Chronicles of Pern: First Fall - Introduction and Survey: PERN(c)

[kalinara]

So I figured I've taken a long enough break from Pern that it might be fun to get back to it. Also I realized that Masterharper of Pern is happily not the next one on the list. A reprieve!

Chronicles of Pern is actually a collection of short stories though and I've never actually tried to review one of those on this blog. Not really sure how it's going to work. But we can give it a shot.

I haven't actually read any of these stories before. Some of them may have been published earlier but I feel like if I tried to weave in all of the short stories by publication date I'd lose my mind. So we're going by the book publication date instead. Woo.

On the plus side, no standard intro for this book!



So the first story is "The Survey: P.E.R.N c".

And it appears to be about the survey team who originally discovered Pern. There's a dude named Castor and a lady named Shavva. Another dude named Ben.

Shavva, if I recall correctly, is the grandmother of the infamously wicked (long before she ever even DID anything wicked) Avril Bitra. So that should be fun. I wonder if she'll be treated any more fairly.

I'm not really sure how to handle excerpts when it comes to a short story, so this might just be a running summary. We'll see.

So their target is, as we know already, the third planet in this "pernicious system". Hah, pun unintended, I'm sure. Shavva is a little sad that they can't take a look at the "heavy-weight planets" in the system. Or the Oort cloud. But "the slingshot" will only give them ten days on the surface of the planet.

I guess that's a good enough reason for the survey team to have somehow missed the entire existence of Thread.

Castor seems to be the leader and he notes that they'll have to "double up again", something that Ben and Shavva seem less enthused about. We're told that they lost two members of their team (a medic and a zoologist) on their last scouting mission. They lost a different zoologist before that. AND they lost an archeologist on a world before that, where Castor apparently was injured.

I'm personally starting to wonder if these guys are just really bad at their jobs.

We also learn a bit more about the acronyms they use for their planets: DE for Dead End (that was for the planet that killed two of them.) ILF indicated a planet with some intelligent life. GOLDI means "good only for large diversified interest". LA means "lethal, avoid!"

Apparently these guys have only been together for five missions, so yeah, I think maybe this isn't your calling. You're down to four. Though we've only seen three so far.

Anyway, they've lost some teammates, but Castor - whose compound fractures haven't quite healed yet - thinks they can handle the geology, biology and chemistry. I'm thinking you guys can't handle shit.


Anyway, they can't do the "usual in-depth analysis on all the biota" but they can find landing sites, regular or serious meteoric impacts, gross geological changes and dominant major life forms.

The last person is "Mo Tan Liu", who has a gentle voice. He suggests sending probes. Apparently they've got probes to spare.

We also learn that they work for "Federated Sentient Planets". Which is interesting because that implies that Pern is in the same universe as some of McCaffrey's other stories - the brainships and the crystal singer series, for example. Which means, if we take Pern's timeline into account, 9th Pass Pern is a good few thousand years after those series. I wonder if the FSP still exists.

Could Helva visit Pern? Poor Helva. I'd like to spare her that.

Oh, okay, maybe I will share an excerpt:

“We’re in a good trajectory to send off a homer, too,” Liu added. “Federated Sentient Planets ought to know about the D.E. condition of Flora Asturias.” Following the bizarre and perhaps macabre practice of the Exploration and Evaluation Corps, they had named the last planet after the team personnel lost during that surface survey. “We are obliged to report those and that L.A. immediately.”

“All right, all right,” Castor said irritably.

“Shall I do the report?” Shavva asked.

“I did it,” Castor replied in a tone that ended discussion. He called up the program, and when the copy was ready, he rolled it up into a tube to be inserted in the homing capsule. It would reach their mother ship some weeks before their projected return. “They will want to know we’ve discovered another Oort cloud, too. Is it five or six?”

I gotta say these guys seem really cold about the loss of their teammates.

Interestingly there's a mention of "number four system" being dead. And this description is interesting:

“Can’t prove the Oort cloud affected it in any way. Besides,” Ben went on, “the planet was bombarded by meteors and meteorites, to judge by the craters and the craterites. Shattered the surface and boiled off a good deal of the major oceans. Just like Shaula Three. That system had an Oort cloud, too.”

“But it had once supported life. We all saw the fossil remains in the cliff faces,” Castor said.

“Like a road sign: Life was here, it has gone hence.” Shavva had been depressed by the landing. Ten days on a dead world had been nine and a half too many. The atmosphere was barely adequate; to be on the safe side, they’d used support systems. A rough estimate suggested that the damage had been done close to a millennium earlier. “At the beginning of Earth’s Dark Age, this planet had found the final one.”

They start talking about a theory about space viruses. Ben doesn't believe in it, not when a planet is covered with city-sized craters. It'd be overkill.

Apparently stripped planets are kind of a thing here and the planet Asturias matches up with the other ones. Liu suggests that they'd really need to see a planet in the process of being stripped. Quite unlikely, though.

Or is it? I remember reading a very interesting fan theory that suggested that the planet destroyers in the Acorna series might be connected to Thread - with Thread basically being the larval form. I've never read Acorna, so I don't know if that takes place in the same setting but I do love that kind of connection.

I'm still a little shaky on the command structure here:

Liu shrugged. “Something does it. Anyway, I feel that the virus theory would be the rarest probability, while meteors are common, common, common. Look at what happened in our Earth’s Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. We were just lucky! Probes away, Captain,” he said formally to Castor. “Now, I’m for something to eat, then I’ll pack the shuttle for the shot.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Shavva said. “I want to be sure we got what we need this time,” she added in a low, angry voice, bitterly aware that it had been Flora’s own negligence that had cost those two lives. Shavva was now the default leader of this understaffed team, and she was determined not to repeat previous mistakes.

They seem to be following Castor's orders here. But Shavva is the default leader of the team? Then why is Liu calling Castor captain? I may be questioning things too soon though.

We get a run down of the team. Shavva is a biologist with "latent qualities as a nexialist", whatever the fuck that means.

Apparently, according to a tripod.com site (I didn't even know tripod still existed as a domain, to be honest), the term was coined by A.E. Van Vogt and means someone "skilled in the science of joining together in an orderly fashion the knowledge of one field of learning with that of other fields."

That sounds very buzzwordy to me, but maybe context will help. Also I don't know how you can be a "latent" version of any scientist, but okay.

Anyway, she joined for the diversity of duty and the thrill of being the first human to walk on unexplored planets. But she didn't count on losing friends. We're told that EEC teams develop very close bonds.

I mean, if you say so. Given that no one seems that broken up by all the dead people, and Shavva had just finished blaming poor Flora for everything, I'm skeptical of this. But okay. Anyway, Shavva, Liu and Ben will be the ones doing the fieldwork, since Castor is still injured.

Shavva will double as botanist. Fortunately, we're told, she learned enough from Flora to be able to determine a lot about the plant life. I mean, you just told us that Flora got two of you killed, so I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with that. But okay.

I'm kind of being mean to Shavva here, but she seems to have that McCaffrey style "chip on her shoulder" thing that Sallah had. Namely, she's bitter about something, but I don't know her well enough as a character to understand why. She's clearly meant to be our viewpoint character though.

Ben, we're told, is the geologist with a background in chemistry. Liu is the nexialist and can investigate everything else.

Liu reads off info about the planet specifically to Castor, which still makes him sound like the leader. Maybe Shavva meant she'll be in charge once they're on planet?

Now, the story decides the characters do care about their dead comrades, which is a plus, I suppose. Shavva "fervently regret[s] the missing Flora Neveshan" and her "years of experience as a xenobiologist."

Castor, we're told, will "forever fault himself for the deaths of Asturias and Neveshan", because he was the experienced climber, but his injury had kept him off planet.

Aw, I guess I do feel for the guy a little.

--

So they set down on the eastern part of the southern hemisphere. They like the air. Shavva feels an instant kinship with the place and decides she very much wants it to check out as habitable, though she admits that its resemblance to "old Earth" could be deceptive.

There's a cute moment where Liu pokes the dirt and notes that it feels like dirt. Ben calls it "the empirical test" and maybe I judged them too soon, because they have a good vibe.

So we get a lot of details about their studies. Dirt, vegetation, rock samples, marine life, algae and fungi, When they set up camp, they muse about the fauna. Shavva feels strangely defensive of the planet, but she has this feeling of "coming home" here.

Of course she does. All the good characters like the author's weird annoying paradise planet.

The next day, they visit the ice cap, taking samples. Then they go north, which is "winter-held" and Liu is paranoid about the lack of larger life forms. The only larger creatures they've seen so far are what they describe as "airborne barges" - and Liu names them wherries. We've seen those in the series proper!

They also find egg shells. Implicitly fire lizards. And some interesting fossils that might be the ruminants Liu wanted.

Oh, and we find the gemstones that Avril became obsessed with. We're told that the team keeps several as souvenirs, but they're not particularly valuable otherwise as the galaxy had produced many more exotic gemstones.

...so basically Avril was evil for no reason at all? I suppose that there might be a gemstone shortage between now and her generation that would explain why she'd be willing to take a one way trip for her grandmother's pretty stones. But it definitely seems silly based on this.

They keep studying, spotting "large herpetoids of truly revolting appearance." And indeed, they sound pretty gross:

“I’ve seen uglier ones,” Ben remarked, examining at a safe distance one horny monster, seven centimeters broad and five high, which waved tentacles and claws in an aggressive manner. They could discern neither mouth nor eyes. The olfactor gave a stench reading; and the creature’s back was covered with insectoid forms.

“External digestive system?” Shavva suggested, peering at the thing. “And—wow!”

The creature had sped forward suddenly, its nether end now covered with tiny barbs. At the same time, the olfactor reading went off the scale, and a repellent stench filled the little clearing.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to be. I probably should pay more attention to Pern's animal population when I read.

They keep sending samples up to Castor, who has not yet sent any analyses back down. I'm realizing that the story hasn't told us what HE does.

Lieu also finds some luminous fungi in a cave but Shavva vetoes going back in at night. They don't have spelunking equipment.

Oh, neat, I think we do see fire lizards here:

Later that night they were all enticed from their camp by the sound of cheeping and chittering. Parting the lush foliage that surrounded them, they peered out at an astonishing scene. Graceful creatures, totally different from the awkward avians seen in the southern hemisphere, were performing aerial acrobatics of astonishing complexity. The setting sun sparkled off green, blue, brown, bronze, and golden backs, and translucent wings glistened like airborne jewels.

They observe that the creatures are clearly playing a game, and muse about their possible sentience. (Liu theorizes that it's marginal, since they leave eggs on a shoreline where they can be washed away.)

Poor fire lizards, always disrespected.

They head farther north - we're told the norther hemisphere is in winter right now. They find pretty adequate deposits of metals, but not enough to intrigue a mining consortium. There's even gold in the streams. Shavva pockets a drop as "her loot". They also discover some bark that is surprisingly tasty as an infusion, which tastes like a combination of coffee and chocolate with a spicy aftertaste. Klah, I presume. Now we know what it tastes like.

Shavva even saves some for Castor as a treat.

So we're told they finish the trek and head back, kind of sorry to leave the place, but happy there's no accidents. They are happy to let Castor label it P.E.R.N - meaning "parallel Earth, resources negligible" and he adds a C for "suitable for colonization."

That is, of course, if anyone would want to settle on a pastoral planet, far away from established trade routes and as far from the FSP headquarters as one could get in the known galaxy.

Well. We know how that goes.

--

So I guess I can review the stories individually. Since I'm likely to forget details if I wait.

I didn't dislike this story, but I'm also not really sure why it needed to be written at all. It's basically just a travelogue of pre-settlement Pern. We see wherries and fire lizards, klah and the glowy spore things that they use for light. I suspect if I paid more attention to the inanimate objects of Pern I'd probably recognize a lot more.

But the characters aren't very interesting. The group dynamic is not clearly defined. And no one's really got enough individuality to be notable. There are flashes that could be developed into something interesting: Shavva saying that Flora's at fault for two deaths, Castor's guilt - but it's gone in a flash.

Supposedly this is a close knit group, but except maybe for Ben trying to cheer up Castor that one time, or the joke about dirt, there isn't a real sense of camaraderie or companionship.

And there really isn't a plot either. I get that they can't discover Thread or anything too dangerous that would scare future colonists away from the place, but there could be SOME kind of suspense. Here, they just visit some sites, take samples and go.

I'm reminded of my common complaint about Dragonsinger: it's a paragraph in a better novel. But at least there was something in Dragonsinger to get annoyed about. This doesn't even have that. We got as much from the two sentences that explained why Avril knew there were gemstones on this planet as we did in this story.

But the bit about stripped planets did make me curious about other aspects of the FSP, and possibly the Acorna series, so I guess it's not a huge loss. And it isn't bad, per se, it's just pretty substance-free.

Miscellaneous note, according to some reddit post I wandered on while trying to verify if Acorna took place in the FSP universe, I learned that there was an uncompleted manuscript called "After the Fall is Over" where F'lar and Lessa and company get to make contact again with the FSP - so I guess they're still around. At least in theory. Neat!

Comments

And thar it be.

[multi_facets]

Everyone was understaffed, overworked, short on time, probably had to compartmentalize like whoa, and whatever they were being paid (hazard included) clearly wasn't enough. And they might've been tired as hell, since who knows how long they've been surveying. The story doesn't explicitly say. I wonder if they made it back to their homeworlds before retirement.

Conditions like that, it's unsurprising everything became a mess. :-/

Re: And thar it be.

[kalinara]

You're not wrong. I feel like it might have been better if the story showed us more of the mess, rather than this quiet but sadly plotless aftermath.

I think Shavva at least made it home. Or somewhere she considered home, since she does end up with a granddaughter. It might be interesting to reread those early sections of Dragonsdawn with a better idea of who Shavva was.