The first rule of working in someone else’s world is don’t change the canon without permission. However, I wanted to do something a little different with my incipient shell person, Hypatia. I wanted to have the technology extended to someone who wasn’t an infant because I wanted to inject a little dissonance into the notion that “shell persons would never exchange their place with the able-bodied.” While that might be the case for those who were encased as infants—what about someone who had been able-bodied first?
Annie had maintained in the first books that the traumas involved would drive an adult insane, and I didn’t want to break that rule. But what about a hyperintelligent child, a little prodigy—a genius, in fact? I posited that to Annie and gave her my arguments, and to my relief, she agreed. The reason I wanted this was because I wanted my protagonist to have the memories of what it was like to have a working, natural body and to strive for something beyond Helva’s goal of emancipation. I wanted Hypatia to be the person who looked for a way for shell people to achieve real mobility. This was 1991, after all, and views and technology had changed vastly in the twenty plus years since the original book was written.
However, this was still a dystopia. When Hypatia is paralyzed and offered the chance to become shelled, it is with her parents’ full knowledge of the fact that she will become indebted and indentured. I was writing in Hypatia’s point of view, and at the point where she is paralyzed, she is far too wrapped up in her own troubles to pay any attention to her parents’ reactions—but one can imagine that they are suffering the worst of torments—knowing that their daughter is paralyzed for life—complicated by the situation they are caught in—the choice they have to make for her, knowing if they choose to shell her, the experiment can end very badly, and even if it ends well, she will be an indentured servant for a very long time. I’ve known a few archeologists in my time, and they are far from wealthy people. I imagined them struggling with the question of what to do. Hypatia required full life support and would for the rest of her life. How could they afford that? Would one of them have to become Hypatia’s full-time caretaker? If so, which one? All this, of course, was going on in the background.
Like Annie, I was bending the circumstances to serve the character and story I wanted to tell. The main difference is that, in 1992, I was fully aware that rights were being eroded. Not only could I envision Annie’s dystopia coming to pass, but in the wake of Ronald Reagan’s forays into the dismantling of the “social safety net,” threats to privatize Medicare and Medicaid, closing institutions, “mainstreaming” the disabled and mentally ill, I was more than half convinced it would come to pass. I had seen the streets suddenly populated with the mentally ill, suddenly “mainstreamed” and declared fit to function in society as a result of Reagan’s policies, when they really should have been in a secure living space where they could get proper treatment. I could easily imagine rights being rolled right back to the bad old days. After all, in the Ayn Randian world of Reaganomics, the rights of the corporation took precedence over those of the individual. If the individual was more of a “taker” than a “maker,” then, in the words of Ebenezer Scrooge, he should “die and decrease the surplus population”—which fit right in with Annie’s dystopian future.
But I am not a particularly dystopian writer either, so I wasn’t going to wallow in the misery any more than Annie did.
Nor would Hypatia. Like Helva before her, Hypatia was not the least interested in accepting what she had been ordained to be. Like Helva before her, she was going to throw off her chains.
And like Helva, she was going to go where no shell person had gone before. If that’s not the definition of ability, what is?
Annie had a vision; I was privileged to be invited into it. Annie had a universe; I got to play in it. And Annie’s characters had a resolutely cheerful attitude in the face of terrible adversity. I hope I managed to convey the same.
Annie’s approach to the world was to meet it head on, accept the challenge, and find a way over, under, or through it. That approach truly was made explicit in her writing. Even in the face of dystopia, Annie—and her characters—would never accept anything less than winning through.
MERCEDES LACKEY is approaching 100 books in print, with five published in 2003 alone, and some of her foreign editions can be found in Russian, German, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Turkish, and Japanese. She is the author, alone or in collaboration, of the Heralds of Valdemar, Elemental Masters, 500 Kingdoms, Diana Tregarde, Heirs of Alexandria, Obsidian Mountain, Dragon Jouster, Bedlam Bards, Shadow Grail, and other series and standalone books, including the Secret World Chronicle, based on an ongoing Parsec-nominated podcast series at www.secretworldchronicle.com. A nightowl by nature, she is generally found at the keyboard between 10 P.M. and 6 A.M. You can visit her website at www.mercedeslackey.com.
At one point Anne McCaffrey was thinking of collaborating with someone on a new project, and I said, “Why not Annie Scarborough? You two get along so well.” I think that was the start of the Petaybee series.
We had first read Elizabeth Ann Scarborough back with her Song of Sorcery, The Unicorn Creed, and Bronwyn’s Bane. Annie has a great sense of humor, an amazing talent for punning, and a brilliant mind.
Annie and Anne continued to collaborate right up until Anne’s death. They both had a love of music, and I’m glad that Annie chose to write about that here.
The Dragonlady’s Songs
ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH
Oh, tongue, give sound to joy and sing
Of hope and promise on dragonwing
—DRAGONSONG
ANNE MCCAFFREY HAD a passion for music.
She was a musician whose first memorable gift was a piano, and a serious singer who trained as a soprano for roles in light opera and musicals. She was preparing for a singing career when someone—a tenor, according to Dragonholder, the autobiography she wrote with her son Todd—decided she was a contralto. In that range, flaws in her voice emerged (as they did in the voice of Killashandra Ree, the heroine of one of her later novels, Crystal Singer). Anne channeled the emotion she had once put into her music through her characters and her writing and continued singing for fun and enjoying listening to others. There was always a guitar at her house for anyone who cared to play it. And music played a critical role in much of her writing—especially in her twenty-six major works about Pern and its dragons.
Anne lived for most of her adult life in Ireland, where traditional traveling musicians called harpers and storytellers, or shanachies, still hold honored places in the nation’s heritage. Much of Ireland’s preliterate history and myth might have been lost except for these “entertainers.” And as a fellow musician and storyteller, Anne understood both the power of music to tell stories and the power of stories to show the importance of music as a culture-bearing art form.
Anne often told fans she chose dragons as Pern’s biggest protagonists because “dragons have always had bad press.” She proceeded to provide them with good “press,” not just in our world, through her books, but on Pern in the form of the Harper Hall, which literally sang their praises and tales of their heroics to everyone on the planet throughout its post-technological history. In fact, next to the dragons and Threadfall, music, and the way it is used by the harpers, is probably Pern’s most distinctive feature. Anne created a civilization in which music was, as it once was in Irish culture and in other Earth cultures throughout history, the circulatory system of society. The dragons may preserve the planet, but music is what makes the world go around.
Pern isn’t the only world in which Anne used music in her storytelling. In The Ship Who Sang, Helva’s music is, like Anne’s, opera and operetta and is part of the world Helva creates within her hull. On Ballybran, Killashandra’s trained operatic musical tones are used to cut crystal. But while music is a form of self-expression for Helva and a utilitarian tool on Ballybran, music on Pern is pervasive. The reason is important to the overall narrative of Pern.
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br /> Pern is a post-literate world. Early on in Pern’s colonization, the technology settlers brought with them began to fail for lack of fuel or resources, or else became irrelevant to life as the descendants of the original settlers know it. By the time the series begins, reading and writing, previously eclipsed by computer technology, are no longer available to most inhabitants. With no written communication to inform people of events past and present, the harpers, who travel from hold to hold, are the newscasters and the message carriers of their planet. They do more than just play music; they provide information and education for the people they visit.
Although the Harper Halls are very selective and their tests quite strict, vocal quality is not the only or even the most critical qualification. Singing and/or playing is important, and being a good storyteller is essential, but it is also necessary that a harper be a good listener and something of an investigator in order to learn about events so they can be remembered, dramatized, and retransmitted as songs. The harpers’ songs often celebrate or mourn recent victories and losses, particularly the brilliant deeds of the dragons and their riders, and by compressing these complex adventures into comparatively short songs (“it’s only forty verses and I won’t detain yez long”), they help the news spread quickly and be remembered easily. Because of the harpers, the culture of the heroic dragons and their riders is preserved and brought forward, just as the culture of Camelot was preserved by bards long after its enemies brought it down. Because of the songs and stories, Camelot remains. Without them, not even the name would remain. Similarly, without the harpers, the history of Pern would be forgotten.
When the supercomputer AIVAS is discovered, making much of the wisdom of the pre-Harper Hall past recoverable, there is no need to fear that the years between colonization and rediscovery of AIVAS will be lost. It’s been well-recorded in harpers’ songs. (It helps that the same class of people who compose and perform dragon-related songs are the ones who help assimilate the “new” knowledge as well.) At some future point in Pern’s development, reading and writing would probably have made a comeback, but meanwhile, it’s a story with a rhyme, a chorus that repeats itself, and a catchy tune or haunting melody that keeps the dragon lore—and everything else—fresh in the hearts and imaginations of the young and the memories of the old.
Diplomacy is also a necessary trait; Pernese harpers are often guests in the homes of powerful and influential people who may use them as impartial sounding boards for critical decisions. Their input, especially that of Master Robinton throughout the earlier books, is sought after and valued in many cases. (Perhaps this is partly because everyone wants to be remembered well in the ballads that they hope a harper will someday compose about them.) Master Robinton at times seems to take on the role of a spy and at others, a diplomat. This seems a natural role for someone who knows and understands more about the planet’s history and how its problems have been discovered and overcome in the past. Also, as a performer, Master Robinton and the other harpers are used to “working” audiences, to getting and keeping a crowd’s attention. The manipulative skills a harper needs are useful in local politics as well.
None of this is entirely separate from the harpers’ function as entertainers. In a world without books, letters, or newspapers, as in medieval days when live entertainers were the only readily available diversion, any change, including juicy gossip, serves as entertainment. People provide what entertainment there is, be it harpers with songs, traveling actors, or games devised by both children and adults for relaxation. News and stories from other places, stirring songs of derring-do, songs making fun of foolish behavior or decisions, are wonderful sources of entertainment. New tunes to whistle, new ballads to sing, new scraps of news presented, perhaps, with a new viewpoint are all welcome diversions. The skilled harpers provide all of these nourishing entertainments for the holds and weyrs.
Although traveling harpers act as a sort of musical glue to hold the far-flung communities of Pern together, not all harpers travel or continue traveling after a certain age. Some take up permanent residence in hold or weyr, acting as teachers and historians and inspiring new generations to dream of things they otherwise might not. Think of Menolly’s desire to become a harper, in defiance of the life her family and her hold want her to embrace. It’s due to the influence of old Petiron the harper that she knew some of the history of Pern, giving her a broader perspective on what her life could be.
In other words, harpers are the culture bearers of Pern, from their personal influence as teachers of young people like Menolly, to their planet-wide influence as recorders and transmitters of history and culture. Harpers’ music is about, by, and for ordinary people, not something apart. Unlike contemporary times, where the majority of life is devoid of music except for that on recordings or in concerts by professional musicians who are personally unknown to their listeners and sung about people equally unknown to them, on Pern, harpers often live with their audiences, and music underscores life from the cradle to the grave. Harpers’ talented fingers dip into almost every phase of life on Pern.
Whether or not a harper is in a specific scene or chapter, each Pern book generally includes some reference to music, and chapters often start with a chorus or verse from a song. Thanks to the harpers, every Pernese person knows at least some songs. They are part of each citizen’s childhood and upbringing. Just as American children learn the “ABC” song, Pernese children receive their society’s most basic information in the form of songs.
For instance, in Dragonflight, Lessa knows from songs of old that the warlord who has taken over her hold, orphaned her, and made her disguise herself as a kitchen drudge, is imperiling the hold by disobeying the ancient rules about keeping the grounds free of vegetation that will spread fire during Thread-fall, even though she has not seen a Threadfall during her lifetime. Since Threadfall is unpredictable and occurs only once in a generation or so, it’s crucial that the people of Pern, as a culture, remember how to fight it and prevent it from damaging their homes.
The Harper Hall trilogy and the first three Pern books contain most of the songs characters refer to in later books. The songs serve not only as examples of the harper’s art, but to move the plot forward, foreshadow events, and convey those events’ emotional impact. In subsequent books, for the most part, these earlier songs are quoted. Sometimes, as with “The Ballad of Moreta’s Ride” (which we first learn of in Dragonflight), those original songs served as impetus for Anne to tell the story behind them, as she did years later in Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern.
Anne made up Pern, but she didn’t entirely make up harpers. There are sources she drew from among harpers’ counterparts in our world. Earth has a long tradition of musician/storytellers—in Ireland, Scotland, and England, but also in the rest of Europe and in Asia and Africa—and these court musicians and storytellers, like Pernese harpers, entertained, taught, and even served as informal political advisers. The equivalent of the European minstrel in the Tsongan tribe of Africa, for example, held a special place politically; the Tsongan fool (or jongleur in French) was the only person allowed to criticize or make fun of the king/chief of his tribe, rather like a musical political cartoonist.
Anne’s Pernese harpers most closely resemble their counterparts, also called harpers, from her beloved Ireland. One of the most famous traditional Irish harpers is Turlough O’Carolan (1670–March 25, 1780). Blinded by smallpox, he traveled throughout Ireland with the help of a guide and a horse, living in the homes of patrons, composing songs and melodies for them. Quite a few of these songs are titled “Planxty ______” (Gaelic for “thanks to” or “a tribute to”) followed by the name of the host or patron who was providing for O’Carolan while he composed, played, sang, and entertained.
This isn’t the only time Anne has used the Irish music tradition in her work. In the Petaybee or Powers series, Anne and I crossed the folk traditions of the Inuit with those of the Irish, as the culture was a mixture of the two peoples. Like Pern, Pet
aybee is a post-literate world. Inhabitants use songs in their rituals when they commune with their planet and also to talk about their personal experiences. Following Inuit tradition, most songs are owned by the person who made them and only that person can sing them without permission. On Petaybee, songs are a way of establishing individual identities on a sparsely populated world where people spend much of their time heavily bundled or isolated from each other by severe weather conditions. They have no harpers, but everybody makes up and sings songs during communal celebrations, so their lives also have “background” music. The Irish tunes make the personal Inuit songs easier for the mixed population to sing.
Pern’s music draws heavily on the tradition of the bards, minstrels, and harpers of medieval times on Earth. While serving similar purposes to their predecessors, Pern’s harpers have some marked differences in their approach to the bardic tradition.
In his book The Songman, A Journey into Irish Music, Tommy Sands, one of the foremost contemporary songwriters in Ireland, writes of this bardic tradition in Ireland that it
is one of the first and greatest forms of preserving and sharing culture . . . the complicated and beautiful stories of unbreakable spirit . . . developed a degree of sophistication with the addition of meter and rhyme. More influential than even the poetry, however, were the great storytellers and musicians that passed on legends and histories from tribe to tribe. Enigmatic entertainers, these sages communicated carefully constructed tales through lyrics and rhyme without cultural prejudice or politics. Wearing the colors of all lands, but under the thumb of none, these men of strong voice and heart became known as the bards.
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