The problem with keeping a public log of absolutely everything Your Humble Blogger reads, is that I am a trifle embarrassed by some of it. Now, I haven’t read any entire books of pornography this year, so I’m off the hook on that so far. But I did re-read, for the empty-eleventh time, a guilty pleasure: The Harper Hall of Pern (Garden City: Nelson Doubleday 1982ish, I'd guess), an omnibus comprising Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsinger, Dragonsong, and Dragondrums.
Not that they are terrible books. Well, Dragondrums is pretty bad. But they are really, really juvenile. Embarrassing to read, really. Transparent wish-fulfillment for gawky teens and tweens. There’s very little to them other than the world, and the way in which Menolly, who nobody pays any attention to, turns out to be the most talented, wise, and wonderful person there ever was, and finally gets recognition for that, and besides, a new family to replace the old one, which wasn’t, you know, broken, but she didn’t like it very much.
Now that I’m, you know, older, and no longer even want to be the most talented, wise, and wonderful person there ever was, I find it a bit creepy. Now that I’m a father, I find the whole theme of dumping the bad family and starting over creepy as well (in the Matrix, Our Hero doesn’t even have a family to dump; I suppose it’s just assumed that they were bad). But is it nice to tell an adolescent ‘Your family really is your family; there is no conspiracy to deny you your rightful talents; things will change, but imperceptibly, the same way they did when you were a child.’
And, um, if Thread is so bad, how come such a wonderful world evolved before there were Dragonriders to protect it? How did they bioengineer Dragons to fight Thread—what species did they breed them from, that wasn’t destroyed by Thread all the previous times through? No, I don’t want to know. It’s not important. It’s the problem with reading books umpty-eleven times. It’s like suddenly noticing that nobody was around to hear Citizen Kane say ‘Rosebud’.
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
Yeah, but “Your family isn’t really your family, and you’re really someone Special and Important” is one of the major themes of YA science fiction and fantasy. I think it’s a reasonable thing to tell a misfit kid, especially if it’s coupled with a dose of social responsibility (a la So You Want to Be a Wizard). Sure, they’ll end up horribly disappointed later in life (unless they are in fact a fairy princess in disguise), but they may be more able to handle that disappointment when they’re older.
I’m talking through my hat here; not sure I believe the above. But it sounds vaguely plausible at the moment.
Oh, and I forgot to say: I thought the dragons were genetically engineered from the fire lizards. No?
(It’s been a long time; I may well have it totally wrong.)
Yes, dragons were a century-long breeding program from fire lizards. This is all gone into in excruciating yet still slightly fluffy detail in later books, when they *really* poke around the Southern Continent.
It’s weird and wonderful how *influential* some of our teen reads have been. I’m reading Zelazny’s Amber books (a reread for some, but not all) and finding my husband’s personality all through there, or rather, Corwin all through him… very very strange. Maybe that’s not influence I’m seeing, just affinity. No way to tell, but insights for me abotu him!