Thu 21 Mar 2024
SF Diary Review: ANNE McCAFFREY “Weyr Search.”
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[5] Comments
ANNE McCAFFREY “Weyr Search.” Novella. Dragonriders of Pern #1. First appeared in Analog SF, October 1967, Reprinted in Nebula Award Stories Three, edited by Roger Zelazny (Doubleday, hardcover, 1968), among others. Nominated for the Nebula AwarD in 1968 for Best Novella of 1967. Winner of Hugo Award that year for that category.
The traditions and ballads of Pern glorify the dragons and their masters, but the time of crisis is past, at least for the time being, and forgetfulness has come easily, A new Weyrwoman is needed for the dragon queen about to be hatched, and dragonmen venture forth to find a suitable girl.
Well written, but there exists too much feeling of looking on from the outside, A sequel is definitely demanded. The map is of little use.
Rating: ***½
March 21st, 2024 at 9:07 pm
As stated in the opening credits, this novella won the Hugo in that category for 1967. The other nominees in that category were:
“Damnation Alley,” by Roger Zelazny
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=87148
“Hawksbill Station,” by Robert Silverberg
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=87169
“The Star-Pit,” by Samuel R. Delany
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=79204
and
“Riders of the Purple Sage,” by Philip Jose Farmer, about which I said in my diary;
From DANGEROUS VISIONS “Pages of puns, private thoughts, and other vulgarities. Unreadable.” 0 stars.
(I did read the story again later on, and I found it had improved in the meantime.)
March 22nd, 2024 at 2:44 pm
Cool, eventual full coverage. Albeit dragon cover illo looks like a flipped bird.
March 22nd, 2024 at 11:30 pm
I was thinking of something else. (Sorry.)
For more on the beginning of the series, check out this Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonflight_(novel)
I’ve always thought of the series as Fantasy, but the first two novellas in the series were published in ANALOG SF, a magazine much more known for nuts & bolts SF,
March 23rd, 2024 at 12:34 am
The quality of the writing and the story outweighed the impact of this one as far as the characters went, but those are really smaller critiques than they sound.
March 30th, 2024 at 1:55 pm
Campbell loved fantasy and, after the folding of UNKNOWN, ran no little borderline fantasy in ASF/ANALOG, including this series and the Lord D’Arcy stories by Randall Garrett. (Quite leaving aside all the “fringe science” “nonfiction” and fiction he also went in for.)