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The Dragons of Pern
with the greatest of thanks to Anne McCaffrey for creating them.
For those of you who may not know what Pern is, here is a brief (very
brief!) background:
Pern is a world created by author Anne McCaffrey. The time frame is somewhere in the unknown future, after things such as space travel and genetic manipulation have become common. Earth, and the human colonies, have just finished a war with an aggressive alien species. Colonization is proceeding and one group, lead by some war heroes, elects to land on Pern. They intend to develop a civilization of a more agrarian nature, with limited technology. After they arrive on Pern, however, their lives, and the existence of the colony itself, is threatened by an organism that appears from the sky and devours anything it touches that is not water or rock. Because of its long, thin appearance this menace is named "Thread".
Thread comes from a rogue planet that circles the star of the Rukbat system - Pern's system. Because of the irregularity of the rogue's orbit, it is near enough to drop Thread on Pern only once every 200 years, for about 50 years at a time. Of course, that irregularity also means that the Interval between Thread-fall can lengthen to 400 years occasionally.
A noted genetic engineer manipulates the genes of the native "fire lizards" (miniature flying creatures that resembled mythological dragons and who chew a phosphorus rock to emit streams of flame) into large creatures. These large creatures, dubbed 'dragons', bond with a human partner at birth. The first human-dragon pairs must learn effective ways to fight Thread and prove to the colonists the worth of the dragons.
The first several of the books on this world deal with the "present pass" - some 2500 years after Pern was initially colonized. It begins in The Dragonriders of Pern at the end of a Long Interval, during which many (if not most) people no longer believe Thread exists. The books continue, focusing on one or another of the characters, most commonly Lessa and F'lar, the Benden Weyrleaders or Robinton, the MasterHarper. Many things happen during this pass - not just the advent of Threadfall. The leaders of the current world find much information about their ancestors, and those who first settled Pern. They rediscover much in the way of lost technology, and with the help of AIVAS, the Artifical Intelligence Voice-Activated System, they devise a method to ensure that this Pass will be the Last Pass and that Thread will never again threaten Pern.
Other Pern books continue to be written, some by Anne and some by her son, Todd McCaffrey. Some continue on later in the Present Pass, some go back to Landing and the First Pass. Still others follow events that occurred at some point in between. All are excellent stories, and interesting character studies.
Visit Anne McCaffrey's website at The Worlds of Anne McCaffrey.
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