Ann McCaffrey: The real dragon queen
Take a trip to the planet Pern and discover the best dragons ever created!
If you've ever watched Game of Thrones, then you’ve probably heard of Daenerys Targaryen, who has been referred to as “the dragon queen.” Unfortunately, Daenerys left a lot to be desired as a dragon queen. She wasn’t the brightest bulb in the universe, and, in the HBO show, she got two of her dragons killed by not providing them with some sort of armor. It was not a good decision since they were easily killed by projectiles.
In fact, Daenerys Targaryen and the entire Game of Thrones series pale in comparison to the true dragon queen, Anne McCaffrey. Anne McCaffrey, if you don’t already know, wrote the Dragonriders of Pern books as well as other excellent science fiction. If you aren’t familiar with McCaffrey’s books, then you have cheated yourself out of some of the best science fiction ever written.
Before we go any further, let me give you a reading list in the proper order if you want to read just the main storyline of the deadly Thread attacks on Pern:
Those four books cover the main storyline, and I highly recommend them. My favorite is the White Dragon, but I will say no more about it because I might start babbling too much, and I could stray into a spoiler or two.
Anne wrote a bunch of other books, and fleshed out the world of Pern in deep detail, and also went back in time to see how Pern was colonized by humans in the first place. Few writers in any genre have been able to achieve what McCaffrey did with her dragons and the world of Pern. Along with the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the four books listed above are among my most treasured books of all time. Each time I revisit them, I fall in love with Pern again.
You can get a good idea of how many books she wrote in total and how to read her books in the right order in this article. She was a prolific writer, and her body of work is rich and wondrous in a way that few authors can match.
WOKE COMMUNIST WARNING: Skip any book with her son Todd McCaffrey’s name on it. Just read the ones that were written only by Anne. He coauthored some of her books, and you might notice some unpleasant differences in those books.
Over the years, Anne McCaffrey’s books have had different covers. Here is my absolute favorite book cover, which was used for The White Dragon. You can buy a print of this book cover from the artist Michael Whelan, and it will make a great piece of art for your home. He also has other great art available for purchase.
McCaffrey, in her genre of science fiction, is the equal of J. R. R. Tolkien. She reigns to this very day as the High Queen of Science Fiction, just as Tolkien still reigns as the High King of Fantasy. McCaffrey’s Pern is as great an example of world building as Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Yes, that is how good an author Anne McCaffrey was, and she absolutely deserves to be on as high a pedestal as Tolkien.
Alas, Anne seems to have been forgotten to a certain degree. None of her books has been made into movies or miniseries like Tolkien or George Martin’s books. So today’s audiences have not been exposed to them to the same degree. This is unfortunate to say the least. As I said above, she is the equal of Tolkien in her genre, and she towers over the fat slug George Martin on every level.
If you’ve read Martin’s books, then you know that each of his dragons has the personality of a turnip. But that is not so for Anne’s dragons. Her dragons communicate telepathically with their riders, and a few humans can hear all the dragons, not just the ones bonded to them. Anne’s dragons each have real personalities, and they are not mindless beasts like George Martin’s dragons.
It is the personalities of the dragons and their telepathic link with their riders that make Anne McCaffrey’s dragons so much more interesting than all the fantasy dragons in books by other authors. Even Smaug in The Hobbit is less interesting than Ramoth, Ruth, Mnementh, Canth or the other dragons in Anne’s books. Once you read Anne’s books, you will find that dragons in other books come across as one-dimensional simpletons or brain-dead retards. Anne’s dragons were on another level.
Anne was also one of the first female science fiction writers, and she made it a point to mentor other women writers. She helped promote their books and collaborated with them. This is part of science fiction history that has been somewhat forgotten by many people, but before Anne showed up, there really weren’t any truly significant female science fiction writers. The science fiction genre as a whole benefited greatly from her contributions.
Anne McCaffrey, as you can tell from this article, remains one of my all-time favorite authors, and I cannot recommend her books highly enough. Start with the four I have listed for you here, and you will thank me when you have finished them. If you haven’t read them, then your life is the poorer for it, and you should fix that mistake while you still have time.
And now, I must go between as I have some other things to do. I leave you to your reading of Ann McCaffrey’s delightful books, my friends. 👍🏻
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I read her books (all of them) early in my SF reading arc. (about the same time I was reading about Gor -- interesting contrast...lol.) They are as superb as you say and I cherish my complete set. Marvelous that you are promoting her to a new audience -- after getting over the "yeah, sure" aspect of dragons and such, it starts to make sense and the more backstory the more intriguing it all becomes.
Thanks for regularly being off-the-wall in what you write.
I could not agree with you more! I LOVED her books as a kid. I am going to re-read them! Thank you for the reminder!