The beautiful planet Pern seemed a paradise to its new colonists-a return to an agrarian way of life-until unimaginable terror turned it into hell. Lethal spores began to fall like silvery thread-like rain from the sky, vaporizing everything-and everyone-in their path. The colony, cut off from Earth and lacking the resources to combat the menace, was doomed. The colonists noticed that small, dragon-like lizards in their new world were joining the fight against Thread, breathing fire on it and teleporting to safety. If only the dragonets were big enough for a human to ride and intelligent enough to work as a team with a rider. With time running out and the colony's destruction imminent, they set their most talented geneticist to work to create the creatures Pern so desperately needed-dragons!