July 2000

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Another in the series on Pern. This follows directly from The Renegades of Pern. The settlers' Artificial Intelligence database has been reactivated and everyone in Pern is busy learning everything that has been forgotten since their ancestors first landed on Pern.

Their aim is to totally eliminate Thread forever, but there are worries that the structure of their society will be damaged irreparably if the dragons no longer have a purpose.

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As a bit of background, the Duke in this book is based on William John Cavendish Bentinck-Scott, the Duke of Portland and a resident of Nottinghamshire. The real life Duke and the fictional Duke appear to only converge in the fact that both had underground passages which started in their homes and ran beneath their estates.

The poor old Duke is plagued by physical ailments and, increasingly, a sense of a long forgotten memory pointing to there being something significant missing from his life. As he goes about life in his vast ancestral home, which has so many rooms that he often gets lost in them, he contemplates all sorts of things such as the similarity between an apple tree and his lungs. He shows an active curiosity in all that happens around him, quizzing a labourer about his psoriasis and developing a fascination with trepanation after visiting a phrenologist.

Most of his trips off his estate are related to attempts to ease his illnesses. On one occasion he visits twins who claim to be able to see inside his body and diagnose his problem. Another time he obtains relief from his back pain from a blind chiropracter.

The book is constructed as a series of diary entries by the Duke, relating his thoughts and day-to-day experiences. Interspersed are comments from his staff and other people from the nearby village, who are concerned or just puzzled by the Duke's increasingly strange behaviour.

The story climaxes with the Duke both deciding on a final solution to his bodily discomforts and discovering what his suppressed memory is about. I enjoyed it and was thoroughly pulled into the mystery of the Duke's past. The book was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1997 and I think the nomination is justified.