ABSTRACT
The afterword considers the importance of the Heroic Epic structure in allowing us to discuss narrative and story, rather than focusing on taxonomy and the presentation and acceptance of Fantastical elements. This analysis utilises All the Weyrs of Pern (1991), the novel that concludes the narrative arc of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern (1967–2012), as a case study. The identification of the Pern series as a Fantasy or Science Fiction has been long contested. But, as this afterword argues, Fantasy fiction is not antithesis to Science Fiction, and the narrative structure of the Heroic Epic is a unifying thread that allows us to examine story cohesively.
