...one of potentially many podcasts about Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series (but the only one by us!).
They are: a series of sometimes Deeply Off the Wall Weird speculative fiction books that have had a far-reaching but oft-forgotten effect on later genre fiction.
We are: a pair of literature nerds who were deeply invested in (some) of these books as tweens.
You are: someone who vaguely remembers these books, or never heard of them but has some time to kill, or is wincing right along with us—we're not picky! And c'mon, who doesn't like dragons?
Check out our website for more!
FAQ
Are the books good?
What a great question. No.
Should I (re)read them?
Also no. (Unless...) (Jk (mostly)...)
Should I spend several hours of my one wild and precious life listening to you talk about them?
Of course you should!
How often do you update?
Biweekly. Every other week (plus some bonus episodes). For season 2 we are aiming to release episodes roughly monthly, but frequency will vary depending on our schedules and how long it takes to edit the episodes.
Where should I start?
If you're familiar with Pern, head to Episode #1: Dragonflight. If you're not, or if you want a refresher on the world, you may want to check out Bonus Episode #1: World-building and get the lay of the land before diving in.
Is there anything really important that I need to know before starting?
Yeah: the sexual politics of these books is. Bad. Heads-up that we will be discussing coercive sexual behavior and sexual assault in most episodes. Much of McCaffrey's worldbuilding rests on a mostly unspoken foundation of racism and ableism, which we'll discuss in the specific episodes where it bubbles to the surface.
Is F'lar as much of a twerp as I remember from reading these once when I was, like, 12?
In this episode we look at Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen trilogy through the lens of Pern, discuss whether Talia is just Menolly in a trenchcoat, celebrate lesbians, and are perturbed by the amount of mind-wiping going on in Valdemar.
Transcript is available on our website (please do check it out; it includes a note about some crucial genre context we neglected to address when discussing Valdemar’s relationship to Pern)!
In this episode we look at Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen trilogy through the lens of Pern, discuss whether Talia is just Menolly in a trenchcoat, celebrate lesbians, and are perturbed by the amount of mind-wiping going on in Valdemar.
Transcript is available on our website (please do check it out; it includes a note about some crucial genre context we neglected to address when discussing Valdemar’s relationship to Pern)!
Part 2 of the science episode has taken longer than anticipated (it turns out editing 4 audio tracks instead of 2 is more complicated and time-consuming!), and, while the audio is now done, Lleu is going to need some extra time to finish the transcript. It should be posted tomorrow at the usual release time (2p.m. Eastern)!
We are approximately aiming to have episodes come out monthly on the first Wednesday in future, but that will likely continue to be an approximate goal.
In any case, we hope you’ll all enjoy the episode tomorrow!
Our April Fools Day prank is luring our friends who have actual STEM degrees into an episode on what may (or may not) actually be going on, astronomically speaking, in the Rukbat system!
In this episode, we put the Oort cloud in the Kuiper belt, propose that there might be up to 30 Red Stars, and determine that Rukbat doesn’t keep its room clean.
Thank you to special guests Roxie and Nazh, both for joining us and for knowing things about orbital mechanics!
Our April Fools Day prank is luring our friends who have actual STEM degrees into an episode on what may (or may not) actually be going on, astronomically speaking, in the Rukbat system!
In this episode, we put the Oort cloud in the Kuiper belt, propose that there might be up to 30 Red Stars, and determine that Rukbat doesn’t keep its room clean.
Thank you to special guests Roxie and Nazh, both for joining us and for knowing things about orbital mechanics!
Our April Fools Day prank is luring our friends who have actual STEM degrees into an episode on what may (or may not) actually be going on, astronomically speaking, in the Rukbat system!
In this episode, we put the Oort cloud in the Kuiper belt, propose that there might be up to 30 Red Stars, and determine that Rukbat doesn’t keep its room clean.
Thank you to special guests Roxie and Nazh, both for joining us and for knowing things about orbital mechanics!
First of all — belovèd listeners, we want to thank you all again for listening! We meant to make a post about this at the end of season 1, but we just realized neither of us actually hit post, so it’s been sitting in our drafts. Whoops!
It has been a delight to get to share our thoughts and to see you all reacting and responding — we appreciate everyone who has followed, listened, and reblogged! <3
Second of all — you heard it here first, folks: season 2 of Dragons Made Me Do It is coming!
We have been stymied first by the problem of the blooper reel episode (which, alas, we could not find a satisfactory way to make work) and then by some unruly brainweasels, but we think we’ve hit on a way to get things moving, which is by Setting Some (Tentative) Deadlines. We’re hoping to have the first episode ready for the beginning of March — things are Moving again, slowly but surely. :-)
Season 2 will move at a more leisurely pace, but we have plenty of ideas still, from puzzling through McCaffrey’s scientific world-building to exploring the Fake Good Versions of Pern That Exist Only in Our Heads to looking more closely at some individual pieces of post-Pern media in order to grapple with the ongoing influence of the series.
If you have other thoughts about Pern-adjacent content that you think would be interesting, we’d love to hear about it!
Otherwise, keep your eyes on this page and on our website, and we’ll be back soon!
Obviously we did not have the first episode ready for the beginning of March, but we are on track to have it ready for the beginning of April!
We’re aiming for a fun April Fool’s Day present for you all, where we subvert the holiday by actually taking McCaffrey’s scientific world-building seriously. If we can’t get it done by Wednesday, by hook or by crook it will be up by the end of this week!
First of all — belovèd listeners, we want to thank you all again for listening! We meant to make a post about this at the end of season 1, but we just realized neither of us actually hit post, so it’s been sitting in our drafts. Whoops!
It has been a delight to get to share our thoughts and to see you all reacting and responding — we appreciate everyone who has followed, listened, and reblogged! <3
Second of all — you heard it here first, folks: season 2 of Dragons Made Me Do It is coming!
We have been stymied first by the problem of the blooper reel episode (which, alas, we could not find a satisfactory way to make work) and then by some unruly brainweasels, but we think we’ve hit on a way to get things moving, which is by Setting Some (Tentative) Deadlines. We’re hoping to have the first episode ready for the beginning of March — things are Moving again, slowly but surely. :-)
Season 2 will move at a more leisurely pace, but we have plenty of ideas still, from puzzling through McCaffrey’s scientific world-building to exploring the Fake Good Versions of Pern That Exist Only in Our Heads to looking more closely at some individual pieces of post-Pern media in order to grapple with the ongoing influence of the series.
If you have other thoughts about Pern-adjacent content that you think would be interesting, we’d love to hear about it!
Otherwise, keep your eyes on this page and on our website, and we’ll be back soon!
It's really problematic for you to post about dragon fucking. Everyone knows that humans can't consent and that dragons should be with their natural mate, the humble Ford F150 :/
man the last bit of this takes me by surprise every single time i read it. you're right though.
In this episode, we take it all the way back to the beginning, contemplate an ending, and address the burning question: why has no one ever tried to fight Toric with a knife?
In this episode, we take it all the way back to the beginning, contemplate an ending, and address the burning question: why has no one ever tried to fight Toric with a knife?
In this episode, Tequila formally registers her protest, ghosts abound, and we blithely forget about T’kul despite the introduction that for some reason summarizes the plot of The White Dragon.
Transcript available on our website, and there’s a bonus rec from Lleu (who drew a blank while we were recording) on the recs page.
