Review: Dragonflight

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to the audiobook version of this, and was briefly concerned afterward that I had been listening to an abridged version. I checked, and I wasn't, but I almost wish I had been. Then, some of the awkward dialogue and incredibly superficial treatments of certain plot holes and relationships might've made more sense. Sadly, despite this being the origin of a much-loved epic fantasy series (with some sci-fi elements!) it was a bit of a disappointment. There was definitely a lot of fun and I'm super into the whole world McCaffrey creates here, but the melodramatic characters, misogyny, and plot inconsistencies bothered me a lot, and the prose didn't add anything to the story.

I want to briefly explain my comment on the misogyny: the second book is already kind of improving on the situation, but Dragonflight makes me cringe SO MANY TIMES with its treatment of all the women. Sometimes it's just cheesy writing, and sometimes it's because that cheesy writing leads to some startlingly sexist moments. Early in the novel, in an example of the first kind, Lessa bathes and checks herself out in a mirror and thinks about how long her hair is and how childlike her features are. (The fact that certain male characters talk about how hot she is and how childlike she looks in the same sentence is, perhaps, an example of the second kind of cringe.) But in general, my second-kind-of-cringe complaints have to do with 1) the overall structure of the Weyr, which doesn't make sense to me* and 2) women's treatment of each other. For most of my complaints about (1) see below, but I will say this: when gold dragons mate with other dragons, the riders feel incredibly lustful toward each other and generally also have sex. But green dragons - whose riders are men - also have mate with other dragons - whose riders are also men. This is COMPLETELY ignored and (based on book 2) it seems like the green riders just kind of go into seclusion? Why don't gay people exist here? The direct conclusion of the logic of the novel - ESPECIALLY given how loose the sexual mores of the Weyr are - basically mandates gay relationships between riders. But instead, that entire issue is ignored. With respect to (2), the only women besides Lessa in the Weyr are servants, and Lessa basically dislikes them because they're women. Kilara, the second queen rider, is a composite of every negative stereotype about women and is given almost no depth (even when she's a bigger character in book 2). Everyone, especially Lessa, just wants to get rid of her, and Lessa is furious and jealous any time Kilara even talks to the man she's interested in. It comes off as a caricature of female relationships. I guess there's a small chance this might actually be the point, but I think it takes those character traits way too seriously for that to be the case.

*I will say that Dragonquest is already addressing the sexist aspects of the Weyr directly and I'm only about 1/3 of the way through, and I suppose it's believable that men would prevent women from ever even trying to ride dragons other than the gold.

View all my reviews