A – Anne McCaffrey

As you may or may not know, Anne McCaffrey is a writer, specifically she is famous for the Dragonriders of Pern series. And I have to say, they are fantastic books and some of my favourites, half of a shelf is taken up by her books on my bookshelf and I don’t even have all of them yet.

The dragons are what I am going to focus on, since that is my theme for this month, but the books are highly enjoyable and well worth the read.

Dragons are large beasts which bond to a human upon birth, a process called impression, and after that the two are linked together for the rest of their lives. A dragon can talk to his rider telepathically, can fly once h reaches a certain growth, can breathe fire by chewing on Firestone to create the breath, and they have a curious ability to teleport, called ‘going between’ which allows the dragonriders to get from one place to another in three heartbeats.

There are five types of dragon, divided up by colour: Greens, Blues, Browns, Bronzes and Golds. Gold and green dragons are female, whereas Blue, Brown and Bronze are male, and Golds are the queens of the dragon, the one who mate with bronzes to produce more dragon eggs. Green can mate, but never produce eggs.

There are also tiny version of dragons which are important in the series, called fire lizards. the emulate the dragons in colour and abilities, but are the length of a forearm instead of the massive size which the rider’s dragon are.

I could say other things about the dragons, but I don’t want to spoil anything if you decide to read them. But the setting is one of the most well done that I have ever come across, and I love the world of Pern so much. I think I might have to go and read it again now.