Dragonsdawn

Dragonsdawn is a science fiction novel by the American-Irish writer Anne McCaffrey, published in 1988. It is the ninth book of the Dragonriders of Pern series, but it takes place before all of the others.

It describes the arrival of the original colony. Admiral Paul Benden, Governor Emily Boll and the rest of the settlers chose Pern because it seemed to be a paradise and because they wanted to return to an agrarian life after the wars and troubles they had left behind. Shortly after they land, a lethal spore called Thread appears, and with the colony facing destruction the geneticist Kitti Ping Yung and her granddaughter Wind Blossom set out to bio-engineer Pernese life forms that will be able to deal with it.

This is the book that establishes the science behind the dragons of the series, which the earlier novels had mostly treated in the terms of fantasy. It explains where the dragons came from and what they were made for, and the decisions taken by the first colonists are the foundation the rest of the series stands on.