I got Anne McCaffrey’s The Skies of Pern out of the library because, while I no longer like the books enough to buy them, I’m still vaguely interested in what’s going on with the world. I mean, I read (counts on fingers) about ten of the things all in a row when I was younger, and while a lot of the content now bothers me, I still feel some attachment to the world.
Alas, this latest book suggests that I shouldn’t bother reading them anymore, I should just find spoilers somewhere. The prose and the tell-don’t-show characters combined to leave me completely unengaged in the story, and the plot is very oddly paced. Also, I really don’t believe that in the hundreds of years since dragons have existed on Pern, a situation similar to the one in the book hasn’t come up.
Anyway. I got it out of the library, so I shall not regret the time spent; I just won’t read books about new events on Pern, as well as old ones (I skipped The Masterharper of Pern because how many times can one really read about the same events?).
Kate, what about the content of the Pern books bothers you? The only books I’ve read are the Harperhall trilogy, Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon, and Dragonsdawn.
My biggest problem is the romanticization of rape in the early novels.