(To wit: Catherine Asaro's "Ruby Dynasty" series. Which must be
classed as a "science fantasty/romance" hybrid. She's the
Principal
Speaker at the 2009 Philcon in November, BTW.)

Her books full of psi surprised me, seeing that she is a physicist.

Did Asimov's series about stories about a demon surprise you, given
that he was an atheist? How about his books that use FTL, given that
he was a Ph.D. scientist?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Mike Schilling

Post by Howard Brazee
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:07:06 -0400, Phillip Thorne

Post by Phillip Thorne
(To wit: Catherine Asaro's "Ruby Dynasty" series. Which must be
classed as a "science fantasty/romance" hybrid. She's the
Principal
Speaker at the 2009 Philcon in November, BTW.)

Her books full of psi surprised me, seeing that she is a physicist.

IIRC Campbell got his degree in physics, way back in the thirties.

Post by Mike Schilling
Did Asimov's series about stories about a demon surprise you, given
that he was an atheist? How about his books that use FTL, given that
he was a Ph.D. scientist?

Though in chemistry, not physics. It's been noted now and
again that an expert in one field can fall for the most
egregious woo-woo in another field. The best-known example,
I suppose, is the psychiatrist Velikovsky who so wilfully
misunderstood both chemistry and Newtonian physics. There's
also a book _Godel, Escher, Bach_ about which I have read
that e.g. the mathematician who's read it will say "Well, his
math stinks but what he says about music is really
impressive," and the musician will say "Well, his musical
theory stinks but his math blows me away," and so on.

But no, I don't think Asimov believed everything he wrote
about was true; au contraire. I don't even think Richard
Shaver believed everything he wrote about was true; I think
he was having us on; but I suppose there's room for doubt.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.

[James Nicoll]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
IIRC Campbell got his degree in physics, way back in the thirties.

From Duke in 1932.

You know who else was at Duke around that time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Banks_Rhine

[Anthony Nance]

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
IIRC Campbell got his degree in physics, way back in the thirties.

From Duke in 1932.
You know who else was at Duke around that time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Banks_Rhine

And Paul Linebarger (Cordwainer Smith)...oh, not until 1937. Foo.
- Tony

[James Nicoll]

Post by Anthony Nance

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
IIRC Campbell got his degree in physics, way back in the thirties.

From Duke in 1932.
You know who else was at Duke around that time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Banks_Rhine

And Paul Linebarger (Cordwainer Smith)...oh, not until 1937. Foo.

Ah, like my disappointment when I discovered Ben Bova and
Bill Cosby attended Temple but at different times. I wanted to do a
Crossroads* alternate history where Bova became a comic and Cosby
the editor of Analog....


* Two people who were at the same place at the same time in real life
go on to have the other person's career, such as Bill Bennet discovering
a love of rock/blues and Janis Joplin becoming a right0wing ideologue
(They dated).

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
There's
also a book _Godel, Escher, Bach_ about which I have read
that e.g. the mathematician who's read it will say "Well, his
math stinks but what he says about music is really
impressive," and the musician will say "Well, his musical
theory stinks but his math blows me away," and so on.

His math doesn't stink, but his "proof" of Godel's theorem does turn
into hand-waving at the crucial moment. It would be interesting to
ask Gene about the music part, but he doesn't seem to be around any
more.

[William F. Adams ([e-mail])]

5. No alien visitations.  Pern was colonized by humans from an
interstellar (and probably interspecies) civilization (depending on
whether it's the same "Federated Sentient Planets" as appears in
McCaffrey's other series).  But in 2,500 years, nobody else visits --
no waves of alien colonizers, no xenobiologists, no follow-up
expeditions searching for "the lost colonies of Earth."

_That_ is actually explained as JohnFair noted --- in the novella
_Rescue Run_ which is quite good and worth reading.

William

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.

So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

But "Is it Science Fiction or is it Fantasy?" can keep people going
for hours.

--
Will in New Haven

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.

So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism
without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

Psuedo-medieval was all the rage in those days. Look at some of the
stories that won Huogs at about the same time as Weyr Search:

Vance's The Dragon Masters
Vance's The Last Castle
Silverberg's Nightwings
Anderson's The Longest Voyage

Lots of lords and ladies, and not an industrial economy in the bunch.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.

So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

Psuedo-medieval was all the rage in those days.  Look at some of the
Vance's The Dragon Masters
Vance's The Last Castle
Silverberg's Nightwings
Anderson's The Longest Voyage
Lots of lords and ladies, and not an industrial economy in the bunch.

It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong. Maybe, if they get real mad, they'll SHUN you or make up
an unpleasant song about you. And the people who, quite reasonably,
want to settle the southern continent, let themselves be dissuaded.
Because they are too stupid to make firearms?

But it's been a long time since I read the series. And I did like some
of it.

--
Will in New Haven

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

Wasn't a lot of the struggle in the original trilogy about the Riders
trying to enforce hegemony on the Lords Holder and mostly coming up
short?

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval
and most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not
always in a velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who
will lecture you if you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the
Lord of a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and
she running a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

It was notable for the rarity of such events _in all the history of
Pern_.

Post by Peter Huebner
Wasn't a lot of the struggle in the original trilogy about the
Riders trying to enforce hegemony on the Lords Holder and mostly
coming up short?

No, mostly the original trilogy was about overcoming lazy inertia
after a long pass, and convincing the doubters that thread was
still a danger. Once actual threadfall had started, everyone
immediately fell in line.

[Moriarty]

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

That was in the very first chapter of the first book. It also
established her as a psychic. Both plot points were dropped very
quickly IIRC (it's been 20 years).

-Moriarty

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Moriarty

Post by Michael Stemper
Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

That was in the very first chapter of the first book. It also
established her as a psychic. Both plot points were dropped very
quickly IIRC (it's been 20 years).

I just reread the original three this spring. Her telepathy continues
to play a role throughout them. It's primarily used to allow Mary Sue^W^W
Lessa to talk to everybody's dragons, as well as the wee little lizards.

But, I will admit that Pern is mostly a pretty happy, easy-going place.
I was struck by this on my previous reading -- maybe ten-twelve years
back. It had immediately followed reading the original three Deryni
books. Switching from those to a series in which people sometimes
didn't get betrayed and tortured gave me a bit of whiplash.

[Moriarty]

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Michael Stemper
Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

That was in the very first chapter of the first book.  It also
established her as a psychic.  Both plot points were dropped very
quickly IIRC (it's been 20 years).

I just reread the original three this spring. Her telepathy continues
to play a role throughout them. It's primarily used to allow Mary Sue^W^W
Lessa to talk to everybody's dragons, as well as the wee little lizards.

I sit corrected. Like I said, it's been 20 years and there won't be a
re-read.

Post by Michael Stemper
But, I will admit that Pern is mostly a pretty happy, easy-going place.
I was struck by this on my previous reading -- maybe ten-twelve years
back. It had immediately followed reading the original three Deryni
books. Switching from those to a series in which people sometimes
didn't get betrayed and tortured gave me a bit of whiplash.

Do you mean the trilogy beginning with _Deryni Rising_? I don't
recall too much torture in those. Not on-screen anyway.

I recently read the first in the latest trilogy _In the King's
Service_ and pretty much gave up on Kurtz after that. It suffers
badly from being set a generation before Kelson becomes king. She
introduces a whole bunch of characters you know won't survive to
Kelson's time and sets about gleefully killing them as atrociously as
possible.

-Moriarty

[Bo Lindbergh]

I recently read the first in the latest trilogy In the King's
Service and pretty much gave up on Kurtz after that. It suffers
badly from being set a generation before Kelson becomes king. She
introduces a whole bunch of characters you know won't survive to
Kelson's time and sets about gleefully killing them as atrociously as
possible.

Highly predictable indeed. Anyone whose family had a family tree
in an appendix of a previous book but didn't appear him-/herself
in any of those trees died young. Cbvfbarq znemvcna, lhz!


/Bo Lindbergh

[David Johnston]

On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:04:18 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

Yes, but that was a freak occurance. It had never happened before,
and never would happen again. (Actually it was the product of
pilotitis. The first story was basically Anne McCaffry writing Andre
Norton fanfiction.)

Post by Michael Stemper
Wasn't a lot of the struggle in the original trilogy about the Riders
trying to enforce hegemony on the Lords Holder and mostly coming up
short?

No. It was about the Riders trying to secure the supplies they
needed to get going by talking because after all, it's not as if they
had these huge firebreathing creatures they could use as weapons to
get what they wanted...

[Walter Bushell]

Post by David Johnston
On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:04:18 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

Yes, but that was a freak occurance. It had never happened before,
and never would happen again. (Actually it was the product of
pilotitis. The first story was basically Anne McCaffry writing Andre
Norton fanfiction.)

Post by Peter Huebner
Wasn't a lot of the struggle in the original trilogy about the Riders
trying to enforce hegemony on the Lords Holder and mostly coming up
short?

No. It was about the Riders trying to secure the supplies they
needed to get going by talking because after all, it's not as if they
had these huge firebreathing creatures they could use as weapons to
get what they wanted...

Teleporting huge fire breathing runner beast frightening critters that
could pull raids. But if the leader doesn't feel that thread is real
(200 turns have passed without thread, which is roughly the time the US
has been under the Constitution.), he may not feel the moral right to
engage in direct action.

Hey, we still read Niven and Brin and early Heinlein even when their
science sucks donkeys.

[David Johnston]

Post by Walter Bushell

Post by David Johnston
On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:04:18 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

Yes, but that was a freak occurance. It had never happened before,
and never would happen again. (Actually it was the product of
pilotitis. The first story was basically Anne McCaffry writing Andre
Norton fanfiction.)

Post by Peter Huebner
Wasn't a lot of the struggle in the original trilogy about the Riders
trying to enforce hegemony on the Lords Holder and mostly coming up
short?

No. It was about the Riders trying to secure the supplies they
needed to get going by talking because after all, it's not as if they
had these huge firebreathing creatures they could use as weapons to
get what they wanted...

Teleporting huge fire breathing runner beast frightening critters that
could pull raids. But if the leader doesn't feel that thread is real
(200 turns have passed without thread, which is roughly the time the US
has been under the Constitution.), he may not feel the moral right to
engage in direct action.

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Pern. Everyones too damn moral.
So moral that banditry is an innovation.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Walter Bushell

Post by David Johnston
On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:04:18 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

Yes, but that was a freak occurance.  It had never happened before,
and never would happen again.  (Actually it was the product of
pilotitis.  The first story was basically Anne McCaffry writing Andre
Norton fanfiction.)

Post by Peter Huebner
Wasn't a lot of the struggle in the original trilogy about the Riders
trying to enforce hegemony on the Lords Holder and mostly coming up
short?

No.  It was about the Riders trying to secure the supplies  they
needed to get going by talking because after all, it's not as if they
had these huge firebreathing creatures they could use as weapons to
get what they wanted...

Teleporting huge fire breathing runner beast frightening critters that
could pull raids. But if the leader doesn't feel that thread is real
(200 turns have passed without thread, which is roughly the time the US
has been under the Constitution.), he may not feel the moral right to
engage in direct action.

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Pern.  Everyones too damn moral.
So moral that banditry is an innovation.

Moral and generally _nice_ (although there are exceptions) and nowhere
does it say that Pern was settled entirely or even primarily from
Canada. Which would be the only rational explanation.

--
Will in New Haven

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Will in New Haven

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Pern. Everyones too damn
moral.
So moral that banditry is an innovation.

Moral and generally _nice_ (although there are exceptions) and
nowhere
does it say that Pern was settled entirely or even primarily from
Canada. Which would be the only rational explanation.

Ya goin' down to the Weyr, eh?

Yah, there's Thread comin'.

I just talked to Fax, and he said there's no Thread anymore.

Fax's a hoser.

[Walter Bushell]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Walter Bushell

Post by David Johnston
On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:04:18 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven
It's the _tone_ of her setting that bothers me. In real medieval and
most pseudo-medieval there's an iron fist and it's not always in a
velvet glove. Pern seems to be run by people who will lecture you if
you do wrong.

Didn't Lessa come from a Hold that had been conquered by the Lord of
a different hold? Wasn't he kind of oppressing it, and she running
a sub-rosa sabotage operation?

Yes, but that was a freak occurance. It had never happened before,
and never would happen again. (Actually it was the product of
pilotitis. The first story was basically Anne McCaffry writing Andre
Norton fanfiction.)

Post by Peter Huebner
Wasn't a lot of the struggle in the original trilogy about the Riders
trying to enforce hegemony on the Lords Holder and mostly coming up
short?

No. It was about the Riders trying to secure the supplies they
needed to get going by talking because after all, it's not as if they
had these huge firebreathing creatures they could use as weapons to
get what they wanted...

Teleporting huge fire breathing runner beast frightening critters that
could pull raids. But if the leader doesn't feel that thread is real
(200 turns have passed without thread, which is roughly the time the US
has been under the Constitution.), he may not feel the moral right to
engage in direct action.

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Pern. Everyones too damn moral.
So moral that banditry is an innovation.

Well they don't have religion, so naturally everyone is more moral than
here on Earth.

[Mike Stone]

Post by David Johnston
Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Pern. Everyones too damn moral.
So moral that banditry is an innovation.

Were the original settlers Amish?

--

Mike Stone - Peterborough, England

"Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of
Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work
strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby in the
reservoir, he turns to the cupboard only to find the vodka bottle empty".

P G Wodehouse - Jill the Reckless

[William George Ferguson]

Post by Mike Stone

Post by David Johnston
Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Pern. Everyones too damn moral.
So moral that banditry is an innovation.

Were the original settlers Amish?

Very close. They weren't 'anti-tech' (neither are the Amish, for that
matter), but wanted to set up a society that was dependent as little as
possible on high tech, a pastoral society.

As for the 'feudal' society, as others have pointed out, the force majeure
necessary to maintain it fell out of the sky for 25 out of every 100 years.
Once that didn't happen, the feudal society started to breakdown. Fax's
conquest of other holds was a fairly obvious symptom of the breakdown, but
not the only one.

The main reason the old-timers mostly couldn't fit in was that the society
that they grew up in no longer existed. With the final 'solution' to the
threadfalls, It's fairly clear in the books set post "All the Weyrs of
Pern" that the system of Holds and Lord Holders is on its last legs as the
social control, unless it modifies itself greatly.

[James Nicoll]

Post by Mike Schilling

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.

So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

Psuedo-medieval was all the rage in those days.

In -those- days? Forgotten such stories as Martin's The Knights
Who Say Fuck, Ringo and Weber Exposition That Will Make You Pray For
the Sweet Release of An Incoming Artillery Barrage and Asaro's Mills
and Boon ... IN SPACE!?

I'll give Brian Herbert's Reversion to the Mean (with Sand)
a pass because he's just working on his father's Apparently I Was
Terrified by My Aunts As a Child series.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mike Schilling

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.

So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

Psuedo-medieval was all the rage in those days.

        In -those- days? Forgotten such stories as Martin's The Knights
Who Say Fuck, Ringo and Weber Exposition That Will Make You Pray For
the Sweet Release of An Incoming Artillery Barrage and Asaro's Mills
and Boon ... IN SPACE!?
        I'll give Brian Herbert's Reversion to the Mean (with Sand)
a pass because he's just working on his father's Apparently I Was
Terrified by My Aunts As a Child series.

In a fantasy setting, I don't mind it. When talking about a future of
this species it is very difficult to accept. When talking about a
future of this species and the powers-that-be seem to rule by
nattering at you, it is even worse.

--
Will in New Haven

[David Johnston]

On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:15:59 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Phillip Thorne
I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.

So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

The Thread works quite well as a plot device in that regard. If you
aren't a "good" peasant, you don't get to weather out the fall inside
a solid stone fortification.

My problem with Pern is that it's a little too candy-coated, though.

[Howard Brazee]

Post by David Johnston

Post by Will in New Haven
So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

The Thread works quite well as a plot device in that regard. If you
aren't a "good" peasant, you don't get to weather out the fall inside
a solid stone fortification.

Just like "real" feudalism.

[Peter Huebner]

In article <95355c81-965b-47c2-bd53-06274a5bde16
@r38g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, ***@taylorandfrancis.com says...

Post by Will in New Haven
So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

You're not the only one. I already stated that THAT (and the operatic
characters) was what finally put me off reading the series any further.
The 'society' of Pern is just .... for lack of a better word: silly
romanticism. Utterly silly.

-P.

[Phillip Thorne]

On Wed, 29 Jul 2009, Will in New Haven

Post by Will in New Haven
So I guess I am the only one who objects, to any great extent, to the
wierd pseudo-medieval society she has created. Quasi-feudalism without
even much use of force to keep the peasants in line just goes down
like a glass of stout?

Okay, so what other social structure would you write?

Keep in mind that the colonists specifically intended a pastoral
existence with a minimum of government control, and later lost
long-distance rapid communication. Something feudal is a reasonable
evolution, IMHO.

McCaffrey explains in the intro: Threadfall means hiding in caves. A
shortgage of caves limits population. During Intervals you don't want
to grow the population beyond the capacity of the caves.
...admittedly, all that doesn't imply a Lord Holder; something
democratic could work too.

Second leg: the Weyrs. The population tithes to them because they're
too busy caring for their dragons. This parallels the clergy in
Earth's medieval history, except that their utility is obvious during
a Pass -- forget afterlife-Hell, Thread is real *now*. During
Intervals, everybody else *does* start to think of them as parasites.

Third leg: the Crafts, paralleling Earth's guild system, and isolating
skills. (This had the result, McCaffrey writes sensibly, of losing a
lot of knowledge.) For some reason, nobody ever reinvented
universities, where multiple, mixing skills and ideas. And somehow
they lost movable-type printing, which would've helped preserve and
disseminate knowledge. (Pulp paper was rare due to the difficulty of
protecting forestland, but surely there's a better substitute than
hides?)

--
** Phillip Thorne ** ***@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

[Joy Beeson]

There are two key points where I'd make changes:

Rewrite the original short story to build in foundations capable of
supporting the vast superstructure that would be built upon it.

Rewrite _Dragonsdawn_ to show the colonists using Clarke magic to
create the pharmaceutical wildlife, mountaintop caverns with hot and
cold running water, and other Xanthian features of this well-furnished
planet.

[Will in New Haven]

There are two key points where I'd make changes:  
Rewrite the original short story to build in foundations capable of
supporting the vast superstructure that would be built upon it.  
Rewrite _Dragonsdawn_ to show the colonists using Clarke magic to
create the pharmaceutical wildlife, mountaintop caverns with hot and
cold running water, and other Xanthian features of this well-furnished
planet.  

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

--
Will in New Haven

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =A0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =A0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

I didn''t like those either. I _think_ those are local species though
and maybe the early settlers were all morons? I'm just not easily
offended for the sake of ungalates. Practically all of my best friends
are dogs. His name is Bear.

--
Will in New Haven

[Joseph Nebus]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =3DA0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

I didn''t like those either. I _think_ those are local species though
and maybe the early settlers were all morons? I'm just not easily
offended for the sake of ungalates. Practically all of my best friends
are dogs. His name is Bear.

Perhaps the original settlers were being ironically cute and
were horrified to learn their kids thought those were the proper names
of things, but by then it was too late to retrain them.

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Joseph Nebus

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =3DA0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change
every use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

I didn''t like those either. I _think_ those are local species though
and maybe the early settlers were all morons? I'm just not easily
offended for the sake of ungalates. Practically all of my best
friends are dogs. His name is Bear.

Perhaps the original settlers were being ironically cute and
were horrified to learn their kids thought those were the proper names
of things, but by then it was too late to retrain them.

These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round sort of
bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and smoked pinkfish.

[Scott Fluhrer]

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round sort of
bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still managed to
make it over my head until just now...

Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round sort of
bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and smoked pinkfish.

Doh!  I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still managed to
make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I got that one. But the _memorable_ one, for me, was when someone
tried to get him to eat muskelunge. But that was memorable because I
had been there and done that.

--
Will in New Haven

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round
sort of bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and
smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still
managed to make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I got that one. But the _memorable_ one, for me, was when someone
tried to get him to eat muskelunge. But that was memorable because I
had been there and done that.

That aparently wasn't memorable for me. Which book was it in?

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round
sort of bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and
smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still
managed to make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I got that one. But the _memorable_ one, for me, was when someone
tried to get him to eat muskelunge. But that was memorable because I
had been there and done that.

That aparently wasn't memorable for me.  Which book was it in?

It wasn't Vlad. It was Khavren in _Lord of Castle Black_

--
Will in New Haven

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round
sort of bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and
smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still
managed to make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I got that one. But the _memorable_ one, for me, was when someone
tried to get him to eat muskelunge. But that was memorable because I
had been there and done that.

That aparently wasn't memorable for me. Which book was it in?

It wasn't Vlad. It was Khavren in _Lord of Castle Black_

Thanks, but still drawing a blank. Can you fill in the circumstances?

Onwe I recall was Vimes dining with a nomadic tribe and being offered
something disgusting as one of their delicacies, so that he had to eat it or
risk offending them. When he told them to fuck off, they grinned and said
he wasn't as dumb as he looked.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round
sort of bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and
smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still
managed to make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I got that one. But the _memorable_ one, for me, was when someone
tried to get him to eat muskelunge. But that was memorable because I
had been there and done that.

That aparently wasn't memorable for me. Which book was it in?

It wasn't Vlad. It was Khavren in _Lord of Castle Black_

Thanks, but still drawing a blank.  Can you fill in the circumstances?
Onwe I recall was Vimes dining with a nomadic tribe and being offered
something disgusting as one of their delicacies, so that he had to eat it or
risk offending them.  When he told them to fuck off, they grinned and said
he wasn't as dumb as he looked.

It's not like that at all. Or not much. Someone just asks him if he
would like to sample the muskellunge and says "it's a lot like common
pike but with fewer bones and better flavor. Nowhere else in the
world..." but Khavren has stuff to do and places to go and doesn't eat
any muskellunge.

It's not really disgusting, just another kind of pike. Unless you and
the guys you are with have caught half a dozen big ones and decide to
eat all that fish.

--
Will in New Haven

[Alexey Romanov]

Post by Scott Fluhrer

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round sort of
bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still managed to
make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I am _still_ missing it. Which book was it and what does it mean?

[Peter Huebner]

Post by Alexey Romanov

Post by Scott Fluhrer

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round sort of
bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still managed to
make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I am _still_ missing it. Which book was it and what does it mean?

<nods> Is there something particularly funny, snarky, or clever about
this nomenclature? I'd need to have that explained to me in words of one
syllable, I think.

-P.

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Peter Huebner

Post by Alexey Romanov

Post by Scott Fluhrer

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round
sort of bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and
smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still
managed to make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I am _still_ missing it. Which book was it and what does it mean?

<nods> Is there something particularly funny, snarky, or clever about
this nomenclature? I'd need to have that explained to me in words of
one syllable, I think.

There's an old joke about a Martian who, coming to earth the first
time, asks what those "little wheels" in the deli window are. On
being told it's a food and served a toasted one, he says, "Wow, this
would be great with lox and cream cheese." Brust does this kind of
thing a lot, like when Piri and Ibronka re-enact the old noodle joke,
or when the Necromancer tells Vlad to sleep and dream of bearded
women.

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Alexey Romanov

Post by Scott Fluhrer

Post by Mike Schilling
These remind me of the time Vald Taltos was served a funny round
sort of bread, and thought it would go well with buttercheese and
smoked pinkfish.

Doh! I just happened to have reread that yesterday, and it still
managed to make it over my head until just now...
Was I particularly clueless, or did other people miss that as well?

I am _still_ missing it. Which book was it and what does it mean?

It's at the start if Issola, and it means he was eating his first
bagel and thought it would be good with lox and cream cheese.

[Don Bruder]

In article

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =A0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

I didn''t like those either. I _think_ those are local species though
and maybe the early settlers were all morons? I'm just not easily
offended for the sake of ungalates. Practically all of my best friends
are dogs. His name is Bear.
--
Will in New Haven

There's some confusion, but "Herdbeast" seems to be a general-purpose
reference for either or both of cattle and sheep. Which are further
distinguished from each other as "Loadbeasts" (Which I read as "Oxen")
and "Ovines". Both of which were genetically modified from earth stock
and shipped in cryo as eggs. Runnerbeasts are horse base-stock, with
genetic modifications to enable them to deal with the high-boron grasses
that the survey found. They aren't REALLY horses, but they're close
enough.

(Granted, none of that information comes along until during/after the
events of ATWoP and later volumes, but...)

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =A0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

I didn''t like those either. I _think_ those are local species though
and maybe the early settlers were all morons? I'm just not easily
offended for the sake of ungalates. Practically all of my best friends
are dogs. His name is Bear.
--
Will in New Haven

There's some confusion, but "Herdbeast" seems to be a general-purpose
reference for either or both of cattle and sheep. Which are further
distinguished from each other as "Loadbeasts" (Which I read as "Oxen")
and "Ovines". Both of which were genetically modified from earth stock
and shipped in cryo as eggs. Runnerbeasts are horse base-stock, with
genetic modifications to enable them to deal with the high-boron grasses
that the survey found. They aren't REALLY horses, but they're close
enough.
(Granted, none of that information comes along until during/after the
events of ATWoP and later volumes, but...)

Human beings who still spoke English, especially as they had had books
and other records from before the migration, would call them cattle,
sheep, horses and dogs.

It's strange or wild animals that get misnamed, viz the Elk of North
America which might as well be a Red Deer.

--
Will in New Haven

[Don Bruder]

In article

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =A0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

I didn''t like those either. I _think_ those are local species though
and maybe the early settlers were all morons? I'm just not easily
offended for the sake of ungalates. Practically all of my best friends
are dogs. His name is Bear.
--
Will in New Haven

There's some confusion, but "Herdbeast" seems to be a general-purpose
reference for either or both of cattle and sheep. Which are further
distinguished from each other as "Loadbeasts" (Which I read as "Oxen")
and "Ovines". Both of which were genetically modified from earth stock
and shipped in cryo as eggs. Runnerbeasts are horse base-stock, with
genetic modifications to enable them to deal with the high-boron grasses
that the survey found. They aren't REALLY horses, but they're close
enough.
(Granted, none of that information comes along until during/after the
events of ATWoP and later volumes, but...)

Human beings who still spoke English, especially as they had had books
and other records from before the migration, would call them cattle,
sheep, horses and dogs.

Yabbut...

Keep in mind that as early as the intro text, almost all memory of Earth
is long gone in Lessa's time. The Pernese lost huge amounts of
information during the various passes - records destroyed, or stored in
forms that are no longer accessible due to lack of power/technology, and
so on. Aren't the first few words "When does fact become legend?" If
not, it's pretty close, without my going and digging up DF to be sure.
The stories that take place earlier in history give at least some
explanation - the migration from the south continent is a major "loss
point" - even with the help of the dolphins, they didn't get all the
stuff back from the ships that went down in the crossing. Before that
were the losses during the first few falls, when simply staying alive
was a major undertaking - the earliest holds abandoned as everybody
pulled in to a single, more-or-less defensible location for the first
pass all but guaranteed that gaps developed early. Add to that the fact
that the colony was intended to be a "get away from the evils that have
developed on overpopulated Earth", right down to intentionally
abandoning many of the highest high-tech items even before they shipped
out from Earth. Then there's language drift over the course of something
like a thousand years - Even the AIVAS had trouble understanding the
language due to that factor.

Post by Will in New Haven
It's strange or wild animals that get misnamed, viz the Elk of North
America which might as well be a Red Deer.

Not "might as well be" - Is, in everything but name. (According to what
I've read, they've done the genetic testing to verify it, and they found
that "Elk"/"Wapiti" equals "Red Deer" out to
however-many-you-care-to-count decimal places, give or take a tiny
amount of completely expected mutation/variation among individuals.)

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Don Bruder
- even with the help of the dolphins,

Did the dolphins help them jump the sharks? I am very glad that I
stopped reading with _Moreta's Story_.

[Nigel]

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Peter Huebner
In article

Post by Will in New Haven

There are two key points where I'd make changes: =A0

A minor change I would make. I would use find/replace to change every
use of "the canines" to "dogs."

You're okay with "herdbeasts" and "runnerbeasts", though?

I didn''t like those either. I _think_ those are local species though
and maybe the early settlers were all morons? I'm just not easily
offended for the sake of ungalates. Practically all of my best friends
are dogs. His name is Bear.
--
Will in New Haven

There's some confusion, but "Herdbeast" seems to be a general-purpose
reference for either or both of cattle and sheep. Which are further
distinguished from each other as "Loadbeasts" (Which I read as "Oxen")
and "Ovines". Both of which were genetically modified from earth stock
and shipped in cryo as eggs. Runnerbeasts are horse base-stock, with
genetic modifications to enable them to deal with the high-boron grasses
that the survey found. They aren't REALLY horses, but they're close
enough.
(Granted, none of that information comes along until during/after the
events of ATWoP and later volumes, but...)

Human beings who still spoke English, especially as they had had books
and other records from before the migration, would call them cattle,
sheep, horses and dogs.

Yabbut...
Keep in mind that as early as the intro text, almost all memory of Earth
is long gone in Lessa's time. The Pernese lost huge amounts of
information during the various passes - records destroyed, or stored in
forms that are no longer accessible due to lack of power/technology, and
so on. Aren't the first few words "When does fact become legend?" If
not, it's pretty close, without my going and digging up DF to be sure.
The stories that take place earlier in history give at least some
explanation - the migration from the south continent is a major "loss
point" - even with the help of the dolphins, they didn't get all the
stuff back from the ships that went down in the crossing. Before that
were the losses during the first few falls, when simply staying alive
was a major undertaking - the earliest holds abandoned as everybody
pulled in to a single, more-or-less defensible location for the first
pass all but guaranteed that gaps developed early. Add to that the fact
that the colony was intended to be a "get away from the evils that have
developed on overpopulated Earth", right down to intentionally
abandoning many of the highest high-tech items even before they shipped
out from Earth.

I doubt if they intended to abandon basic agriculture and
domestication of animals. In a pastoral society, the names of common
animals is likely to be one of the last prieces of information to be
lost. It would only really happen if people deliberately suppressed
the names for some unknown purpose. Even then popular culture is
likely to preserve them:

: Hey diddle diddle,the Feline and the Fiddle,
: The Herdbeast jumped over the moon,
: The little Canine laughed to see such sport,
: And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Post by Peter Huebner
Then there's language drift over the course of something
like a thousand years - Even the AIVAS had trouble understanding the
language due to that factor.

Strange that they managed to preserve other names, such as lizard and
dragon.

Cheers,
Nigel.

[Howard Brazee]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:28:32 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven

Post by Will in New Haven
It's strange or wild animals that get misnamed, viz the Elk of North
America which might as well be a Red Deer.

Lots of American plants and animals (especially birds), with old names
(Buffalo). An interesting case is corn, meaning grain.

[Robert Bannister]

Post by Howard Brazee
On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:28:32 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven

Post by Will in New Haven
It's strange or wild animals that get misnamed, viz the Elk of North
America which might as well be a Red Deer.

Lots of American plants and animals (especially birds), with old names
(Buffalo). An interesting case is corn, meaning grain.

Still, I thought that was the point: Pern's domestic animals may well be
different from Earth's cattle and sheep, but that is unlikely to stop
people using the old names, even if they only knew them from orally
transmitted stories or nursery rhymes.

[Urban Dragon]

I haven't seen Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders ofPern" series of
novels (19 and counting, including those by her son Todd) discussed
here on :rasfw lately.
The first two trilogies ("Dragonriders of" and "Harper Hall of") were
written between 1968 and 1979.  The people ofPernhad only a vague
idea of their history and the astronomical nature of their enemy, the
voracious Thread.  Subsequent books refined this understanding... sort
of.  Less charitably, it's gotten kludgy and crufty.
I like to think of certain large works of fiction as "first drafts,"
especially if they've been repeatedly adapted in different media by
different authors focusing on different aspects.  In that spirit, how
would you redesign the world and society ofPern, and what
1. The regularity of Threadfall.  Thread does not originate *on* the
so-called Red Star, a terrestrial planet with a 250-year cometary
orbit.  Instead, it inhabits the system's Oort cloud, samples get
dragged in-system, andPerncollides with them meteor-style.  But I
can't think of any way that the samples would both (a) fall at
specific locations on a predictable seven-day schedule in four-hour
bursts, and (b) do so for 50-years-on, 200-years-off.
If Threadfall were irregular and unpredictable, Weyrs would need to be
a rapid-response force.  There'd also be incentive to preserve
high-power telescopes for skywatch.  "Timing it" would also be handy
(see #2).
2. Dragons are telepathic, teleporting, time-travelling... and also
quasi-telekinetic ("dragons can lift as much as they think they can,"
per _All the Weyrs of Pern_).  Psi powers were all the rage in
1970s-era SF lit, but nowadays they feel a bit too /deus ex machina/.
3. Size of the dragons.  Apparently McCaffrey somehow confused "feet"
and "meters" and Ramoth is meant to be 45 *feet* long, *not* the size
of a passenger jet (as shown in a comparative illustration in _The
Dragonlover's Guide to Pern_).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern#Economic_considerat...>
Make this unambiguous, and suddenly weyr size, dragon appetites, and
number of passengers become much easier to visualize.
4. In the books, there's impetus to recolonize the southern continent
because the North's metal mines are finally running out -- but there's
no mention of depletion of firestone (chewed by the dragons to produce
flame).  How common can a phosphene-containing rock be?
If the resource is finite, it adds a sense of urgency to the
colonist's long-term plan (the one that involves grubs and gradual
dragon upsizing).
5. No alien visitations.  Pernwas colonized by humans from an
interstellar (and probably interspecies) civilization (depending on
whether it's the same "Federated Sentient Planets" as appears in
McCaffrey's other series).  But in 2,500 years, nobody else visits --
no waves of alien colonizers, no xenobiologists, no follow-up
expeditions searching for "the lost colonies of Earth."
--
*  RPI CompSci 1998                                    *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

I didn't mind the threadfall, which one can explain away as one does
when enjoying a story (i.e. you don't think too much about it), and I
don't mind the size of the dragons because, after all, as long as you
are going to have dragons at all you might as well go for broke. (As
an aside, I do recall Anne McCaffrey saying years ago, nay, decades
ago, that a zoologist had told her that her dragons were plausible.)

What finally stopped me from reading more of the books was the
attitude of the main characters. One or two Cinderella stories are OK,
but then they got on my nerves. What annoyed me in the end, though,
was the situation where some of the characters had privileged
information, withheld from everyone else, and then derided them
basically for not doing as they were told. Rather than risk making the
main characters seem so elitist and dictatorial, I'd have them think
hard about finding a way around the dilemma : How to persuade the
population to do something important when you can't tell them the
reason why.

Cheers
Morva Shepley
http//morvahouse.blogspot.com
Reading stuff you get for free.

[Brenda Clough]

Post by Urban Dragon
What finally stopped me from reading more of the books was the
attitude of the main characters. One or two Cinderella stories are OK,
but then they got on my nerves. What annoyed me in the end, though,
was the situation where some of the characters had privileged
information, withheld from everyone else, and then derided them
basically for not doing as they were told. Rather than risk making the
main characters seem so elitist and dictatorial, I'd have them think
hard about finding a way around the dilemma : How to persuade the
population to do something important when you can't tell them the
reason why.

I too found the characters to be the dealbreaker with these books as the
series went on. You can even recognize the types, across the author's
entire oeuvre.

Brenda

[Phillip Thorne]

how would you redesign the world and society of Pern, and what
consequences would the changes have on the plot?

The conversation seems to have sidetracked into "McCaffrey's stylistic
details I dislike." Although I could argue that specific points
aren't as bad as alleged when taken in context -- since I'm re-reading
the books *now*, not relying on 20-year-old memories -- that's not my
objective.

No, the following is what I envisioned. If this gives you a better
idea, by all means play along.


The physical powers of the dragons are biologically absurd, but
anything absurd in a work of SF can be excused by readers if it's
given the right context. To wit: if teleportation is naturally
evolved, then you'd expect to see it elsewhere in the ecosystem, at
various levels of competence. Accordingly, some possibilities for
Pern Elseworlds are:

1. Teleportation etc. are psi powers, and are based in the brain. Fire
lizards (FLs) were the first Pernese creatures to have developed
adequately complex brains, and it's given them a massive survival
advantage, dominating their niche.

2. OR: teleportation is not limited to FLs. The human colonists have
to deal with the Pernese equivalent of rats that can warp into sealed
grain stores, and fish that can evade nets.

3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

4. Ditto for time travel. Other species escaped to the past (as in
ST:TOS:"All Our Yesterdays") or the future (as with the Lovecraft race
that time-jumped their mentalities from one species to another). Once
humans eliminate Thread, post-Ninth Pass, they'll suddenly be
inundated by creatures which (instinctively or not) jumped just that
far ahead.

5. Giant dragons with bio-antigravity buoyancy are not without
precedent, because the colonists discover fossil evidence of local
"airwhales." When geneering the FLs into dragons, they patch the
genes from surviving related species, or reactivate dormant genes in
the FLs.

6. In fact, they resurrect the airwhales ("Jurassic Park"-style) so
they'll have long-distance bulk transport once their airsleds wear
out. _Airwhale Boatmen of Pern_ doesn't have quite the same ring :)
but maybe it could be a subsidiary trilogy, like the "Harper Hall"
stories.

7. FLs have native teleport ability and some telepathy, but not
antigravity (at their size, they don't need it); no local species
does. The colonists modify their telepathy to be human-compatible,
and bio-antigravity is on file from another planet. (In
_Dragonsdawn_, the colonists have an established treatment called
"mentasynth" to enhance telepathic ability; moreover, IIRC, they had
some geneticists who'd trained under aliens.)

(They could, of course, do the same with humans, except (a) dangerous,
(b) more extensive tweaks, and (c) inconveniently long generation
times.)

8. Time travel is not a separate ability; it's part and parcel with
teleportation (space-time is one thing, after all). It's a matter of
targeting, stamina and (as discovered in the original books)
disconcerting mental feedback when you duplicate yourself. "Timing
it" rapidly becomes an important and practiced skill, and critical to
rapid-response teams. (Dragons would make great air ambulances.)

(In the books as-is, "timing it" is highly discouraged.)

--
** Phillip Thorne ** ***@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

[Stewart Robert Hinsley]

Post by Phillip Thorne
1. Teleportation etc. are psi powers, and are based in the brain. Fire
lizards (FLs) were the first Pernese creatures to have developed
adequately complex brains, and it's given them a massive survival
advantage, dominating their niche.

See Vernor Vinge, The Witling (particularly the backstory).

[Robert Bannister]

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient, perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated
the psi powers. The only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few
Pern dragons live much longer than humans, but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

[Mike Schilling]

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have
evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient, perhaps even the ingredient that
stimulated
the psi powers. The only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few
Pern dragons live much longer than humans, but perhaps one
threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

Or it stimulates hormones that traverse the placental barrier.

[Joseph Nebus]

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient, perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated
the psi powers. The only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few
Pern dragons live much longer than humans, but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

Oh, that's a pretty nice idea. As is Phillip Thorne's about
wildlife time-jumping to the era when Threadfall isn't such a nuisance,
which would put a most interesting twist on the V-T Day celebrations.

[Taki Kogoma]

Post by Robert Bannister
It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient, perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated
the psi powers. The only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few
Pern dragons live much longer than humans, but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

A dragon that does not impress will die soon after hatching.

A dragon whose rider has died will suicide immediately, unless it's a
queen with unhatched eggs: She will wait until shortly before they're
ready to hatch, and then kick the bucket.

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient,

I like this idea. Unfortunately, it has a major flaw.

Post by Robert Bannister
perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated
the psi powers. The only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few
Pern dragons live much longer than humans,

To be more specific, Weyr-bred and attached dragons suicide when their
Rider dies. Since those involved in Impressions appear to generally
be in their teens, a dragon's life-span is going to be a decade or two
shorter than it's rider's.

Post by Robert Bannister
but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

At the beginning of _Dragonflight_, it's been four hundred years since
the last Pass, hasn't it?

[Michael Stemper]

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Robert Bannister
but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

At the beginning of _Dragonflight_, it's been four hundred years since

I'm sorry; "turns", not "years". I was distracted by flopearnoisybeast
chasing a purringantisocialbeast.

[Don Bruder]

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Robert Bannister
but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

At the beginning of _Dragonflight_, it's been four hundred years since

I'm sorry; "turns", not "years". I was distracted by flopearnoisybeast
chasing a purringantisocialbeast.

Turn... Year... Close enough for the discussion :)

[Robert Bannister]

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient,

I like this idea. Unfortunately, it has a major flaw.

Post by Robert Bannister
perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated
the psi powers. The only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few
Pern dragons live much longer than humans,

To be more specific, Weyr-bred and attached dragons suicide when their
Rider dies. Since those involved in Impressions appear to generally
be in their teens, a dragon's life-span is going to be a decade or two
shorter than it's rider's.

Post by Robert Bannister
but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

At the beginning of _Dragonflight_, it's been four hundred years since
the last Pass, hasn't it?

Pity. I thought there was one story where someone took over a dragon
whose rider had died, but I admit it's been a long time since I read any
of the books and I tend to think of "normal" dragons that live for
centuries.

[Brenda Clough]

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient,

I like this idea. Unfortunately, it has a major flaw.

Post by Robert Bannister
perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated the psi powers. The
only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few Pern dragons live
much longer than humans,

To be more specific, Weyr-bred and attached dragons suicide when their
Rider dies. Since those involved in Impressions appear to generally
be in their teens, a dragon's life-span is going to be a decade or two
shorter than it's rider's.

Post by Robert Bannister
but perhaps one threadfall per lifetime is sufficient.

At the beginning of _Dragonflight_, it's been four hundred years since
the last Pass, hasn't it?

Pity. I thought there was one story where someone took over a dragon
whose rider had died, but I admit it's been a long time since I read any
of the books and I tend to think of "normal" dragons that live for
centuries.

You may be thinking of the Naomi Novik books in which dragons do outlive
several riders, and to make the transition easier dragonriders take care
to have an offspring of the desired gender to inherit the beast.

Brenda

[Robert Bannister]

Post by Brenda Clough

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient,

I like this idea. Unfortunately, it has a major flaw.

Post by Robert Bannister
perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated the psi powers. The
only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few Pern dragons live
much longer than humans,

To be more specific, Weyr-bred and attached dragons suicide when their
Rider dies. Since those involved in Impressions appear to generally
be in their teens, a dragon's life-span is going to be a decade or two
shorter than it's rider's.

Post by Robert Bannister
but perhaps one threadfall per lifetime is sufficient.

At the beginning of _Dragonflight_, it's been four hundred years since
the last Pass, hasn't it?

Pity. I thought there was one story where someone took over a dragon
whose rider had died, but I admit it's been a long time since I read
any of the books and I tend to think of "normal" dragons that live for
centuries.

You may be thinking of the Naomi Novik books in which dragons do outlive
several riders, and to make the transition easier dragonriders take care
to have an offspring of the desired gender to inherit the beast.

Shudder, no. I have read two Temeraire books, but I found them just a
bit too cute and Hornblowerish. If I were still 12, I'd probably love
them. Come to think of it, there were a lot of authors, both science
fiction and fantasy whose works I loved at that age and no longer do.

[Phillip Thorne]

Post by Robert Bannister
Pity. I thought there was one story where someone took over a dragon
whose rider had died, but I admit it's been a long time since I read any
of the books

There are occasional cases where the dragon is killed but the rider
survives: Lytol of Benden, who became Lord Warder of Ruatha, and
Brekke, F'nor's girlfriend (in the original trilogy); Giron, who
joined "Lady Holdless" Thella in _Renegades of Pern_. The survivor is
always emotionally dimished, however.

Presumably the tight bond is a consequence of the geneering that
created the dragons; fire lizards will also Impress on a human, but
not so tightly, and possibly in multiples. (I don't recall any case
in the books where a FL was killed to test the terminal end of the
link.)

(Now, has there ever been fanfic of FLs Impressing on a *non-human*? A
robot Transformer, maybe, or one of Diane Duane's pink tentacled
Sulamids. I wonder.)

Post by Robert Bannister
and I tend to think of "normal" dragons that live for centuries.

"Normal" dragons are portrayed as reptilian or piscine. Because
McCaffrey has a horse-metaphor fixation, hers are more like oversized
hairless equines. Which means she prefers a head-shape that looks
decidedly odd (and short-snouted) to anybody accustomed to Michael
Whelan's cover paintings. (I read a statement to this effect
recently, either on Wikipedia or one of the fansites.)

Incomplete range of covers:
<http://www.draconic.com/gallery/whelan.php>
<http://www.lesedwards.com/gallery.php?id=1>
<http://www.annemccaffrey.org/books/index.html>

--
** Phillip Thorne ** ***@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************

[Robert Bannister]

Post by Phillip Thorne

Post by Robert Bannister
Pity. I thought there was one story where someone took over a dragon
whose rider had died, but I admit it's been a long time since I read any
of the books

There are occasional cases where the dragon is killed but the rider
survives: Lytol of Benden, who became Lord Warder of Ruatha, and
Brekke, F'nor's girlfriend (in the original trilogy); Giron, who
joined "Lady Holdless" Thella in _Renegades of Pern_. The survivor is
always emotionally dimished, however.
Presumably the tight bond is a consequence of the geneering that
created the dragons; fire lizards will also Impress on a human, but
not so tightly, and possibly in multiples. (I don't recall any case
in the books where a FL was killed to test the terminal end of the
link.)
(Now, has there ever been fanfic of FLs Impressing on a *non-human*? A
robot Transformer, maybe, or one of Diane Duane's pink tentacled
Sulamids. I wonder.)

Post by Robert Bannister
and I tend to think of "normal" dragons that live for centuries.

"Normal" dragons are portrayed as reptilian or piscine. Because
McCaffrey has a horse-metaphor fixation, hers are more like oversized
hairless equines. Which means she prefers a head-shape that looks
decidedly odd (and short-snouted) to anybody accustomed to Michael
Whelan's cover paintings. (I read a statement to this effect
recently, either on Wikipedia or one of the fansites.)

Good point. I think I mentioned once before how I read one of her books
by mistake that was solely about a little girl and her horse. Of course,
I never pictured her dragons that way, but you may well be right.

[Don Bruder]

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Michael Stemper

Post by Robert Bannister

Post by Phillip Thorne
3. FLs are actually the *least* competent teleporters to have evolved
on Pern. When Thread befell the planet, other creatures escaped to
more congenial planets in adjacent star systems.

It would make more sense if it turned out that Thread was actually a
vital dietary ingredient,

I like this idea. Unfortunately, it has a major flaw.

Post by Robert Bannister
perhaps even the ingredient that stimulated
the psi powers. The only problem (if I recall correctly) is that few
Pern dragons live much longer than humans,

To be more specific, Weyr-bred and attached dragons suicide when their
Rider dies. Since those involved in Impressions appear to generally
be in their teens, a dragon's life-span is going to be a decade or two
shorter than it's rider's.

Post by Robert Bannister
but perhaps one threadfall
per lifetime is sufficient.

At the beginning of _Dragonflight_, it's been four hundred years since
the last Pass, hasn't it?

Pity. I thought there was one story where someone took over a dragon
whose rider had died, but I admit it's been a long time since I read any
of the books and I tend to think of "normal" dragons that live for
centuries.

That was Nemorth and Moreta. Nemorth's rider was sick, Holth was stuck
on the hatching sands - I want to say she was in the middle of clutching
- and Moreta needed to get to a certain settlement. She went with
Nemorth, and after the delivery, with both of them exhausted, they tried
to between home but poor visualization led to oblivion. Hoth stayed long
enough for her clutch to be ready to hatch, then took Leri (Nemorth's
rider, who was hanging on only to keep Hoth company) between.

Moreta was another Lessa - Could talk to all the dragons - so I expect
she should be considered special-case.