Dragonriders of Pern

Dragonriders of Pern – Triology by Anne McCaffery *( av 5)

Sooooo boooooreeed...

There are poorly written books out there (Nightrunners serie). There are tedious books (The Black jewels). There are uninteresting books (Vampirehunter D) There are books with annoying protagonists (Orcs – omnibus edition), or a lousy plot (Elfsorrow), or unimaginative writing (Dragonlance), or a poor narrative (all of the above).
Even these books would stand no chance against the yawn-of-the-decade trilogy of Pern. This will put you to sleep faster than a lounge full of nitoxic gas.
Apparently, the Pern books have achieved some sort of cult status amongst fantasy readers. It’s just one of those must-read books like Jordan or Eddings, or Tolkien. Why? I haven’t the faintest.

In a world inhabited by dragons and humans, the two races coexist peacefully and fight together against an phenomena called Threads which falls over the world every now and then. These mindless Threads (a sort of space-fungus), if they get a hold on growing vegetation can reproduce fiercely, killing all plants and growing things on the earth.
For centuries, the dragonriders have fought these Threads using fire in a symbiotic relationship with their dragonsteeds...
Wait. Hold on.
This relationship is about as symbiotic as the western world’s to the colonies in Africa. These dragons are bred, imprinted during childhood and used to fight the Threads. The dragons do not need the humans to do so – they are intelligent beings and would probably have done it anyway if only for self preservation, but NO! We can’t let a non-human specie think and act for themselves, now can we? We have to exploit them, because we are humans and we know best! And people wonder why I write moriquenta.

This said, the story gets worse. To avoid the Threads burrowing and hiding, the dragonriders wipe out all vegetation on the ground, practically everywhere. Mmm...excuse me? So, you wipe out all green growing things so that the Threads can’t do it? I hope you have to be either an orc or a really slow human not to spot the obvious flaw in that reasoning. And how am I supposed to care for the well-being of a land that’s virtually a scorched desert? And where do they get food from, anyway?

And the characters...I understand that this is supposed to be a ‘feminist fantasy’. If this is true then, my Gods, we’ve come a long way since the 70’s. For some unexplained reason, only men can bond with fighting dragons – women bond with dragon queens, which are very scares and spend all their time mating and laying eggs. And the few women in this story are either spoiled brats who nag, whine and rush thoughtlessly into things, or scheming promiscuous bitches. Or both. The men are all thick-headed chauvinistic pigs, if they’re heroes, or...no, they’re just chauvinistic pigs, all of them. Honestly. Even the dragons.
At one memorable point the female protagonist is practically raped by the male protagonist, but this seems to be okay to everyone because at the same time his dragon was raping her dragon, and that apparently aroused the both of them. Seriously, in real life both women AND men would have fed the bastard to the dragons and made boots out of his dragonsteed.

Frankly, I was rooting for the Threads during this entire story.

And if anyone even thinks of calling this a ‘chick-flick’ fantasy, I’ll cram Poppy Z. Brite down your throats.