Promotional Information

A new novel of Pern and the Dragons.

About the Author

Anne McCaffrey, the Hugo award winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern novels, is one of science fiction's most popular authors. She lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland. Visit the author's website at www.annemccaffrey.net

Reviews

'Anne McCaffrey, one of the Queens of science fiction, knows exactly how to give her public what it wants'
*The Times*

Bestseller McCaffrey's first Pern novel in three years returns to the world of her most popular series, Dragonriders of Pern, reprising almost all the best-loved Pernese characters. In earlier episodes, hero and heroine F'lar and Lessa summoned the captivating dragons and their riders from the remote past to save Pern from a devastating rain of Thread, while the later discovery of Aivas, the artificial intelligence that guided Pern's original human settlers, brought technological marvels like printing to Pern and helped shift the Thread-producing Red Star from its lethal orbit before it self-destructed. Now neo-Luddite Abominators are bent on destroying all of Aivas's gifts and returning watery Pern to its primitive state, while the Dragonriders struggle to find new purpose in a Threadless world. F'lar and Lessa uneasily contemplate second careers or horrors! retirement, while their genteel and amorous son F'lessan and perceptive green rider Tai arrive at both a dragon-assisted romance and a whole new role for the telepathic and telekinetic dragons. McCaffrey's various themes traditionalism vs. technology, the necessity of societal change, feminist commentary on draconian psychology are at times awkwardly integrated. And her slightly watered-down villains seem peripheral to the action, merely a means to showcase familiar personalities performing during crises. Nonetheless, as all her Pern novels amply demonstrate, McCaffrey's sexy and cunning dragons carry the day and the novel with impeccable, irresistible panache. (Apr. 3) Forecast: A likely genre bestseller, but some younger Pern fans may be put off by the emphasis on retirement, unable to appreciate the angst of inexorably approaching age. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

'Anne McCaffrey, one of the Queens of science fiction, knows exactly how to give her public what it wants' -- Walter Ellis * The Times *