Subject: _The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall_ by Anne McCaffrey

From: [email-masked] (Michael Scott Shappe)
Date: 23 Oct 93 21:24:36 GMT

Shappe's Spoiler Review: 

       _The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall_ by Anne McCaffrey

Below are spoilers for Anne McCaffrey's new short story collection, _The
Chronicles of Pern: First Fall_. Twenty Five lines of blank space protect
the spoilers from Thread as well as from who prefer not to be spoiled.

Shappe's Spoiler Review
_The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall_ by Anne McCaffery

I've often felt that Ms. McCaffrey's strong suit was shorter fiction, or,
at the very least, modularlized stories. _The Chronicles of Pern: First
Fall_ confirms this belief.

Many of the Pern novels have tended to wander, or lack coherency at times.
_Renegades of Pern_ is perhaps the best example of this -- too many really
unrelated story lines trying to weave a tapestry and not quite succeeding.

The strongest of her novels have been those which have been built up from
smaller, discrete units. _Dragonflight_, for example, was more four short
stories than a single novel, and was a very strong book. _Dragonquest_ was
less formally broken up, but still had a couple of distinct, if more
intertwined stories. _Dragonsdawn_ was, like _Dragonflight_, really four
separate stories--landing, building the colony, coping with Thread, and the
Second Crossing; and as a result, was, in my opinion, the strongest of the
more recent trilogy of novels.

_First Fall_ demonstrates that short fiction is still a major strength for
McCaffrey. Composed of five stories, each from a slightly different time
period and different point of view, the collection goes a long way toward
filling in some of the gaps between _Dragonsdawn_ and the society we see in
_Dragonflight_.

The first story, "The Survey: P.E.R.N.c", describes the initial Exploration
and Evaluation Corps expedition to Rukbat. It contains little that is
really new, except, perhaps the point of view of people who have no idea
what Pern would or could become. McCaffrey does a good job of explaining
why the expedition must be so brief, which in turn goes a long way to
explaining why the colonists had no idea what they were getting into.

The second story, "The Dolphins' Bell", skips ahead to the evacuation of
Landing and the Second Crossing, this time from the point of view of Jim
Tillek, the dophins and the dolphineers. As well as being a typical
McCaffrey love story (between Tillek and dophineer Theo Force), the tale
does a good job of fleshing out Tillek's character, and finally focuses on
the dophins, who have been comparatively slighted in past novels, when
mentioned at all. The frustration Tillek feels trying to organize the
rather haphazard fleet of ships at his command and the sadness of the
sacrifices necessary to make the Crossing successful are palpable. This
story began what was to be a trend throughout the book, making much more
obvious the radical changes in mindset and mood of the colony during and
after the Second Crossing than did _Dragonsdawn_. This story also reaffirms
McCaffrey's ability to build a rich enough world to allow for many
different viewpoints of the same time period, touching as it does on a
story already told in _Dragonsdawn_.

"The Ford of Red Hanrahan" picks up several years after the colony has
established itself in the north, and describes the founding of what would
become Ruatha (Rua Atha == Red's Ford). Here we see some of the striking
changes that have marked the colony since its move north. Morale is low;
many heros have passed away, either by plauge or age; and, after
establishing a colony based on open space for everyone, the Fort Hold has
become badly overcrowded. But this story is also the turning point in those
fortunes. Having recovered from the Crossing and the Fever Year three years
previous, groups are starting to claim their stakes, as is still their
right under the Charter. Furthermore, the dragons are prospering and
becoming more and more adept at their job. The strong point of this story
is the emotions it evokes, starting with the despair of the recent past and
movikng into a hope for the future and for the strength of human spirit
with which the colony was founded.

"The Second Weyr" is similar to "The Ford...", in that it tells the story
of new expansion, this time, the expansion of Fort Weyr into several new
Weyrs. The main difference is that this story marks something of the final
dividing line between the old colony in the south and the new in the north.
The last known holdouts, stakes on Ierne island, are moving north, planning
to stake claims in the eastern part of the continent and on Big Island. Of
the old leaders, only Zi Ongola, most recently founder of Tillek Hold, and
Joel Lilienkamp, now administrator of Fort Hold, remain. Pern has been
handed over to the next generation, those who were children for the First
Crossing, like Sean and Sorka,  or born on Pern like Michael and Torene.
This story also contains one of the most detailed and sensual depictions of
a mating flight from the viewpoint of the queenrider yet.

Finally, "Rescue Run" describes the retrieval of the 'last survivors' of
the Pern expedition -- Stev Kimmer, of all people, and the inhabitants of
the Honshu Stake, who firmly believe themselves to be the last eleven
survivors of the colony. The story is disturbing in many ways, not the
least of which being the  callousness of the Federation Fleet team,
compared to the 'human life is everything' mindset ingrained in me from
years of being a rabid frothing Trek fan :-). While willing to rescue these
stranded people, they make only a cursory effort to verify what their flyby
of the northern continent showed -- no descernable signs of life. It's also
distasteful that Kimmer should be seen as any kind of hero, surviving
against the odds, when he was the source of so much trouble, most of it
self-induced by not paying attention to the migration of the colony. On the
other hand, it is quite possible that the now-well-established civilisation
in the north would not have wanted 'rescue' of any sort -- just help
eliminating the incursions of Thread. All in all, however, this story is a
very nice 'footnote' in Pernese history.

Overall, this was a most enjoyable collection, if somewhat slim for the
money. I think that they could have, and should have, waited to add a
couple more stories, and sold it for the same price.

There are comparatively few continuity problems here, mainly because much
of what this covers is uncharted territory. A few cases where events
slightly contradict what's been established, I can accept without complaint
-- after all, history tends to get distorted over time. Whose to say that
the recorded order of events as read 2,500 years after the fact might not
differ from what really happened. "Rescue Run" contains two contradictions
-- the first, that the original EEC took only 5 days (they took 10 in "The
Survey"); the second, the substituion of Altair for First (which was
implied as being part of the Centauri system in _Dragonsdawn_) when
discussing either the secondary capital of humanity or the home of Governor
Boll.

More importantly, though, McCaffrey manages to avoid many of the pitfalls
she's fallen into with her longer, more interwoven novels. These stories
flow well, and kept me turning the pages eagerly. Each story is internally
consistent and well structured.

Also, the last two tales in particular are more obviously written for
adults than anything in the Pern series since _Dragonquest_. Ever since the
_Harper Hall_ books, it felt like she was trying to strike a compromise
between the juvenile audience those books were targeted toward and the more
adult audience the original two books were intended for. These stories
don't really give that impression, and I, for one, am glad.

When I'd first heard that McCaffrey was not yet finished with Pern, I was
very skeptical. After all, I thought, all of the really big stories have
already been told! But I forgot that McCaffrey started out with short
fiction, and that there were still many smaller stories still to be told.
It is my firm hope that McCaffrey will continue to produce volumes of
_Chronicles_, filling in those gaps in what has always been and continues
to be a fascinating world.

%A Anne McCaffrey
%C New York
%D Officially: November 1993 (released October 1993)
%G ISBN 0-345-36898-3
%I Ballentine Books/Del Rey
%K Pern (Imaginary place)--Fiction
%O Hardcover, US$22.00, CAN$29.00
%P 306 pp.
%T The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall

--
Michael Shappe <[email-masked]>
Moderator, rec.arts.startrek.reviews