Dragon Harper (2007) is the 21st book written in the Dragonriders of Pern series. Chronologically it is set around the Third Pass, about 500 years after landing.
Life in the Harper Hall is busy for best friends Kindan, Nonala, and Kelsa.
As the only female apprentices, Nonala and Kelsa are the butt of jokes and easy
targets for the bully Vaxoram and his cronies. But when Kindan springs to
Kelsa's defense, he winds up in a fight for his life against the older, bigger
Vaxoram-a fight that will lead to a surprising friendship.
Meanwhile, in nearby Fort Hold, a clutch of fire-lizard eggs is about to hatch,
and Lord Bemin's beautiful young daughter, Koriana, is determined to Impress
one of the delightful creatures. At the hatching, Kindan Impresses a fire-lizard
of his own . . . and wins the heart of Koriana. But Lord Bemin mistrusts harpers
and will not hear of a match between his daughter and the low-born Kindan.
Then fate intervenes in the form of a virulent plague as fast-spreading as it is deadly. Arising suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the contagion decimates hold after hold, paying no heed to distinctions of birth. In this feverish crucible, friendship and love will be tested to the breaking point and beyond. For with Threadfall scant years away, the Dragonriders dare not expose themselves to infection, and it will fall to Kindan and his fellow apprentices to bravely search for a cure and save humanity. The price of failure is unthinkable. But the price of success may be even harder to bear.
Author Biography
Anne McCaffrey was one of the world's leading science-fiction writers, and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as the Margaret A. Edwards' Lifetime Achievement Literary Award. Born and raised in the US, although of Irish extraction, she spent the last years of her life in Ireland, in the heart of the Wicklow Mountains. She died in 2011 at the age of eighty-five. She is the creator of the Dragons of Pern series.
Todd McCaffrey is the bestselling author of the Pern novels Dragonsblood and Dragonheart, and the co-author, with his mother, Anne McCaffrey, of Dragon’s Kin, Dragon’s Fire, and Dragon Harper. A computer engineer, he currently lives in Los Angeles. Having grown up in Ireland with the epic of the Dragonriders of Pern, he is burst-ing with ideas for new stories of that world, its people, and its dragons.