Dragonsdawn
core novel 1988 Dragonriders of Pern
Record
| First published | 1988 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.23 (42,143 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780345331601 |
Synopsis
Dragonsdawn is a prequel set at the founding of the Dragonriders of Pern universe, opening as colonists from an overcrowded, war-weary Federation settle the planet Pern under Admiral Paul Benden and Governor Emily Boll. Seeking a simpler agrarian life, the settlers spread across the new world, among them the geneticist Kitti Ping Yung, her granddaughter Wind Blossom, and young colonists Sorka Hanrahan and Sean Connell. Their optimism is broken when a lethal airborne spore called Thread begins falling from a neighboring wandering planet, devouring organic matter and threatening the colony's survival. With no way to evacuate and no defense against it, the colony's leaders turn to Kitti Ping's genetic expertise, asking her to engineer a native lifeform into something larger and more capable of resisting Thread, laying the groundwork for the dragons later generations of Pern will depend on.
Where it sits
- Universe: Dragonriders of Pern
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Anne McCaffrey
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within Dragonriders of Pern (standalone work): position 9 of 26: previous Nerilka's Story (1986) · next The Renegades of Pern (1989)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pern_books
- https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/pern_series
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonsdawn
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