Let's Talk About Anne McCafferey.

So the Twilight rants inspired me to make my own literary complaint.1

Now, first, please understand. I think she's an amazing worldbuilder. The Pern books were among the first novels I ever read as a kid and they were very influential on my creative development. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like Pern.2

But the older I get, the more I realize that, while she may be an excellent world-builder, she is a *terrible* writer.3

Continuity? What continuity? She edits details, character traits, and events from book to book to suit the current book's needs. There are several references to Moreta being a Benden Weyrwoman, but then she writes Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern... and now Moreta is Fort Weyrwoman! Lytol was an ex-green rider in Dragonflight, but Larth suddenly became a brown dragon in all books thereafter. Let's not even go into watch-whers and what her son is doing to them, after all the times she sent lawyers after people who DARED have browns Impressing women or to invent new dragon colors in their Pern roleplays. Hypocrisy there? All, apparently!4

I honestly can't tell if she just makes things up as she goes along without thinking about what she's written before, or if she just changes things as the world evolves in her head and figures no one will notice the discrepancy or care?5

The thing that gets me is that whenever I voice these complaints, inevitably someone will pop up pulling the "you're just jealous/come back when you're as rich and famous as she is" card. As if fame and fortune were the acid test of skill and/or talent. I repeat, the Pern books are very entertaining. I like them. But that doesn't prevent me from realizing that, in literary terms, they suck hugely. All of the above aside, her characterization is hideously inconsistent. I'd be hard-pressed to pick out a major character in the 9th Pass who isn't a Gary Stu/Mary Sue, and let's not even talk about Dragonsdawn or First Fall. She seems to be incapable of creating real, flawed-but-genuine people. Either they're totally flawed or they're totally good. There are a very few exceptions (T'bor) but they're generally secondary or tertiary characters. And the worst thing is, if they move into the primary position (like Piemur) they often change for the worse in bizarre ways.6

Things also just have a way of Happening in Pern. One of the things that was good about the earlier Pern books is that they had a lot of conflict. But as things went along, the plots got more and more predictable, the conflict drained away, and it ended up being the same book over and over again. I got especially tired of the endlessly reiterated Romance Subplot. I began to hope, every time I found a new Pern book in the library, that this time, maybe THIS time (please?) she might have forgone the romance thing.7

Needless to say, I have been bitterly disappointed.8

I stuck with it, though, loyally. I suppose mostly out of curiosity. I finally gave up on it, though, after reading her son's first Pern book. I checked out the first two but couldn't bring myself to read the second one after the first. The butchery of Pern canon has officially progressed to rape -- with the Dragonlady's stamp of approval!9

I'm sorry, Ma'am. I had a lot of fun fantasizing about being a bronze (or blue, or brown) rider fighting Thread and such when I was 12-15 or so, but it's just gotten too weird for me. We've gotten to the point where Tupper Weyr (a parody Pern RP on AOL back in the mid-to-late 90s) makes more sense than official canon. 10

When the parody is less warped than the canon, something is Wrong.