Sky Dragons
After a vicious plague swept through the world of Pern, there are no longer enough dragons to fight off the current onslaught of Thread, the deadly spore that falls like rain from the skies and devours everything organic in its path.
Pern's last best chance to rebuild the decimated dragon population lies with a group of young dragonriders and their dragons left stranded on an unexplored island. Leadership of these dragons and riders falls to Xhinna, female rider of a blue dragon, who, as the most experienced dragonrider in the new Weyr, must earn the respect of all who follow her, as not everyone is ready to accept a female wingleader. She must solve the problem of how to get sufficient numbers of dragon eggs, although her newfangled ideas, like letting green dragons mate and lay eggs to hatch new dragons, cause uproar. All the while she must protect her people and baby dragons from the predators and, worse, traitors or all hope for Pern will be lost!
Anne McCaffrey was one of the world's leading science-fiction writers, and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as the Margaret A. Edwards' Lifetime Literary Achievement Award. She was deeply honoured to have been made a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 2005, and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006. Born and raised in the US and of Irish extraction, she moved to Ireland in 1970 where she lived in the ‘Garden of Ireland’, County Wicklow, until her death in 2011 at the age of eighty-five. She is the creator of the Dragonriders of Pern® series. Her website is www.pernhome.com.
Todd McCaffrey – Anne’s son – is a licensed pilot and software engineer living in Los Angeles. Todd took up writing full-time in 2002 and hasn’t looked back. He is the author of a dozen books including the eight books in the Third Pass of Pern: three written solo and five in collaboration with Anne McCaffrey. Having grown up with the Dragonriders of Pern®, he has an abiding passion in creating new stories for the world, its people, dragons, fire-lizards, watch-whers, and others. For more information on Todd and his books, visit his website at www.toddmccaffrey.org or follow him – @toddric – on Twitter.