Dragonsblood (2005) is the 19th book written in the Dragonriders of Pern series, and the first with Todd McCaffrey as sole author. Chronologically it is set around the Third Pass, about 500 years after landing.
Never in the dramatic history of Pern has there been a more dire emergency
than that which faces the young dragonrider Lorana. A mysterious fatal illness
is striking dragons. The epidemic is spreading like wildfire . . . and the next
deadly cycle of Threadfall is only days away. Somehow, Lorana must find a cure
before the dragons-including her own beloved Arith-succumb to the sickness,
leaving Pern undefended.
The lyrics of an all-but-forgotten song seem to point toward an answer from
nearly five hundred years in the past, when Kitti Ping and her daughter Wind
Blossom bred the first dragons from their smaller cousins, the fire-lizards. No
doubt the first colonists possessed the advanced technology to find the cure for
which Lorana seeks, but over the centuries, that knowledge has been lost. Or
has it?
For in the distant past, an aged Wind Blossom worries that the germs that
affect the fire-lizards may one day turn on larger prey-and unleash a plague
that will destroy the dragons, Pern's only defenders against Thread. But as her
people struggle to survive, Wind Blossom has neither the time nor the resources
to expend on a future that may never arrive-until suddenly she uncovers evidence
that her worst fears will come true.
Now two brave women, separated by hundreds of years but joined by bonds
transcending time, will become unknowing allies in a desperate race against
sickness and Threadfall, with nothing less than the survival of all life on Pern
at stake.
Author Biography
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.