Dragonflight

Dragonflight is a science fiction novel by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. It is the first book in the Dragonriders of Pern series. First published by Ballantine Books in July 1968, it was a fix-up of two novellas which between them had made McCaffrey the first woman writer to win a Hugo and a Nebula Award. In 1987, Locus ranked Dragonflight at number nine among the 33 "All-Time Best Fantasy Novels", based on a poll of subscribers. Origins Two components of Dragonflight were award-winning novellas published by Analog science fiction magazine. The first segment, "Weyr Search", illustrated by John Schoenherr, had been the cover story for the October 1967 issue. The second segment, "Dragonrider", appeared in two parts, beginning in December 1967, and was also a cover story illustrated by Schoenherr. "Weyr Search" features a young woman named Lessa being recruited to establish a telepathic bond with a queen dragon at its hatching, thus becoming a dragonrider, and the leader of a Weyr community on the fictional planet Pern. "Dragonrider" features the growth of Lessa's queen dragon, Ramoth, and their training together. Analog editor John W. Campbell asked "to see dragons fighting Thread", Pern's menace from space, and he also suggested time travel. In response, McCaffrey wrote a third story titled "Crack Dust, Black Dust", which was not published separately, but provided crucial material for the novel.