Chronicles of Pern: First Fall - Verdict
Jun. 3rd, 2026 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo that was my first short story collection for this blog. It's interesting. I definitely think, if I'm going to do this again (there are a lot of Vampire Files short stories worth reviewing), I'll need to refine my techniques. Some of these stories are much longer than individual chapters for one.
Overall, the book was enjoyable. I do have opinions about each story.
I'm going to cut for spoilers, particularly of Rescue Run.
The Survey P.E.R.N.(c):
This was the weakest in the collection for me. I really hoped for more. Especially since we were meeting the infamous grandmother of Avril. I really wish she had more presence. And honestly, most of the characters were not particularly memorable.
There was not plot either. Everything actually exciting apparently happened before they got to Pern. We got to see some familiar sights, but that's about it. Before this story, Pern's survey team was a paragraph in a better book. And honestly, there was nothing in this story that had any more substance than that. A miss for me.
The Dolphin's Bell:
I liked this one. It's not my finest review. Unfortunately, this story and Rescue Run are long and I think my stamina didn't quite meet the challenge. But the story itself was good. We had a very likable protagonist in Jim Tillek. We had challenges. We had excitement. We had a goal. We had dolphins!
The romance was sweet. Theo, as a character, was somewhat bland, but not offensively so. I liked her dynamic with Tillek and it was nice to see a rare, non-skeevy romance in this series.
The Ford of Red Hanrahan:
This is another one where I'm not really sure there was a real plot here. But that said, Red Hanrahan is a much stronger character than anyone in Survey. Sean's appearance was pretty good. We got the origin of the Reneesme style names of the setting. And while I thought the Ruatha reveal stretched out too long, it wasn't bad.
I definitely want to reread earlier books and pay attention to the Hold's door now.
Second Weyr:
This one was a little frustrating. I didn't hate it. Torene's a good character. But I felt like this should have been a generation or two later.
We're seeing the origin of innovations/traditions before they make sense. And that's annoying. Like the apostrophe names. They make sense if we look at names like Ezramil. The Reneesme type names we're going to see on Pern are long and cumbersome. Shortening them makes complete sense.
The problem is, we don't HAVE those names yet. Everyone in this generation has "normal" names. Names that are relatively short and don't compress. D'vid and David are fundamentally the same name. Try to say the first outloud and you'll basically get the second, or at least a version with the same amount of syllables. And M'hall as a nickname for Michael is silly when you could just say "Mike". The girls get shortened first names (a trend that does NOT last until modern day Pern), so why exactly are the men different? "Dave" makes more sense.
The ridiculous sexism of the Weyrs too, sort of make sense a few generations down the line. When the population has dropped so low they need to prioritize breeding. But we're not even a generation out from Emily Boll. Sorka is willing to let Sean lead, sure, but you can't tell me there isn't ONE leadership-minded female character? TORENE was perfectly competent to be Weyrleader in her own right, and we saw far more indicator of her ability than we ever got with M'hall.
(It is rather interesting that, implicitly, it's F'lar rather than Lessa who has Hears All Dragons in his ancestry.)
I still think the Sorka NOT having HAD is a retcon. She definitely seemed to reply to Carenath in Dragonsdawn, but I'll let it go.
It's not that I think it's an unrealistic direction for people to go, but I think there needs to be more time. Even if Sorka doesn't want to lead herself, I find it hard to believe a woman who knew Emily or even, much as I hate her, Sallah Telgar, would not suggest that some women could run things in their own right.
So I guess this one was so-so.
Rescue Run:
This was the best story of the bunch but also the most frustrating. The McCaffrey-isms are bright and bold.
The problem is the same one as in Dragonsdawn and Renegades of Pern really. McCaffrey has decided who the villain is and refuses to allow her characters to be remotely fooled for a moment. Even though, objectively speaking, there is nothing to indicate that these people are evil.
I suppose I should be fairer. There are definitely points where Stev is off-putting, and unlike Avril, we do at least get moments that the characters are reacting to. But we also get our heroes making bizarre allegations out of nowhere, that have no relation to anything we've seen.
"Is Stev stupid enough to sleep with his daughters?" There is NOTHING to imply that. There is incest between half-siblings, admittedly. And Stev, eventually, is revealed to have raped his step-daughter. But it isn't something we had any reason to believe at the start.
"Stev actually tried to get his stepsons killed" - the stepsons clearly don't like him. But it's also indicated that they were children when Stev moved in with Ito. I'm sure the impression we're supposed to get is that he was the freeloader, and she raised the kids. But they still have skills he taught them. He still kept them alive when they were much younger. And there's really no reason that these hale men in their fifties couldn't overpower a 90 year old.
It made it very hard to like our actual lead characters when we see them immediately judge a man for calling for help (see the beacon before they ever meet the people), being "pompous" and "cowardly" when all they know is that he's kept eleven people alive for decades. Yes, in the eleventh hour, they turn out to be right. But wouldn't it have been a much better surprise if they actually were fooled by Stev?
What if they did believe Stev was a fundamentally decent person? What if they thought "okay, he's abrasive, but he's been the father figure of this group for decades and isn't used to being challenged." "Okay, he's traumatized, because of decades alone with a wife and small children who grew up to resent him." And then we could work in the surprises as we go.
As it is, they also look stupid. They know the women are planning something. They know Stev and the women are all weighing themselves down. And how did they not realize the shuttle was overweight before liftoff, do they not have ways to tell?
But the suspense was good. The confrontation was exciting. I'm still worried about Chio, whose depression plotline is immediately dropped once Kimmer dies. Which, I guess makes some sense given what we find out about him, but does leave the fire lizard thread hanging. Can people just "let their fire lizards go"? (I personally like the thought that it teleported on the ship to come with her. But then, fire lizards are immortal, what would happen when she dies...CAN it teleport Between back to Pern???)
I do like the lingering mysteries. Did Kimmer commit suicide or not? Did he know about the other people on Pern or not?
So yeah, overall, it wasn't a bad story. I just wish McCaffrey were less heavy handed. Let the heroes be fooled. Or you could probably even let them have some misgivings but brush them away "oh, the guy's been traumatized, of course he's a little weird." Have ONE of the heroes suspect the villain, and have the rest decide to give him a chance.
I will grant that Kimmer did get to be competent at least. At least until the end. Even if he's a mining specialist and not a spacer, he spent a shit ton of time on a spaceship and should know how fucking weight works. But fine, whatever.
I'm still waving my "Justice for Ted Tubberman" flag, by the way. After all that fuss, it took fifty years for rescue to come, they had no intention of pulling unwilling people off the planet, and just wanted to know what was going on. Totally worth exiling a grieving father for. Fuck all y'all.
Overall, the book was enjoyable. I do have opinions about each story.
I'm going to cut for spoilers, particularly of Rescue Run.
The Survey P.E.R.N.(c):
This was the weakest in the collection for me. I really hoped for more. Especially since we were meeting the infamous grandmother of Avril. I really wish she had more presence. And honestly, most of the characters were not particularly memorable.
There was not plot either. Everything actually exciting apparently happened before they got to Pern. We got to see some familiar sights, but that's about it. Before this story, Pern's survey team was a paragraph in a better book. And honestly, there was nothing in this story that had any more substance than that. A miss for me.
The Dolphin's Bell:
I liked this one. It's not my finest review. Unfortunately, this story and Rescue Run are long and I think my stamina didn't quite meet the challenge. But the story itself was good. We had a very likable protagonist in Jim Tillek. We had challenges. We had excitement. We had a goal. We had dolphins!
The romance was sweet. Theo, as a character, was somewhat bland, but not offensively so. I liked her dynamic with Tillek and it was nice to see a rare, non-skeevy romance in this series.
The Ford of Red Hanrahan:
This is another one where I'm not really sure there was a real plot here. But that said, Red Hanrahan is a much stronger character than anyone in Survey. Sean's appearance was pretty good. We got the origin of the Reneesme style names of the setting. And while I thought the Ruatha reveal stretched out too long, it wasn't bad.
I definitely want to reread earlier books and pay attention to the Hold's door now.
Second Weyr:
This one was a little frustrating. I didn't hate it. Torene's a good character. But I felt like this should have been a generation or two later.
We're seeing the origin of innovations/traditions before they make sense. And that's annoying. Like the apostrophe names. They make sense if we look at names like Ezramil. The Reneesme type names we're going to see on Pern are long and cumbersome. Shortening them makes complete sense.
The problem is, we don't HAVE those names yet. Everyone in this generation has "normal" names. Names that are relatively short and don't compress. D'vid and David are fundamentally the same name. Try to say the first outloud and you'll basically get the second, or at least a version with the same amount of syllables. And M'hall as a nickname for Michael is silly when you could just say "Mike". The girls get shortened first names (a trend that does NOT last until modern day Pern), so why exactly are the men different? "Dave" makes more sense.
The ridiculous sexism of the Weyrs too, sort of make sense a few generations down the line. When the population has dropped so low they need to prioritize breeding. But we're not even a generation out from Emily Boll. Sorka is willing to let Sean lead, sure, but you can't tell me there isn't ONE leadership-minded female character? TORENE was perfectly competent to be Weyrleader in her own right, and we saw far more indicator of her ability than we ever got with M'hall.
(It is rather interesting that, implicitly, it's F'lar rather than Lessa who has Hears All Dragons in his ancestry.)
I still think the Sorka NOT having HAD is a retcon. She definitely seemed to reply to Carenath in Dragonsdawn, but I'll let it go.
It's not that I think it's an unrealistic direction for people to go, but I think there needs to be more time. Even if Sorka doesn't want to lead herself, I find it hard to believe a woman who knew Emily or even, much as I hate her, Sallah Telgar, would not suggest that some women could run things in their own right.
So I guess this one was so-so.
Rescue Run:
This was the best story of the bunch but also the most frustrating. The McCaffrey-isms are bright and bold.
The problem is the same one as in Dragonsdawn and Renegades of Pern really. McCaffrey has decided who the villain is and refuses to allow her characters to be remotely fooled for a moment. Even though, objectively speaking, there is nothing to indicate that these people are evil.
I suppose I should be fairer. There are definitely points where Stev is off-putting, and unlike Avril, we do at least get moments that the characters are reacting to. But we also get our heroes making bizarre allegations out of nowhere, that have no relation to anything we've seen.
"Is Stev stupid enough to sleep with his daughters?" There is NOTHING to imply that. There is incest between half-siblings, admittedly. And Stev, eventually, is revealed to have raped his step-daughter. But it isn't something we had any reason to believe at the start.
"Stev actually tried to get his stepsons killed" - the stepsons clearly don't like him. But it's also indicated that they were children when Stev moved in with Ito. I'm sure the impression we're supposed to get is that he was the freeloader, and she raised the kids. But they still have skills he taught them. He still kept them alive when they were much younger. And there's really no reason that these hale men in their fifties couldn't overpower a 90 year old.
It made it very hard to like our actual lead characters when we see them immediately judge a man for calling for help (see the beacon before they ever meet the people), being "pompous" and "cowardly" when all they know is that he's kept eleven people alive for decades. Yes, in the eleventh hour, they turn out to be right. But wouldn't it have been a much better surprise if they actually were fooled by Stev?
What if they did believe Stev was a fundamentally decent person? What if they thought "okay, he's abrasive, but he's been the father figure of this group for decades and isn't used to being challenged." "Okay, he's traumatized, because of decades alone with a wife and small children who grew up to resent him." And then we could work in the surprises as we go.
As it is, they also look stupid. They know the women are planning something. They know Stev and the women are all weighing themselves down. And how did they not realize the shuttle was overweight before liftoff, do they not have ways to tell?
But the suspense was good. The confrontation was exciting. I'm still worried about Chio, whose depression plotline is immediately dropped once Kimmer dies. Which, I guess makes some sense given what we find out about him, but does leave the fire lizard thread hanging. Can people just "let their fire lizards go"? (I personally like the thought that it teleported on the ship to come with her. But then, fire lizards are immortal, what would happen when she dies...CAN it teleport Between back to Pern???)
I do like the lingering mysteries. Did Kimmer commit suicide or not? Did he know about the other people on Pern or not?
So yeah, overall, it wasn't a bad story. I just wish McCaffrey were less heavy handed. Let the heroes be fooled. Or you could probably even let them have some misgivings but brush them away "oh, the guy's been traumatized, of course he's a little weird." Have ONE of the heroes suspect the villain, and have the rest decide to give him a chance.
I will grant that Kimmer did get to be competent at least. At least until the end. Even if he's a mining specialist and not a spacer, he spent a shit ton of time on a spaceship and should know how fucking weight works. But fine, whatever.
I'm still waving my "Justice for Ted Tubberman" flag, by the way. After all that fuss, it took fifty years for rescue to come, they had no intention of pulling unwilling people off the planet, and just wanted to know what was going on. Totally worth exiling a grieving father for. Fuck all y'all.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-04 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-06-04 07:25 pm (UTC)It was fine for Lessa, who needed every edge she could get. And Aramina was a fascinating take that McCaffrey never really bothered to explore. But for Brekke and Torene, it basically seemed to be both a "look how special this character is" mark without really adding anything meaningful to the story.
At least with Torene, she had an actual personality and traits, so it was a little less irritating. But I don't really mind being retroactively wrong about Sorka. :-D
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 04:28 pm (UTC).... maybe I do need to buy a Ouija board.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 04:58 pm (UTC)That said there is precedence for dragons talking to people who aren't their riders when they want, so it's a soft retcon rather than a major one.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 01:21 am (UTC)Anyway, a lot of the sexual and leadership dynamics of the weyrs are distorted in the official canon novels because they all generally take place during or in the last year or three before the start of Threadfall. In the extra-canonical (is that even a word) books, primarily The Dragonlovers Guide to Pern, things were explained a bit more. Also in the "Dragondex" that was in the back of a couple of the paperback editions of Dragonflight and Dragonquest. It basically boils down to during a Pass, principal leadership is held by the weyrleader; however, during the intervals between passes leadership is primarily controlled by the Weyrwoman in order to be certain of the continuance and longevity of the dragons. A lot of things were expanded by Anne in the offical fan club Ista 9 and during the early Pern programming tracks at DragonCon back in the day.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 05:06 pm (UTC)And then there's the Alexander the Great issue. A gay man with leadership potential will either never lead or be forced into compulsory heterosexuality.