The Dolphins of Pern, By Anne McCaffrey

Despite the fact that dolphins came with the original colonists to help them settle Pern, through a series of accidents and misfortunes they were soon forgotten to be intelligent creatures capable of working side by side with human beings. Most sailors would admit to having been saved by shipfish, pushed to shore etc, but talking to them? Never. In the ninth pass of the Red Star around Pern, many old things once thought lost are being discovered, and the humans’ partnership with dolphins is another. After the Masterfisher Alemi and his Holder’s son Readis were caught in a freak southern storm, their skiff overturned and shipfish brought them to shore. After it was over they swore to everyone that the shipfish had talked to them, and fortunately the Aivas machine could corroborate their tale. Thus rebegins the story of man’s partnership with dolphins, which hopefully will last longer than it did the first time.

I’ll start off saying this really isn’t my favorite Pern book. Really, it’s not one of the better ones in terms of writing either. This is a great example of McCaffrey’s failing as a writer, sad as it is to say and harsh as it sounds. Otherwise normal characters just start inexplicably reacting in ways that are not normal, only for the purpose of a plot point for McCaffrey. She needs them to react that way and they do, even if it is not consistent with their character. Like Aramina and Jayge reacting to Readis and the dolphins. Totally irrational and inconsistent with how they should have reacted. Toric, for another example, reacting to the way his plan was thwarted. Just the way he expressed himself was not right, and that bugged me.

My favorite part was when Readis finally ran away from home and had to survive on his own. I’ll admit that I’m a big fan of adventure stories and people surviving in the rough, but even without this bias it’s a better part of the book. No irrational characters, or less, life is more interesting etc, but sadly this is only a short part of the book. The dolphins are cool in and of themselves, but the rest of the book is not enough to inspire much interest. If you want a good story with dolphins, go read the Chronicles of Pern: First Fall. That has a much better story with dolphins. As much as I don’t like to do this, I’m going to say you should give the Dolphins of Pern a miss. It’s just not worth your time.