Restoree by Anne McCaffrey

[james_davis_nicoll]

Restoree by Anne McCaffrey

Comments

[nancylebov]

On the other hand, apparently accurate about mental patients being denied rights.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Isn't it still legal to use certain classes of patients as underpaid workers?

[the_rck]

Yes, and people with physical disabilities as well.

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Lotharian habit of tying developmentally challenged women to violently disturbed men in a facility surrounded by a disintegration fence seems poorly thought out.

[agharta75]

"Harlan"?

[james_davis_nicoll]

I did wonder if it was intended as a hat tip to Ellison.

[agharta75]

It was 1967. What other Harlan would one think of?

[ethelmay]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan_II (yes, I'm kidding)

[agharta75]

As Dylan said, "John Marshall Harlan was a friend to the poor" ...

[leecetheartist]

I, I was young and I needed the SF!

[ironyoxide]

The struggle is real.

[sartorias]

I finally realized I was never going to reread that stinker, and got rid of my copy. *shudder*

[james_davis_nicoll]

Having reviewed stuff from the beginning of her career and the end, I am increasingly skeptical McCaffrey ever wrote a non-stinker.

[sartorias]

I've been mulling the McAffrey issue. It seems to me that she fits into a category that might exist only in my head: works with certain elements that appeared at the right time for a set of the readership, but which contained little else that ages well, shall we say. I remember reading DRAGONFLIGHT when it first came out, and hailing Lessa's agency. In later years, I reread it, and thought, what agency? It was appalling on so many levels. But at the time, compared to the stream of other stuff I and my peers had been reading, it was a standout. I felt the same about the first Mennolly book, which I have been afraid to reread. Nothing else of hers ever resonated, though I know many who loved all her books and still do.

[elusis]

Yes, this so much. As a middle-school and high-school-aged student, I was so grateful for her books with women protagonists and some romantic and family-oriented plot lines woven into the fantasy/SF. I know the suck fairy has visited them all, but I really needed them for what they were.

ETA: Though I know this one must have really been awful from the get-go because I know I checked it out of the school library, but I also know I only did so once.

[sartorias]

Oooh yeah. I knew *at the time* it was a stinker, but it was McAffrey, I was loyal, and I'd spent my hard earned babysitting money on it. I think it was one of the ones, in retrospect, that taught me not to buy sight unseen without some scanning.

[roseembolism]

I'm going to give the Harper Hall DUOlogy a pass. I mean sure, it is open to accusations of Mary Sue-dom, but I don't think it's bad for teens to read about a talented girl who deals with being suppressed, and then earns recognition on her own terms.

Hell, I think there's a lot of kids out there who did and do need that.

[sartorias]

Yeah, that is my memory of it. I haven't reread it because I don't want to discover the Suck Fairy has nuked it.

[keith_morrison]

No, that category exists. I know I've reread a bunch of older books that I thought okay when I was younger, and often in each I recognize the parts that appealed to me or others at the time which tend to be the parts I remember, but holy hell, the rest of it...

[jbwoodford]

I did like the cookbook she edited.

[(Anonymous)]

Aha: my deduction (or guess if you prefer) from your dark Facebook hints was correct after all. Although the antisemitic bit remains embarrassing, it's worth noting that the heroine's transformation isn't exactly into "a beautiful Aryan blonde" but to a woman whose skin is "a warm golden color" with the "same chestnut hair" as of old.

Elsewhere: Ferrill, not Ferrel.

[ravenskyewalker]

Well, that sounds gross. I'm glad I missed that. (Unless I read bits of it at some point and put them out of my mind while cringing.)

Considering how much I went off her later, I do wonder why I enjoyed her Dragonriders series so much at a certain young point in my life. Because I loved the idea of telepathic dragons bonded with their riders, of course. I also liked To Ride Pegasus at that age, but probably won't reread it, for fear of the Suck Fairy.

[ekaterinn]

Anne McCaffery was one of the first sci-fi authors I read, at the tender age of 12 (with The Ship Who Sang and the Dragonrider books). I'm glad I apparently missed her debut novel is my youthful attempt to read all of her bibliography. Now, alas, I cannot bear to re-read her.

[ethelmay]

"Their oceans are full of edible fish; their lands, which the Tanes don’t even bother to cultivate, would support millions of us..."

That name wouldn't have anything to do with the Taíno, would it?

[sethsellis]

I'm very curious about the lone comment on the review at jdn.com. Did you really say Aryan blonde? I don't remember it. And how did this review make trouble at Wikipedia?

[(Anonymous)]

The "Aryan blonde" bit was there when I first read the review (and quoted it above, anonymously because I'd forgotten we're not in LiveJournal any more) but has since been wisely corrected.

David Langford

[james_davis_nicoll]

I did, I was corrected and I fixed it.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Enjoy!

[sethsellis]

Ah, fannish defensiveness.

[(Anonymous)]

Why I no longer waste my time editing Wikipedia, example number ...

--
NPH

[jessie_c]

Oh, so the "trouble on Wikipedia" was caused by the same fan wank who posted in your review. I see.

[ethelmay]

"LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO."

[carbonel]

I have no plans to reread this to check my memories, but isn't there a whole thing about men "claiming" their women without a whole lot of discussion about choice?

I read this book twice when it first came out. The first time because it was Anne McCaffrey (I'd loved the dragon books) and the second time because I was so appalled that I thought I'd misread it (I hadn't). I was mostly unfamiliar with romance novel tropes at that point, which didn't help.

[(Anonymous)]

I knew the book wasn't great SF, but as a teenager I totally sympathized with the heroine hating her appearance. And her luck with being miraculously changed into a beauty. It was a sort of 'Ugly Duckling' story that I wished would happen to me. Sigh. I had no self-esteem as a teen. :(

-AwesomeAud