The main divisions in Pern society are the Weyrs (dragons, dragonriders, and their support staff) Holds (Communities/settlements/cities/towns where most of the people live) and the craft Halls (Harpers, Smiths, Weavers, Farmers, etc.)īecause of thread, pretty much everyone lives in caves or stone buildings of some sort. Okay, it’s not the hardest of science in science fiction. (None of this is a spoiler: It’s all spelled out in the prologues of several books.) The dragons pick their riders when they hatch, forming a lifelong telepathic bond. Without the resources to renew their technology and protect their people and crops, they bioengineered large, rideable dragons from the indigenous ‘fire-lizards,’ which, with a little help from a phosphine rock, can breathe flame to destroy the thread. The settlers planned a low-tech, agrarian colony, but soon discovered that the planet was menaced by periodic showers of ‘thread,’ a spaceborn organism that destroys all organic material it comes in contact with. The planet Pern, or Rukbat 3, was colonized by people from Earth several thousand years before the first books take place. While it’s easy to mistake the books for fantasy – Dragons! – they are in fact science fiction. Colonist with fire-lizards, from the cover of Dragonsdawn.
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