Dragonflight

Dragonflight
Michael Whelan cover, Nov 1978 or later[a]
Author(s)	Anne McCaffrey
Cover artist	Lena Fong Lueg (first US hardcover) Lawrence Edwards (first UK)[a]
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Dragonriders of Pern
Genre(s)	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Ballantine Books
Publication date	July 1968
Media type	Print (Paperback original; 1969 Hardcover
Pages	309 pp (early US eds.)
ISBN	0-345-02246-7 (second US paper)
Followed by	Dragonquest

Dragonflight is a fantasy or science fiction novel by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. It is the first book in the Dragonriders of Pern series. Dragonflight was first published by Ballantine Books in July 1968.^[b] It is a fix-up of novellas, including two which made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo or Nebula Award.^[1]

In 1987, Locus: The magazine of the science fiction & fantasy field ranked Dragonflight number nine among the 33 "All-Time Best Fantasy Novels", based on a poll of subscribers.^[2]

Origins

Two components of Dragonflight were award-winning novellas published by Analog science fiction magazine. The first segment, "Weyr Search", had been the cover story for the October 1967 issue, illustrated by John Schoenherr.^[3] The second segment, "Dragonrider", appeared in two parts beginning December 1967.^[4]

"Weyr Search" features the recruitment of a young woman Lessa to establish a telepathic bond with a queen dragon at its hatching, and thus to become a dragonrider and the leader of a Weyr community on the fictional planet Pern. "Dragonrider" features the growth of queen dragon Ramoth and the training of Lessa and Ramoth. Analog editor John W. Campbell requested "to see dragons fighting Thread", Pern's menace from space, and he also suggested time travel. McCaffrey put it all together. A third story "Crack Dust, Black Dust" was not separately published, but provided crucial material for the novel.^[5]

Plot introduction

Pern is a planet inhabited by humans. The original colonists were reduced to a low level of technology by periodic onslaughts of deadly Thread raining down from the sky. By harnessing the indigenous flying, fire-breathing dragons (with genetic alterations to make them larger and telepathic), humanity finally managed to gain the upper hand. The dragons, with their human riders, destroyed the Thread in the skies over Pern before it was able to burrow into the land and breed. However, an unusually long interval between attacks, centuries in duration, has caused the general population to gradually dismiss the threat and withdraw support from the Weyrs where dragons are bred and trained. By the time of this novel, only one Weyr remains (the other five having mysteriously disappeared at the same time in the last quiet interval), maintaining a precarious hand-to-mouth existence.

Dragons are telepathic; each bonds to a single human being when first hatched. They come in various colors which are generally correlated with their size, blue, green, brown, bronze, and gold queens. Bronzes, as the largest males, are by tradition the only ones who compete to win the queens in their mating flights. Queens, however, are always the largest dragons. As their human counterparts are linked mind-to-mind, the humans mate when their dragons mate.

Plot summary

Dragonflight chronicles the story of Lessa, the sole survivor of the noble ruling family of Ruatha Hold on the northern continent of Pern. When the rest of her family is killed by a cruel usurper, Fax, she survives by disguising herself as a drudge (a menial servant) partly through simply adopting a slovenly appearance, but also using her hereditary telepathic abilities to make others see her as far older than she is. She escapes notice completely. Her only friend is a watch-wher, a somewhat telepathic animal that guards the castle. Lessa also psychically influences other Hold workers to do less than their best work, or to become clumsy or inefficient. Her idea is to make Ruatha unlivable, so that Fax will renounce it.

F'lar, wingleader at Benden Weyr and rider of the bronze dragon Mnementh, finds Lessa while Searching for candidates to Impress (bond with) a new queen dragon, as the current queen has a batch of eggs due to hatch very soon, including a crucial golden egg. Realizing that she has engineered the downfall of the Hold, he recognizes her as possessing unusually strong psychic abilities. After defeating Fax in single combat (following the rules of the Pernese code duello), F'lar convinces Lessa to give up her birthright as Lord Holder of Ruatha Hold and she passes the title on to Fax's newborn son (who later features in The White Dragon). F'lar takes Lessa to Benden Weyr, where she impresses the Queen dragonet Ramoth and becomes the Weyrwoman, the new co-leader of the last active Weyr. On Ramoth's first mating flight, Mnementh catches her, and by Weyr tradition, this makes F'lar the Weyrleader.

Lessa and F'lar warn a dangerously unprepared Pern of the impending Thread reappearance. The general response is disbelief, as the last thread-fall was 400 years ago, and the stories about thread-fall have receded from recent history into legend and myth. It is not until the first Thread begins to fall that they are believed by the general populace and even by some dragon-riders.

One Weyr by itself is not enough to defend the planet; there used to be six, but the other five Weyrs are now empty, deserted since the last Pass centuries before. In a desperate attempt to increase their numbers, a new queen, Pridith, and her rider, are sent back between times (a recently rediscovered skill) ten turns, to allow Pridith time to mature and reproduce. Lessa travels four hundred turns into the past to bring the five 'missing' Weyrs forward to her present. This is a huge strain for both her and Ramoth. She convinces the dragonriders of the five Weyrs to go with her to their future, and they use the Red Star as a guide to make smaller, less strenuous hops forward in time. This not only provides much needed skilled reinforcements in the battle against Thread, but explains how and why the five Weyrs were abandoned: they came forward in time.

Awards

Dragonflight includes the Novellas "Weyr Search", which won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Novella (voted by participants in the annual World Science Fiction Convention)^[6] and "Dragonrider", which won the Nebula Award for Best Novella (voted annually by the Science Fiction Writers of America) in 1969.^[7] McCaffrey was the first woman to win either award.^[1]

The American Library Association in 1999 cited the two early Pern trilogies (Dragonriders and Harper Hall), along with The Ship Who Sang, when McCaffrey received the annual Margaret A. Edwards Award for her "lifetime contribution in writing for teens".^[8]

See also

• The Atlas of Pern (1984), a companion book produced by Karen Wynn Fonstad in consultation with McCaffrey.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Dragonflight, ISFDB lists cover artists for most editions except the paperback original, including Michael Whelan (see image) for most of the three dozen editions published November 1978 and later. Whelan painted for new Del Rey (US) Dragonflight and Dragonquest editions in conjunction with his cover for first publication of The White Dragon, which completed the original trilogy. Gino d'Achille painted for a new Del Rey Dragonflight edition in conjunction with his cover for first publication of Dragonquest (1971). ISFDB names at least six beside the four named here. For US and UK hardcover and paperback first editions, July 1968 (Ballantine US paperback) to sometime 1970 (Corgi UK paperback), there were four publishers and four cover paintings. ISFDB hosts images of all four covers and three of the artists are known.
2. ^ McCaffrey 1999, pp. 54–55, 68–71, 74: alone among the Pern books, it was published before her emigration to Ireland September 1970, at age 44, with Dragonquest (book two) nearing completion and a contract for The White Dragon. McCaffrey has lived in the vicinity of Dublin since then.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Publishers Weekly review of Robin Roberts, Anne McCaffrey: A life with dragons (2007). Quoted by Amazon.com. Retrieved 2011-07-16.
2. ^ "The Locus Index to SF Awards: 1987 Locus All-time Poll". Locus. http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/LocusAT1987.html. Retrieved 2011-10-12. Originally published in the monthly Locus, August 1987. 
3. ^ "Weyr Search". ISFDB
4. ^ "Dragonrider". ISFDB
5. ^ McCaffrey 1999, p. 49.
6. ^ "Hugo Nominees List". The Locus Index to SF Awards. Locus. 2010. http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/HugoNomList.html. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
7. ^ "Nebula Nominees List". The Locus Index to SF Awards. Locus. 2010. http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NebulaNomList.html. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
8. ^ "1999 Margaret A. Edwards Award Winners". Young Adult Library Services Association. American Library Association. http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/bookawards/margaretaedwards/maeprevious/1999awardwinner.htm. Retrieved 2011-11-14. 

Citations – books

• McCaffrey, Todd (1999). Dragonholder: The Life and Dreams (So Far) of Anne McCaffrey by her son. New York: Ballantine. ISBN 0-345-42217-1. 

Web sites

• Dragonflight publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2011-11-05.
  • "Weyr Search". Analog October 1967 publication contents at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2011-10-25.
  • "Dragonrider" part 1. Analog December 1967 publication contents at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2011-10-25.
  • "Dragonrider" part 2. Analog January 1968 publication contents at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2011-10-25.
• Dragonriders of Pern series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2011-10-09. Select a title to see its linked publication history and general information. Select a particular edition (title) for more data at that level, such as a front cover image or linked contents.

External links

• "Weyr Search" publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• "Dragonrider" publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database