Dragonflight

Published in 1968, Dragonflight is the first entry in Anne McCaffrey’s phenomenally successful Dragonriders of Pern novel series. A luminary of American science fiction, Anne McCaffrey was the author of dozens of novels, some of them co-authored with her son, Todd McCaffrey. She was a prolific writer for 46 years until her death in 2011 at the age of 85, and she is noted for being the first woman to win science fiction’s most coveted literary awards: the Hugo Award (1968) and the Nebula Award (1969).

While the Dragonriders of Pern series eventually moved more firmly into the realm of sci-fi, this initial outing reflects the influence of the pulp fantasy novels of the 1950s: dragons, castles, duels, and tyrants all play prominent roles in Dragonflight. Dragonflight received particular attention for its female protagonist and proto-feminist themes at a time when genre fiction was dominated by male authors and widespread misogyny.

This guide refers to the 2017 Del Rey Mass Market edition of Dragonflight.

Plot Summary

Located in the faraway star system of Rukbat, the planet Pern was once a colony of Earth. Its colonists soon discovered a dire threat to all life on Pern: the Threads, a mushroom-like species of non-sentient spore that consumes and destroys all organic material.