Dragonsdawn - Chapter Two
Jan. 13th, 2023 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatWell, last time, we saw (again) which characters are clearly the heroes vs. which ones are the obvious assholes. Also we had an admittedly cinematic arrival on Pern!
...I wonder if it's a coincidence that only the characters we're supposed to like seem particularly moved by this...
So we start out with some technical world-building, which is fun enough to read, but boring to recap. Basically teams are being sent down to set shit like landing strips, towers, and experimental farm sites. Everyone's very enthusiastic, while the folks still in orbit get a full view of the activity. Sallah and her co-pilot, Barr Hamill, are pretty excited.
We're told that the surface broadcasts will be primitive until commsats are set up on the two moons. So that's actually pretty interesting. I wonder if that shit's still up there. Sallah is feeling particularly nostalgic at the closing image:
The screen showed tired men and women seated around an immense campfire, eating an evening meal that had been prepared in a huge kettle from freeze-dried Terran vegetables and meats. In the failing light, the white strips of the runway grids and the wind sock having convulsions in the brisk breeze, were just barely visible. The planetary flag, so proudly displayed that morning, had wrapped itself around the pole above the control tower. Someone began to play softly on a harmonica, an old, old tune so familiar that Sallah couldn’t name it. Someone else joined in with a recorder. Softly and hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, the tired colonists began to sing or hum along. Other voices added harmony, and Sallah remembered that the song was called “Home on the Range.” There certainly had been no “discouraging words” that day. And the evening serenade did make the landing site seem a bit more like a home.
It is weird to think that this is set in our future, so the Ninth Pass is like thousands of years past that. Shame we don't improve as a species.
The next morning, Sallah and Barr get to start ferrying more people to the surface. We're told they have just enough fuel to get everyone and their baggage down to the surface, so they have to avoid waste. I personally feel like it's a bad idea to only bring enough fuel for a one way landing, but then I suppose the Pernese have never been a particularly prudent people.
There is some trouble in paradise: Kenjo apparently makes a disparaging comment about Sallah and Barr's fuel consumption.
“Kenjo never made an error in his life?” Barr asked of Sallah sometime later after the famous pilot had made a disparaging remark about the shuttle’s consumption of fuel during the trips made by the two women.
“That’s why he’s alive today,” Sallah replied. But his comment rankled. Though she knew that she had expended no more fuel than was absolutely necessary, she began keeping a private record of consumption on each of her trips. She noticed that Kenjo generally oversaw the Eujisan’s refueling and supervised its fifty-hour checks. She knew that she was a better than average pilot, in space or atmospheric craft, but she did not want to make waves with a hero pilot who had far more experience than she did — not unless she absolutely had to, and not without the ammunition of accurate records.
Of course, it couldn't possibly be that Sallah made a mistake or anything. McCaffrey's golden heroes never do that!
We end up switching viewpoints to Sorka Hanrahan. She was the little red haired girl that appeared in part one. She's impatient and excited. Her dad, by the way, is a veterinary surgeon and will be very important on Pern. But she's upset to see other kids going down first. Her brother, Brian, is in less of a hurry, since he'd made friends with some other children but their only sibling Sorcha's age is a brother, which makes her unhappy.
Apparently, she's got a lot of freedom on the Yokohama though. She gets to wander around pretty much anywhere except engineering or the bridge, as long as she doesn't interfere with the crew. Her favorite place is the garden. And admittedly, it sounds nice:
On her first long excursion, she had discovered the section of the ship where great broad-leafed plants arched over the ceiling, their branches intertwining to make green caves below. She loved the marvelous aroma of moist earth and green things, and felt no inhibition about taking deep lungfuls of air that left a clean, fresh taste at the back of her mouth. Beneath the giant bushes were all sorts, of herbs and smaller plants with tags on them, soon to be transported to the new world. She did not recognize most of the names, but she knew some of the herbs by their common names. Back at home her mother had kept an herb garden. Sorka knew which ones would leave their fragrances on her fingers and she daringly fingered the marjoram, then the tiny thyme leaves. Her eyes drank in the blues and pale yellows and pinks of the flowers that were in bloom, and she gazed curiously at the hundreds of racks of shoots in little tubes of water — nutrient fluids, her dad had told her — sprouted only a few months back, to be ready for planting once they reached Pern.
Sorcha's solitude is interrupted by a "pair of very blue eyes that no plant had ever sprouted", which is a weird turn of phrase. You generally can't see eyes without seeing at least SOME of the face around it, but okay. The owner of the eyes is a cranky little boy about her own age, who also happens to be Irish, just like her. He has long orange hair and his name is Sean Connell.
They bond over horses, and Sorcha realizes that Sean is one of the "traveling folk". Apparently there are a few on the trip. That is kind of interesting. You don't often hear of travelers or Roma in science fiction (though I suppose the Bardic Voices series implicitly featured Roma space travelers, since we eventually learn that it's set on a different planet). I suppose folks from an already nomadic culture would do well with traveling by ship.
There's a boarding call and Sorcha realizes that Sean is afraid to go down to the planet. And I have to admit, this is really cute. She urges him to pretend to be a space hero. He seems unconvinced, but stomps out anyway.
We skip ahead a few days, so all the essential personnel are on the surface. We're back with Sallah, and we hear about the delivery of delicate instruments, sperm and fertilized ova for the animals. The parent animals are okay, but the embryos are specifically adapted for hardiness and resistance and will hopefully be able to survive on Pern-grown food. The geneticist Kitti Ping, and her granddaughter, Wind Blossom, are there to fix up the next generations.
They've also found evidence of natural born egg layers. But the shells have a lot of boron, so the inhabitants might not be edible.
Sallah ends up running into the Hanrahans. And this is a bit weird:
Looking about, Sallah noticed the redheaded family seated at the far left. She waved, smiling brightly because the youngsters looked so glum.
“Gorgeous red hair, isn’t it?” Sallah said wistfully.
“Too unusual,” Avril Bitra said derisively.
“I dunno,” Drake remarked, staring at the party. “Makes a nice change.”
“She’s too young for you, Bonneau,” Avril said.
“I’m a patient man,” Drake countered, grinning because it was not often that he got a rise out of the sultry beauty. “I’ll know where to find her when she grows up.” He appeared to consider the prospect.
Of course, the boy is much too young for you, Avril. A full generation away.”
Avril gave him a long, disgusted look and, grabbing the wine carafe, stalked to the dispensers. Sallah exchanged glances with Barr. Avril was scheduled first the next morning, and the wind factors provided sufficient danger even without alcohol-blurred reactions. They both looked toward Nabol, her copilot, but he shrugged indifferently. Sallah hadn’t hoped for much support from the man. No one had much influence on Avril.
Because of COURSE, the Bitch-ra thinks a child's hair is "too unusual", AND is inclined to drink heavily. Of course.
Though, I'm not sure what to make about Drake being skeevy, even granted that he's apparently only doing it to get a rise out of the Bitch. But he means well, apparently:
“Hey, Avril, hold off on the sauce,” Drake began, rising to intercept her. “You did promise me a rematch in gravity ball. The court’ll be empty now.” His smile was challenging, and from where she sat Sallah could see his hand slide caressingly up Avril’s arm. The astrogator’s mouth assumed a less discontented line. “We’d best use it while we may,” he added, his smile deepening. Moving his arm up to her shoulders, he took the carafe from her hand and placed it on the nearest table as he guided her out of the mess hall without a backward look.
“Wow! Charm has its uses,” Barr said.
“Shall we see if it’s ball they’re playing in the grav court?” Nabol suggested, an unsettling glitter in his eyes.
It's interesting, and by interesting, I mean annoying, that the promiscuous woman is treated as The Worst, but the men sleeping with her are great guys. Also, Nabol is creepy. Of course. And OF COURSE, Sallah is uninterest in all of this and heads over to chat with the Hanrahans. Red and Mairi have important jobs, as noted, but are not immediately essential. They'll be going down soon.
They chat about Sallah's limited observations of the surface. And the next day, Mairi and Red actually beat Sallah to the shuttle, as Mairi is concerned with her dower chest and heirlooms. Apparently Sorcha had to reduce her toy horse collection to three, while Brian had to dismantle his ship models. It seems unfair that Mairi's dower chest takes up most of the weight, but I've never been from an heirloom-obsessed family.
So they land and it's quite exciting. Sorcha is amazed to be heavy again, since Yokohama had half-gravity. The Hanrahans are welcomed and pointed toward their facilities. We close out with Sallah and Barr and more technical stuff about fuel consumption. Apparently the numbers aren't adding up.
But when she had done that, she was not that much wiser. If they were saving so much fuel, then the level in the tanks should have been higher. Barr, who was enjoying a flirtation with one of the resource engineers, forgot her idle observation. But Sallah did not. During one of Kenjo’s drops, she did a bit of checking in the mainframe’s banks.
Fuel consumption was at acceptable levels in both of Yoko’s remaining tanks. Sallah computed in her average fuel consumption per trip plus an estimate of Kenjo’s, and came up with a total that should have left them with an extra two thousand liters of available fuel. She knocked off a percentage, based on consumption during her heavier trips, when drift and wind factors had required a higher expenditure of fuel. Once again she came up with a deficit figure, slightly lower than before but still higher than the amount available.
What good would it do anyone to hoard fuel? Avril? But Avril and Kenjo were not at all friendly. In fact, Avril had made snide remarks about Kenjo on several occasions, unacceptable ethnic-based slander. “Of course, if you wanted to put someone off the track . . .”Sallah murmured to herself.
...of course Avril's the evil one. Also racist apparently, despite the fact that she's the one with the Arabic grandparent. I'm not saying people of color can't be racist against other people of color, but it seems awfully convenient that in this mass of white people, the ONLY person who has made "unacceptable ethnic-based slander" is the woman with Arabic ancestry.
And honestly, while I do think hoarding resources is bad, it is awfully interesting that she seems to be able to siphon off so much fuel when supposedly it was calculated to meet the colonists needs exactly? Maybe someone needs to make the villains do the math...
Anyway, the chapter pretty much ends here. Fun world-building, not much to recap. See you later!
...I wonder if it's a coincidence that only the characters we're supposed to like seem particularly moved by this...
So we start out with some technical world-building, which is fun enough to read, but boring to recap. Basically teams are being sent down to set shit like landing strips, towers, and experimental farm sites. Everyone's very enthusiastic, while the folks still in orbit get a full view of the activity. Sallah and her co-pilot, Barr Hamill, are pretty excited.
We're told that the surface broadcasts will be primitive until commsats are set up on the two moons. So that's actually pretty interesting. I wonder if that shit's still up there. Sallah is feeling particularly nostalgic at the closing image:
The screen showed tired men and women seated around an immense campfire, eating an evening meal that had been prepared in a huge kettle from freeze-dried Terran vegetables and meats. In the failing light, the white strips of the runway grids and the wind sock having convulsions in the brisk breeze, were just barely visible. The planetary flag, so proudly displayed that morning, had wrapped itself around the pole above the control tower. Someone began to play softly on a harmonica, an old, old tune so familiar that Sallah couldn’t name it. Someone else joined in with a recorder. Softly and hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, the tired colonists began to sing or hum along. Other voices added harmony, and Sallah remembered that the song was called “Home on the Range.” There certainly had been no “discouraging words” that day. And the evening serenade did make the landing site seem a bit more like a home.
It is weird to think that this is set in our future, so the Ninth Pass is like thousands of years past that. Shame we don't improve as a species.
The next morning, Sallah and Barr get to start ferrying more people to the surface. We're told they have just enough fuel to get everyone and their baggage down to the surface, so they have to avoid waste. I personally feel like it's a bad idea to only bring enough fuel for a one way landing, but then I suppose the Pernese have never been a particularly prudent people.
There is some trouble in paradise: Kenjo apparently makes a disparaging comment about Sallah and Barr's fuel consumption.
“Kenjo never made an error in his life?” Barr asked of Sallah sometime later after the famous pilot had made a disparaging remark about the shuttle’s consumption of fuel during the trips made by the two women.
“That’s why he’s alive today,” Sallah replied. But his comment rankled. Though she knew that she had expended no more fuel than was absolutely necessary, she began keeping a private record of consumption on each of her trips. She noticed that Kenjo generally oversaw the Eujisan’s refueling and supervised its fifty-hour checks. She knew that she was a better than average pilot, in space or atmospheric craft, but she did not want to make waves with a hero pilot who had far more experience than she did — not unless she absolutely had to, and not without the ammunition of accurate records.
Of course, it couldn't possibly be that Sallah made a mistake or anything. McCaffrey's golden heroes never do that!
We end up switching viewpoints to Sorka Hanrahan. She was the little red haired girl that appeared in part one. She's impatient and excited. Her dad, by the way, is a veterinary surgeon and will be very important on Pern. But she's upset to see other kids going down first. Her brother, Brian, is in less of a hurry, since he'd made friends with some other children but their only sibling Sorcha's age is a brother, which makes her unhappy.
Apparently, she's got a lot of freedom on the Yokohama though. She gets to wander around pretty much anywhere except engineering or the bridge, as long as she doesn't interfere with the crew. Her favorite place is the garden. And admittedly, it sounds nice:
On her first long excursion, she had discovered the section of the ship where great broad-leafed plants arched over the ceiling, their branches intertwining to make green caves below. She loved the marvelous aroma of moist earth and green things, and felt no inhibition about taking deep lungfuls of air that left a clean, fresh taste at the back of her mouth. Beneath the giant bushes were all sorts, of herbs and smaller plants with tags on them, soon to be transported to the new world. She did not recognize most of the names, but she knew some of the herbs by their common names. Back at home her mother had kept an herb garden. Sorka knew which ones would leave their fragrances on her fingers and she daringly fingered the marjoram, then the tiny thyme leaves. Her eyes drank in the blues and pale yellows and pinks of the flowers that were in bloom, and she gazed curiously at the hundreds of racks of shoots in little tubes of water — nutrient fluids, her dad had told her — sprouted only a few months back, to be ready for planting once they reached Pern.
Sorcha's solitude is interrupted by a "pair of very blue eyes that no plant had ever sprouted", which is a weird turn of phrase. You generally can't see eyes without seeing at least SOME of the face around it, but okay. The owner of the eyes is a cranky little boy about her own age, who also happens to be Irish, just like her. He has long orange hair and his name is Sean Connell.
They bond over horses, and Sorcha realizes that Sean is one of the "traveling folk". Apparently there are a few on the trip. That is kind of interesting. You don't often hear of travelers or Roma in science fiction (though I suppose the Bardic Voices series implicitly featured Roma space travelers, since we eventually learn that it's set on a different planet). I suppose folks from an already nomadic culture would do well with traveling by ship.
There's a boarding call and Sorcha realizes that Sean is afraid to go down to the planet. And I have to admit, this is really cute. She urges him to pretend to be a space hero. He seems unconvinced, but stomps out anyway.
We skip ahead a few days, so all the essential personnel are on the surface. We're back with Sallah, and we hear about the delivery of delicate instruments, sperm and fertilized ova for the animals. The parent animals are okay, but the embryos are specifically adapted for hardiness and resistance and will hopefully be able to survive on Pern-grown food. The geneticist Kitti Ping, and her granddaughter, Wind Blossom, are there to fix up the next generations.
They've also found evidence of natural born egg layers. But the shells have a lot of boron, so the inhabitants might not be edible.
Sallah ends up running into the Hanrahans. And this is a bit weird:
Looking about, Sallah noticed the redheaded family seated at the far left. She waved, smiling brightly because the youngsters looked so glum.
“Gorgeous red hair, isn’t it?” Sallah said wistfully.
“Too unusual,” Avril Bitra said derisively.
“I dunno,” Drake remarked, staring at the party. “Makes a nice change.”
“She’s too young for you, Bonneau,” Avril said.
“I’m a patient man,” Drake countered, grinning because it was not often that he got a rise out of the sultry beauty. “I’ll know where to find her when she grows up.” He appeared to consider the prospect.
Of course, the boy is much too young for you, Avril. A full generation away.”
Avril gave him a long, disgusted look and, grabbing the wine carafe, stalked to the dispensers. Sallah exchanged glances with Barr. Avril was scheduled first the next morning, and the wind factors provided sufficient danger even without alcohol-blurred reactions. They both looked toward Nabol, her copilot, but he shrugged indifferently. Sallah hadn’t hoped for much support from the man. No one had much influence on Avril.
Because of COURSE, the Bitch-ra thinks a child's hair is "too unusual", AND is inclined to drink heavily. Of course.
Though, I'm not sure what to make about Drake being skeevy, even granted that he's apparently only doing it to get a rise out of the Bitch. But he means well, apparently:
“Hey, Avril, hold off on the sauce,” Drake began, rising to intercept her. “You did promise me a rematch in gravity ball. The court’ll be empty now.” His smile was challenging, and from where she sat Sallah could see his hand slide caressingly up Avril’s arm. The astrogator’s mouth assumed a less discontented line. “We’d best use it while we may,” he added, his smile deepening. Moving his arm up to her shoulders, he took the carafe from her hand and placed it on the nearest table as he guided her out of the mess hall without a backward look.
“Wow! Charm has its uses,” Barr said.
“Shall we see if it’s ball they’re playing in the grav court?” Nabol suggested, an unsettling glitter in his eyes.
It's interesting, and by interesting, I mean annoying, that the promiscuous woman is treated as The Worst, but the men sleeping with her are great guys. Also, Nabol is creepy. Of course. And OF COURSE, Sallah is uninterest in all of this and heads over to chat with the Hanrahans. Red and Mairi have important jobs, as noted, but are not immediately essential. They'll be going down soon.
They chat about Sallah's limited observations of the surface. And the next day, Mairi and Red actually beat Sallah to the shuttle, as Mairi is concerned with her dower chest and heirlooms. Apparently Sorcha had to reduce her toy horse collection to three, while Brian had to dismantle his ship models. It seems unfair that Mairi's dower chest takes up most of the weight, but I've never been from an heirloom-obsessed family.
So they land and it's quite exciting. Sorcha is amazed to be heavy again, since Yokohama had half-gravity. The Hanrahans are welcomed and pointed toward their facilities. We close out with Sallah and Barr and more technical stuff about fuel consumption. Apparently the numbers aren't adding up.
But when she had done that, she was not that much wiser. If they were saving so much fuel, then the level in the tanks should have been higher. Barr, who was enjoying a flirtation with one of the resource engineers, forgot her idle observation. But Sallah did not. During one of Kenjo’s drops, she did a bit of checking in the mainframe’s banks.
Fuel consumption was at acceptable levels in both of Yoko’s remaining tanks. Sallah computed in her average fuel consumption per trip plus an estimate of Kenjo’s, and came up with a total that should have left them with an extra two thousand liters of available fuel. She knocked off a percentage, based on consumption during her heavier trips, when drift and wind factors had required a higher expenditure of fuel. Once again she came up with a deficit figure, slightly lower than before but still higher than the amount available.
What good would it do anyone to hoard fuel? Avril? But Avril and Kenjo were not at all friendly. In fact, Avril had made snide remarks about Kenjo on several occasions, unacceptable ethnic-based slander. “Of course, if you wanted to put someone off the track . . .”Sallah murmured to herself.
...of course Avril's the evil one. Also racist apparently, despite the fact that she's the one with the Arabic grandparent. I'm not saying people of color can't be racist against other people of color, but it seems awfully convenient that in this mass of white people, the ONLY person who has made "unacceptable ethnic-based slander" is the woman with Arabic ancestry.
And honestly, while I do think hoarding resources is bad, it is awfully interesting that she seems to be able to siphon off so much fuel when supposedly it was calculated to meet the colonists needs exactly? Maybe someone needs to make the villains do the math...
Anyway, the chapter pretty much ends here. Fun world-building, not much to recap. See you later!
no subject
Date: 2023-01-14 05:50 pm (UTC)Also, they made a big point in the first chapter, that may not have fully registered, that this was a one way trip out to the colony plant... another part of that foreshadowing. I don't want to give it away so I'm trying not to get too detailed about it.... but even just reading your recaps are helping me remember the "I feel so stupid" moments I had when I first read this book.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-16 12:38 am (UTC)It is good to know that some of this is foreshadowing though. It's a little heavy handed, but I'm glad it has a point.
[timidly clears throat]
Date: 2023-01-15 07:10 pm (UTC)Or maybe she was just stuck in the stereotype of "sultry lady of foreign origins with a bad attitude" that made a popular villain in her day. For all the ground she broke, Mrs. McCaffrey was still a product of her time, and it can show in her romances, some character portrayals, and a few short stories. I mean, she was born in 1926 and grew up in unenlightened times, which is what she had to work with. I think all writers fall into similar traps if we don't check ourselves on a regular basis, actually. (Again, not excusing anything.)
However, in counterpoint to all this, when "Chronicles of Pern: First Fall" was published in 1993, Shavva was written as a competent, intelligent lady who got on well with her fellow scientists. So Avril's apple fell very, very far from that tree.
I don't mean to criticize, though, so I am sorry if I'm being too harsh.
= Multi-Facets.
Re: [timidly clears throat]
Date: 2023-01-16 12:35 am (UTC)I don't think Avril is intentionally an anti-Islamic stereotype. I do think she's an exotified evil-sexy stereotype that often gets associated with "the Orient". When it's an East Asian character, we might call her a "Dragon Lady", but it also pops up for the Middle East. It's the kind of stereotype that I don't think folks consciously thought about at the time, but still was pervasive in media and ultimately harmful.
And of course, as we know, I have issues with McCaffrey's general of subtlety when it comes to 90% of the heroes and villains in this series. I honestly think the last and only characters that she's given any sort of complexity, moral wise, are F'lar and Lessa. And that's kind of annoying, because it's proof that she CAN write more layered characters if she wants.
I suppose it's a little better than the Talent series (one of the only times I will EVER say that...), in that the characters that we're supposed to dislike actually do bad things. I'm still not sure why exactly poor Jeran Gwyn-Raven was supposed to be unlikeable. The poor guy would just show up and say something reasonable, if a bit uptight, and everyone else would be all "Ugh, that guy..."
I'm glad Shavva gets to be a more likeable character. I'll get there eventually. :-)
Re: [timidly clears throat]
Date: 2023-01-16 05:41 pm (UTC)I do think you'll like Shavva and her coworkers. Their circumstances make for an impressive "Oh. OH," moment related to something you commented on earlier. :-)
As for Jeran, I'm not sure. My guess is he's just stiff and it can rub people the wrong way. Like "Wow, that's Deneb Prime? Why's he so formal?" And there's the complaints of the Gywn-Raven-Lyon clan having too much power in FT&T, so it could also be "Oh, great, another one of that family."
= Multi-Facets.
Sorry, there's a rant in this one. I'm like that...
Date: 2023-01-16 06:24 pm (UTC)I'm going to disagree though on whether or not she could have used a lighter hand. (Sorry, rant incoming! :-D)
PLENTY of writers, even writers who aren't half the craftsman that McCaffrey is, are able to write adversarial characters without making them cartoons. No human being is 100% nasty, petty, terrible. They have good and bad traits. Someone who is awful to strangers might be good to their family, or have legitimate reasons (they think) for what they do.
I don't know enough about Bitra, yet, so I can't say how McCaffrey could have done better. But we can take OTHER McCaffrey adversarial characters and look at ways they could accomplish the same role in the story but with a more human element:
Tolocamp, for example, could have GENUINELY feared for the sake of his Hold under his inexperienced son's control, intended to bring his wife and daughters home (only to have his wife refuse, but maybe one of the daughters could have come back with him). He didn't have to marry Anella. Or heck, he could have married Anella out of worries about succession candidates...maybe some of his children back home could have also gotten the plague. He could have chosen not to share the medicine with the other Holds out of necessity, but still taken care of his own people rather than leave them to the winds. Nerilka could still be frustrated by his "Fort Hold first" mentality and leave.
Anella's an easy one. I pointed out a lot of ways that Anella COULD be sympathetic in my reviews. If she bothered with ANY of them, we could have had a character that was adversarial to Nerilka but human.
Pona could have been a decent musician frustrated by her lack of opportunities within Harper Hall as only a Holder's daughter and resent the extra training that Menolly obtained, and still acted out against her.
Meron could have been a competent Lord Holder, or a good father, even while he was opposed to the Weyrs. And don't get me started on what she did with Menolly's parents or Jaxom's foster brother.
My issue with McCaffrey is that it's almost never enough for her to write an adversarial character, that character must be the WORST in every way in a way that makes future plot twists incredibly transparent. Bitra's a villain, I can see that now. Exactly what she will do, I don't know. But because she's a villain, she's also promiscuous, scheming, and a drunk. She hates kids. She has no sentimental feelings about Pern. And the one-sidedness is very obvious when we look at Paul Benden. Benden and Bitra had a relationship, but it's all about how Benden had a moment of weakness and escaped her scheming clutches. He's heroic, she's evil, but it takes two to tango. We don't even get a moment where Benden thinks something like "for all her calculation, Avril was a passionate and considerate lover" or something like that, that would at least suggest she has SOME positive traits somewhere. (This also weakens Benden, because it makes him look like someone who bangs a much younger woman simply because she's physically attractive. It would actually make him look much better if McCaffrey actually told us what it was about Bitra that made her worth the relationship in the first place.)
I bitch because McCaffrey HAS occasionally done better, which shows me she can do it. Groghe was an obstacle to F'lar in Dragonquest, but a friend to Menolly in Dragonsinger. He's got views and goals different from the Weyr, but focused on the wellbeing of his people. Toric is competent and driven, earning the respect of F'lar and Lessa, even when he goes against Jaxom, and actually is somewhat friendly to the Harpers in Dragondrums. Even Kylara in Dragonflight (before her demonization in 'Quest) was recognized as a competent Weyrwoman. Heck, you could make the argument that Lessa in Dragonquest is an adversarial character, because of her heavy handed plans to fix Brekke and her manipulation of F'nor to go to the Red Star. But we know Lessa and understand how her ruthlessness works.
McCaffrey could absolutely create adversaries who are not cartoon characters when she wanted to. But a lot of time she didn't bother, and the stories suffer for it.
Re: Sorry, there's a rant in this one. I'm like that...
Date: 2023-01-17 12:54 am (UTC)= Multi-Facets.
Re: Sorry, there's a rant in this one. I'm like that...
Date: 2023-01-17 01:32 am (UTC)I think you're probably right about that. The Talent series, I think, runs a little lighter. My annoyance about Jeran aside, most of the characters get to have a little bit more in the way of nuance. But there's definitely still fuel for bitching.
The Ship series might count, but I think most of those tend to be primarily written by the co-writer. The Ship Who Searched, for example, reads a LOT more like Lackey than McCaffrey. The City Who Fought reads like Stirling. Hm. Gonna have to think about it.
Re: Sorry, there's a rant in this one. I'm like that...
Date: 2023-01-18 06:23 pm (UTC)Did you know the Ship books and the "Crystal Singer" books wound up in the same universe? A brainship takes Killashandra on a field mission in the third novel, "Crystal Line."
= Multi-Facets.
Re: Sorry, there's a rant in this one. I'm like that...
Date: 2023-01-19 01:26 am (UTC)