A Tale of Two Women

Hello my lovely readers, how are you all this fine morning?  Have you been staying up until all hours watching the Olympics?  I may have been trading sleep for extra Olympic hours so if I seem a little loopy...well I'm always a little loopy so carry on.  So this rambling will be a bit different.  I am going to be combining two books into one big synopsis and rambling because I think they fit together to well and offer way to much comparative goodness to do separately, besides I would be constantly referring to the other book so this will be much easier...I think.  The books are two from my beloved Anne McCaffrey's Pern series.  Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern and the companion novelette Nerilka's Story.  I love both of these books for two very different reasons. The first book (which I shall refer to as Moreta) is one of Ms. McCaffery's signature Dragonrider tales, complete with many characters, various places and sweeping story.  The second book, (which is more of a novelette and will be referred to as Nerilka) is about the exact same event/story but told from a much smaller more personal view.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD

We start our story in the past...well the past compared to the first Dragonrider books...well just go with it.  Moreta is the current Weyrwoman of Fort Weyr and is stuck with Sh'gall a capable but humorless Weyrleader.  Moreta is on her way to the Ruathan Gather where she hopes to watch runner races, drink Benden white, and dance the night away in her new dress.  She and her queen dragon Orlith go and do just that with the added bonus of the company of Alessan, the new Lord Holder of Ruatha.  Alessan is a younger man, vigorous, wry and also an avid runnerbeast racer.  He is most known for the tragic death of his young bride Suriana, whom in a world where marriages are usually made for alliance was a rare one of love.  His wife was thrown from an untrained runnerbeast and broke her back, sending Alessan into a deep mourning.  He is finally recovering and is now trying to dodge the numerous attempts at the high-born daughters of his fellow Lord Holders to take her place.  As the races progress, a runnerbeast collapses and dies, apparently from an unknown respiratory illness.  While sad, the runner is cleared away and the Gather continues.  Moreta is meets Oklina, Alessans youngest sister who is in turn introduced to the bronze dragon rider
B'lerion.  After dancing the night away with Alessan, Moreta returns to her Weyr with her dragon who is near to clutching.  They do their duty and fight the menace Thread (which is explained in the start of every book), looking foward to it ending in the next eight turns and a chance at least 200 years of Thread free life to look forward to. Unfortunately a crimp is put into all the happiness when a plague brought up from the Southern Continent threatens all human and runnerbeast life on Pern.  We eventually find out that it is a flue like illness and its initial outbreak kills off a huge percentage of people who catch it.  Hardest hit are the two holds that held gathers, Ista and Ruatha, with Keroon being hard hit as it is an area known for its runnerbeast breeding.  Even worse is that the dragonriders start succumbing to this illness, causing riders to die and their dragons to go between, unable to live without their riders.  This is the biggest calamity possible as it inhibits the ability of the dragonriders to do their first duty which is to protect Pern from the deadly Thread, which is not kind enough to stop falling just because the whole world is sick and dying.  The healthy dragonriders decide to pool resources and miraculously discharge their duty. Eventually it is discovered that a vaccine can be made out of the blood of the people who have recovered from the disease, unfortunately the vaccine has to be given to every living person and runnerbeast on Pern before the next outbreak hits, or they will probably not survive the next wave.  Moreta, Alessan, Olkina, B'lerion, and the healers Capiam and Desdra use a technique called "timing" which is essentially a dragon ability to go between times as well as space.  This is incredibly dangerous and is discouraged for the most part.  They use timing to go to a remote island in the future to gather supplies enough to inoculate all of Pern.  As they do this Moreta and Alessan finally give in to the intense attraction they had been feeling, as do the rest of the party (insert eyebrow waggle here).  They decide the best way to distribute the serum is via dragonback, using a very tight timing schedule.  Plans are put into dissary when on of the Weyrs refuses to help.  Moreta decides to finish of the route, riding the old queen Holth as her Orlith is stuck on the Nesting Grounds with her eggs.  Old Holth and Moreta finish the grueling task and take of one last time...and never come out from between.  The death of Holth and Moreta are a huge loss to the planet,

just as it was getting back on its feet.  Leri (Holth's rider) and Orlith stay until the eggs hatch (with Olkina Impressing the Queen) and then they to go between.  Two year later Nerilka's Story was published here is that story.  Nerilka is the daughter of Lord Tolocamp and his wife Lady Pendra of Fort Hold.  She is tall, ungainly and likes to be useful.  She is left behind when her father, mother and her older (and prettier) sisters go to the gather at Ruatha, presumably to try and get the new Lord Holder Alessan to marry one of them.  While they are there the plague appears and Nerilka does her best to help her brother (who was left in charge while her father was away) maintain the quarantine placed on the planet.  She also offers her help at Healer Hall (which is located in Fort Hold) and any of the over abundance of supplies her Hold has. While they accept the supplies, her help is rejected.  Nerilka's father returns, breaking quarantine...though he holes himself up in his room to "protect" the hold leaving his wife and other daughters in Ruatha where they end up dying.  As as soon as word reaches him of his wife's death, he installs his mistress the simpering and incapable Anella as his wife and Lady Holder.  This young twitty thing (who to add insult to injury is younger then Nerilka) takes control of the Hold.  The Healer Hall applies to Lord Tolocamp for extra supplies as they are running short, and are denied.  They are also denied the ability to help the people in the internment camp that had been set up outside the Hold.  For Nerilka this is the last straw.  She cuts her hair, dresses as a drudge and takes matters into her own hands.  After securing supplies for the Healers Hall, she goes into the camps to work as a nurse (at this point she has been vaccinated).  She eventually ends up in Ruatha where she had dreamed about ever since her foster sister Suriana had married her Lord Alessan.  Nerilka or Rill as she is now known proves how helpful she can be and is asked to stay on and help restore Ruatha.  Rill is as happy as can be and gets right to work.  She is there when news of Moreta's death comes and is the one to attempt to comfort Alessan in his grief.  For Alessan this is one more tragedy in a long string and it is more then he can take, he tells Rill that he just wants to die.  Rill tells him that he can't die, at least not until their is a Ruathan heir, or the hold will fall to another holder.  Alessan (who knew all along that Rill was Nerilka, from Suriana's sketches) makes a deal that he will marry Nerilka and as soon as their is an heir, she has to mix him his cup (his way of committing suicide).  Not knowing what else to do she agrees.  Eventually Oklina impresses her queen, and Nerilka bears Alessan a child, but instead of dying, he decides to live.  Nerilka knows that he will never be the light hearted man Suriana married, or the reckless racer Moreta loved, but he is a good man who loves and cares for his family and readily recognizes Nerilka for her work and effort and that is enough for him.

Whew that was really really really long...you ready for some more?  Good.  I love reading these two books together, not only 'cause they are companion pieces but for the complete and different views you get.  With Moreta you see a strong, older woman who has not only born several children but is in charge of one of the largest Weyrs and is responsible for the care and safety of essentially a whole planet.  She is capable, decisive, fun-loving, and knows how to take responsibility.  I love that she is not some young supple waif of a girl, but a mature woman, who is described at being near the end of her child-bearing years, which puts her in her 30's or 40's, yet she is also described as desirable and fun and lovely...despite the cropped hair and fine lines on her face.  This is not the type of heroine we see a lot, usually it is the young, the new, the virginal, the unattached that the story centers around.  I love that we have a mother, who as much as she loves her

born children, knows she must be more then that, she is a mother figure that is not at all homey or hearth bound.  Then we have Nerilka, who's story is told in the first person, which is one of the few times I have heard this style from this author, but it works for this story.  Nerilka was born and raised in a completely different way then Moreta, she is a high-born Holder, taught to be much more decorous and dainty (even if she is not) she knows that arts of running a household, she knows how important a well run hold is.  She is well aware if costs, supplies and help get out of hand it could spell disaster.  It is her diligence in this sort of "homey" work that not only saves her Hold (which is the biggest and oldest on Pern) but potentially many others as well.  She does things on a smaller scale then Moreta, yet what she does is just as important if not more so to the overall survival of Pern.  Moreta is passionate and free, partly because of her being part of the Weyr (which by virtue of the dragons have to have a different code of conduct) and partly because of her nature.  Nerilka is more aware of her duty and is willing to fulfill it to the point of honor.  Moreta has a passionate, if ill-advised love affair with Alessan while Nerilka does what needs to be done after her death in helping Alessan continue forward.  In Alessan we see three different yet very valid kind of romantic loves.  We here about his first bloom of wild, young love with his wife Suriana, we get a more passionate, plunging love of Moreta, and finally a dutiful, which eventually turns into a mature and deep love for Nerilka.  I like that between these two books we see that not every love has to be a wild flame of desire at first sight with a pretty young unknown yet dangerous factor...you know what I mean.  I also like that these books show you
can have more then one love, that you can move on without being disloyal, or loving somebody any less. The best part is, after all my rambling on love, neither of these books is a love story, in fact in Moreta the page count of Alessan and Moreta together is fairly minimal compared to the rest of the book.  As far as the story there is so much for me to dive into full force.  I love that medicine was a central part of this story as that is one of my personal passions. The science was fairly accurate and the methods well thought out.  I liked learning about the healing aspect of dragons and their riders (this is so what I would do if I lived on Pern!) I also love how this book fits into the history of Pern.  In the original trilogy the song Moreta's Last Ride is sung and is also mentioned several times in the Harper Hall trilogy so to actually read the story is pretty cool, and adding Nerilka to the mix made it even better. The stories also remind us that this is actually a science fiction story when they talk about the Crossing and their ancestors and the old records that talk about influenza, connecting to an even deeper history. So obviously I love these books and think you should read all of them, and will know continue my Anne McCaffery kick 'cause I just LOVE LOVE LOVE reading her stuff! I give this combination of books 9 out of 10 golden queen dragons!

What do you think of companion books?  How do you feel about non-stock characters?  What do you like to see in your stories (e.g. medicine, music, sports)?  How obsessed am I with Anne McCaffrey?

Explaining The Unexplainable

Read an interesting short story yesterday in the collection Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears.  The story is called The Fox Wife by Ellen Steiber.  What really caught my interest (besides it being a good little story) is that she says she was inspired by medical accounts in Japan in 1892.  She took these records and married them with the kitsune lore in Japanese culture.  The point of this being that before people knew about certain illnesses, especially of the mental variety, many times they were attributed to something magical.  Since I find the human body and mind fascinating, and I love reading I decided to do some digging around and see if I could find some other common threads in the illness/magic realm  (yeah that didn't quit make sense to me either).  As I was digging around, I found many instances where historians, doctors, researchers and bloggers with too much time on their hands have found lines linking folklore, fairy tales, and legends to real life diseases, illnesses and injuries.  Here are a few examples.

Changelings/Autism- It is amazing how closely the symptoms of autism (especially the more sever forms) match up with old descriptions of changelings.  Imagine that you have this lovely child that seems to be perfectly healthy, then one day you start to notice your once loving child refuses to be touched.  The child pulls away from it's family, has outbursts over the oddest things, seems to hyper-focus on seemingly pointless tasks.  With no frame of medical reference, it would make sense to feel that your child had been replaced by a strangers baby.  Other illnesses that tend to manifest in childhood may also have contributed to the changeling myth.  What I personally find so fascinating about these clear descriptions of autism (excuse me while I climb my up on my soap box for a moment) is that it seems to point towards autism being around for a lot longer then people think.  I know many a child that has not been immunized because somebody convinced them that autism wasn't around until we started immunizing our kids, or that autism is new and contingent on pollution and environmental factors.  While certain environmental factors may play a role (we still don't know a lot about autism) stories about changelings and their dead on descriptions show us that in all probability kids have been afflicted with autism for much longer then anybody realizes, and definitely long before immunizations (getting down of my soapbox now).

Epilepsy/Demonic Possession - Anybody who has had, or witnessed a seizure can tell you it is pretty terrifying.  As an EMT I have dealt with many many many seizures and every time it hits you how crazy it looks.  We know for the most part what causes seizures, but can you imagine back before we had a name and a cause for it, seeing a person just start contorting, flailing, uttering strange sounds, eyes rolling into the back of their heads.  It is no wonder that people were convinced an evil spirit had taken possession of a loved one.  It got even worse when a person had a disease like epilepsy that caused seizures on a regular basis.  It's one thing for a person to suffer one seizure (caused by a high fever or extreme illness), but then be "rid of the demon" and never have another episode.  It would be quit another back in the day to continue these seizures even after a ceremony to excise the demon.  This also lead to a lot of unnecessary incarcerations and even deaths.

Ergotism/Witchcraft-Who would have thought something as innocent as rye flour could be a possible cause for the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials?  Among the usual jealousy, over zealousness, and greed which is really all a group of people really need to persecute their fellow man, a theory that a crop of rye may have been infected with a fungus that when consumed produces some very interesting effects.  There is an LSD like hallucinogen affect for some people.  A person could suffer from debilitating stomach pains, akin to being stabbed in the belly (which many "victims" of the "witches" described during the trial"  There may be sores, neurological issues, and mania.  Any time a large number of people had unexplained pain or illness, they just attributed it to witchcraft, because really what else could it be.  The biggest problems came when there was no obvious cause for the pain, if I accidental cut myself and see it bleed and feel the pain, it is not witchcraft, if my stomach feels like somebody is stabbing it, but I don't see any marks or can find no cause, then it might be witchcraft. It is interesting to see in history how people can take even the most minor of things and blow them out of proportion.

Oh man there are so many more of these especially when you start dealing with things like schizophrenia, OCD, porgeria, just so many illnesses that we now if nothing else can name as a scientific disease.  This is why it is so important to keep writing stories and keep reading books, it gives us a glimpse into the past and shows us that we are dealing with some of the same things today as people did hundreds of years ago.  It will be int resting in 100 years for future humanity to read our books and stories and say "hey I think they were talking about (insert name of some undiscovered ailment here), can you believe this is what they thought it was?"  Humans have a need to have an explanation for everything, especially when things go wrong. Before we had science and wide spread education, people used magic to try and explain the unknown. Thinking over some of the more contemporary books I've read, I think this generation tends to write about more intangible illnesses, mostly of the mental variety.  Liar is a good example of a modern folk lore take on a potential mental illness.  It is written in the same feel and style as a way to explain something that may not yet be explainable.

What diseases/illnesses do you recognize in your favorite folk tale?  What diseases do you think future generations will look back at us and shake their heads over?  Do I read way to much into simple stories?

I Think It's The Plauge

Blech blech blech, I've been pretty sick these last couple of days.  To sick to even read, which for me is like being at deaths door!  I am finally starting to feel a bit like a human being and am ready to get back to my reading and rambling.  All of this ickyness got me thinking about books I've read, were illness plays a major role.  I like books that feature a disease, mostly because I am in the medical field and find all of that stuff fascinating.  I like how a disease can be used in many ways, it can be a weapon, an equalizer, a catalyst.  Sometimes the goal of the story is to find a cure for the disease, other times it is trying to make a life after the disease has ravished the world.  Sometimes it is used to bring various people together in tragedy that would never even look at each other before and other times it is used to tear loved ones apart.  I like how different genre's deal with illness, depending on if you are reading fantasy, scifi, historical fiction, etc. there are a ton of different ways to approach it.  Here are a few of my favorite books were sickness, disease and illness play a main role. (I know most of these are part of a series, but they are still really good!)

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern- This book is a stand alone novel in the Dragonriders of Pern series of books.  This book deals with an illness brought over from another part of the world that very few people had immunity to.  The book shows us the progression of the disease from it's first victims all the way to finding a cure in the blood of the few people who have a natural immunity to it.  This is the first major world wide illness to hit this planet in a very long time, and it is awesome to see all of the different and creative things they do to not only find a cure and vaccine, but to figure out how to get it out to the people as well.

Briar's Book- This is one of the books in the Circle of Magic series.  When a plague comes to Summersea, Briar and his friends must use their specific magic to assist the scientists in finding a cure before the whole country dies.  One of my favorite parts of this book is the mixing of magic and science and the feeling that both are just pieces of the same puzzle.  I always felt that magic and science were buddies in real life and this book does a great job showing that.

The Two Princesses of Bamarre-The Grey Death is a fatal disease that is ravaging this imaginary country.  The shy and quiet Princess Addie is content to stay safe in her castle, away from the disease and all it's nasty effects.  When her beloved sister falls ill with this fatal disease, she decides to be the one to try and fulfill an ancient prophecy to try and save her sister.  This book is less about the illness itself and more about the effects it has on the people who are not sick.  The fear they have for themselves vs the fear for their loved ones and the lengths one is willing to go to try and fix it.

Cinder- This retelling of Cinderella has the unusual twist of a plague that is ravishing the home of our heroine. When Cinder's adored stepsister falls ill, she is sent to the futuristic scientists to "volunteer" as a test subject.  This is totally acceptable because Cinder is a cyborg and not seen as fully human.  The implications that a person can be classified as less then human because of certain mechanical body parts, and the ability for this government to condone the often fatal testing of cures on these beings makes a pretty hefty political statement that one is not used to seeing in a fairy tale.  This is a good one for thinking about cost vs benefit in finding a cure for a disease that could kill millions, is it worth it to lose a few lives in the search for a cure?

Star Trek: Double Helix Series-This series of six books set in the Star Trek universe span a whole timeline and touch every piece of the franchise.  It is essentially a series about a tailor made disease that pops up over different times and places.  Over the six books the disease evolves and is meant to do different things, but their are pieces that tie them all together.  These are some of my favorite Star Trek books, not only do they touch on every character in every time period, but they again focus on every aspect of the disease.  Everything from it's origin, to the cure, to the social and class repercussions, to the motive in making and using such a heinous disease, all kinds of cool fun stuff!  I loved all six books and now that I have been talking about them, think that this may be my summer reread series.

What do you think of books about diseases, illness and plague's?  What aspect do you find most intriguing, the scientific, the moral and ethical, the social, the emotional?  How weird am I that I find all this germy stuff to be so fascinating?