Dragonsdawn

Dragonsdawn is a fantasy novel by prolific American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. The book is a prequel McCaffrey wrote to elaborate on the early years of a human colony on the planet Pern, which is the setting for eight previous fantasy novels written by McCaffrey and her son Todd. Dragonsdawn follows the early settlers of Pern on their mission to establish a new pastoral colony with limited access to industrialization and technology. It also details their fight against the deadly Thread, a silvery thread-like energy that falls from the sky and consumes all organic matter.

Dragonsdawn begins with a group of Terrans, or earthlings, traveling in three ships to the planet Pern, where they plan to start a new pastoral colony away from the industrialization and technology that plagued them on planet Earth. Many of the new settlers are part of more traditional societies seeking a way to maintain their way of life. Others are interested in travel and beginning again for various reasons of their own. To fund the colony, all the settlers put money into a central fund to buy ships and supplies. The colony essentially begins as a trade economy, where individuals take what they need from the limited supply base with the understanding that the supplies are expensive and cannot be replenished once exhausted.

The colony gets off to a relatively calm start, with some exceptions around the use of colorful cloth by certain traditional groups who use it disproportionately in the eyes of other colonists. Much to the settlers’ joy, the livestock they brought begins to reproduce, and their crops begin to grow. It seems that they’ll be able to stay on Pern and make it their new home.



Then, without warning, strange things begin to happen. The horizon clouds over, and the small lizards that populate Pern begin to act frantically, which the settlers have never experienced before. All of a sudden, their planet is inundated with silvery, thread-like rain. The colonists are unconcerned until the rain beings destroying everything in sight. All organic matter is essentially vaporized by this acidic rain, and the only things left are stones and some plastics that had been taken from Earth. In a matter of moments, whole settlements disappear into the dirt, and a tribe of nomads living in open air is killed by this phenomenon, which the settlers begin referring to as the Thread.

The settlers reach out to the scientists who have traveled with them on their journey, and they receive unfortunate news. The atmosphere on Pern makes it likely that the Thread will continue for more than fifty years, endangering the residents, their livestock, and their homes. They haven’t prepared for such a large-scale catastrophe, and the new residents have no idea how to fight back against a force that destroys anything organic. They know they need a system of defense, but the only violent force on Pern are the tiny, frantic lizards, which can breathe fire. The creatures are not nearly large enough to make a difference against sheets of destructive rain.

Then, two of the scientists have an idea. They both happen to be skilled geneticists, and they begin wondering if it would be possible to transform the lizards, in only a few generations, from their small stature into horse-sized creatures that could be trained to destroy the Thread. At first, the colonists are skeptical of this plan. Even if the scientists are able to morph the lizards into larger beasts, there’s no guarantee that they could train them. Not only that, but if they can’t domesticate the new, enormous lizards, the colonists would have a whole new predator on their hands, one that could destroy them just as easily as it could destroy the Thread.



The novel continues by following a few main characters as the dragonet lizards turn into full-sized dragons, and the colonists begin to impress upon them, essentially connecting with them on a deep spiritual level that allows them to share feelings, experiences, and thoughts. In the end, the settlers and their trained dragons battle against the Thread—a war not as easily won as they’d hoped.

Anne McCaffrey is the author of dozens of science fiction novels, some of them coauthored with her son, Todd McCaffrey. She wrote books for forty-six years until her death in 2011 at age eight-five, and in that period became the first woman to win a Hugo Award, as well as the first to win a Nebula Award, two of the most significant awards given to works of science fiction in American literature. In 2005, McCaffrey was awarded the title of Grand Master by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, for her lifetime achievement writing in the genre. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006.