- Mass Market Paperback
- Publisher: Del Rey (13 April 1989)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0345362551
- ISBN-13: 978-0345362551
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.7 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
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Product Description
Book Description
The earliest legend of Pern.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
In the beginning, before Thread, before the Dragons, before the Holds and the Weyrs and the elite Dragonriders of Pern, was just the great ships gliding through space with nearly six thousand colonists prepared to tackle the mighty task of beginning a new world on a strange planet.
It was a jewel of a planet, with rivers and seas and mountains, and breathable air and growing things. Then came the terror. The strange, unidentifiable circles in the grass suddenly revealed a meaning, and every living thing was at risk. Many died -- a horrible and consuming death. All resources, every man, woman and child had to fight the terrible nightmare of Thread.
But a new creature was about to save the planet. From the delicate fire lizards a new life was born -- a new symbiosis between man and beast.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After a years-long gap of reading Anne McCaffrey's fantastic books about the Dragons of Pern, I decided to buy my own copies of some of my favourites of the series - and what a good decision it has been so far!
Dragonsdawn has long been on my 'to read again' list and finally, as I settled comfortably and began to read it, I remembered why. The sheer scale of McCaffrey's creation really becomes apparent in this volume - in Dragonflight and the books telling of the later history of Pern, most of the action is concerned with the dragons and their riders. Not so in this. In fact, they only completely steal the limelight in the final half of the book! Fans of the dragons shouldn't be too disappointed though - having read a few of the others before this I was pleased to see where some of the place names originated from, and fascinated by the rich detail and scientific crediblity of Pern. And the build up to the dragons is very satisfying - makes it all worth the wait! :-)
In this book you get a much broader view of the beginnings of human life on Pern, how the culture was established, where certain elements found in other books originate from (examples including klah and agenothree) and - well, the detail and imagination just grabbed my attention!
The characters that emerge in the book - some prominent from the beginning, others coming into play later on - are well crafted and evoked a huge range of feelings in me, from sympathy and amusement to abject dislike. Also, although the recommended reading order places Dragonsdawn far along the list, I don't think a prior knowledge of the skills and purposes of the dragons and their riders, indeed even Pern, is essential. It paves the way for further reading, and stands alone as a classic in the series.
McCaffrey is a skilled and inspiring writer and this book is a pleasure to read, one that I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of the Dragon Series with the desire to broaden the view a bit and look at how human life on Pern began.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Dragonsdawn is not a typical novel of Pern. If you approach this novel as a reader who loves fantasy and dragons - but not the Pern mythos itself - you may be a little disappointed as you are over half way through the novel before Dragons are really even mentioned. However if you are already addicted to Pern then this novel is a vital link in the events only briefly alluded to in the forewords of McCaffreys earlier novels in the series. She has gone back and contstructed a story based on those briefly mentioned events that is absorbing and utterly believable in every way. If I have a single criticism it is not of the novel itself. I notice from the Del Rey website that Anne McCaffrey is now placing this novel, rather than Dragonflight at the start of the order she suggests the series be read in. Personally I feel that Dragonflight is still the way to start, reading those earlier novels first gives a far greater appreciation of the personalities (who have lent their names to much of Pern's geography and society) than would come from a strictly chronological reading of which Dragonsdawn must be at the head. That said I cannot fault the book or indeed the rest of the series. Whilst it is true that every author who writes series (and this is true of McCaffrey) suffers dips in form the Pern series has thankfully escaped this fate - read them all! Many times.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anne McCaffrey's 'Dragonsdawn' is the chronological 'first' book in her renowned Dragons of Pern series, following the story of Pern's earliest settlers.
Three colony ships, known in later books as the 'Dawn Sisters' bring the colonists to the planet known as Pern, earmarked as eligible for colonisation some two centuries earlier. This story follows their landing and progress through the eyes of one of the children aboard, Sorka Hanrahan, as she makes friends with Sean Connell and explores her new home.
Together they discover the dragonets, beautiful winged lizards which have a modicum of empathy with humans, and are among the first to face and survive the phenomenon of Thread when it begins to descend on the planet eight years after the landing.
Thread eats alive almost anything it hits, and this spells disaster to the mainly agricultural colony. In desperation, the colonists turn to the dragonets as their last chance to save their world and their lives, and Sean and Sorka are once again in the forefront of the new initiative: but can seventeen genetically altered dragonets, no matter how loyal and dedicated, save a planet?
This is a great introduction to the rest of the series, and an ingenuous answer to the persistent question from later books of how humans and dragons came to be sharing a planet. I would recommend it, either as part of the series or even as a stand-alone.
Three colony ships, known in later books as the 'Dawn Sisters' bring the colonists to the planet known as Pern, earmarked as eligible for colonisation some two centuries earlier. This story follows their landing and progress through the eyes of one of the children aboard, Sorka Hanrahan, as she makes friends with Sean Connell and explores her new home.
Together they discover the dragonets, beautiful winged lizards which have a modicum of empathy with humans, and are among the first to face and survive the phenomenon of Thread when it begins to descend on the planet eight years after the landing.
Thread eats alive almost anything it hits, and this spells disaster to the mainly agricultural colony. In desperation, the colonists turn to the dragonets as their last chance to save their world and their lives, and Sean and Sorka are once again in the forefront of the new initiative: but can seventeen genetically altered dragonets, no matter how loyal and dedicated, save a planet?
This is a great introduction to the rest of the series, and an ingenuous answer to the persistent question from later books of how humans and dragons came to be sharing a planet. I would recommend it, either as part of the series or even as a stand-alone.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Enjoyable despite the dragons
McCaffrey has written a great many books in her "Dragonriders of Pern" series. The author and the publishers have always asserted that they are science fiction but I'm not entirely... Read more
Published 7 months ago by D. R. Cantrell
self indulgent
A decent basic story is undermined by McCaffrey's apparent desire to name every one of the colonists, throwing in random names of characters who never appear again and have no... Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2006 by Ian Burdon
Dragonsdawn
Prequel to all the Dragon books. At first, Pern's a paradise. It gets really interesting when things go wrong. Read more
Published on 3 May 2003 by "alison4503"
a fantastic read
Anne McCaffreys Pern series manages to encompass both science fiction and fantasy and does it very well. Read more
Published on 4 Mar 2003 by Ms. H. Sinton
An amazing, totally engrossing book!
I was very reluctant to read this book, having started with the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy. I came late in the series, and fell in love with the magical (somehow medieval and... Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2002 by ANNA OIKONOMAKI
Suprisingly entertaining.
I typically won't read McCaffrey anymore, but this is the one exception. Dragonsdawn brings us Pern before it was settled, just as the human race decides to pitch up. Read more
Published on 24 Aug 2001 by Christopher Meadows
A Great Insight into the beginning of the Dragon Legends
When I first read this book I had already experienced a lot of Anne McCaffrey's work, but some of the books seemed to have missing links. Read more
Published on 22 Jan 2000
I can see clearly now the history's here
Benden Weyr - Admiral Benden, Telgar hold - Telgar (in memory of Sallah). This opens my eyes and is thoroughly brilliant, I reckon that some of the above reveiws have small minds... Read more
Published on 30 Jun 1999
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