I was sure I’d read some of the Pern series before, but I only have records for other Anne McCaffrey books: the Crystal Singer series and a standalone, The Ship Who Sang. I decided I’d better remedy this and try the first Pern book, Dragonflight.

While reading the book, I tried to bear in mind that it was first published in 1968. Dragons were traditionally the evil hoarders of treasure, but Anne McCaffrey developed a new perspective, using telepathically-linked pairs of dragons and people to battle against enemies. There is a strong female lead, Lessa, whose talents mark her out to be the next Weyrwoman, paired with a queen dragon. Unfortunately, the attitudes towards women in the book are generally old-fashioned and may be uncomfortable for today’s readers. The male lead, F’lar, is not very appealing and is sometimes abusive towards Lessa. However, the society is rough and quite basic, so the behaviour of the characters matches this. I liked the concept of the story a lot, although there were times when no one was doing much except grinning (sometimes maliciously). Only the dragons can stop the Threads, which are some kind of alien spore that descends from the Red Star. Working together, Lessa, F’lar and a whole host of other people with apostrophes in their names, devise a plan to stop the Threads, which burrow into the earth and wipe out life. It’s interesting that this book covers both the fantasy and science fiction genres; these are often shelved together in bookshops and libraries, but I rarely encounter a book which is genuinely both.

The book and its series are very influential, so even though the writing style is not great, I understand why it’s a classic. Luckily for my book budget, I won’t acquire the rest of the series.