Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Anne McCaffrey

They were misfits, the outcasts, the murderers without Hold or Crafthall. Some were resentful, some sought vengeance, but it was not until Thella, Lady Holder of Telgar, began to weld them together into a terrifying and brilliantly evil clan that they became the Renegades of Pern. it was a time of great turmoil on the planet. The pass of the Red Star had brought a new terrible reign of Threadfall, and in the southern Hold, Toric was carving out an enormous empire for himself from lands as yet uncharted. And as the times of trouble grew, so did the ravages of Thella and her band, turning from theft to murder to vicious and insane revenge. 
 
Jayge Lilcamp, the young and roving trader, was one of the first to fall foul of the renegades, and as he saw what Thella had done to his family and his wagon train he began to seek his own revenge, a revenge which grew into a determination to destroy the most evil woman on Pern.

The Renegades Of Pern

(Dragonriders of Pern: 10): an awe-inspiring epic fantasy from one of the most influential fantasy and SF novelists of her generation

Of all the young singers at  the Harperhall of Pern, Piemur was the one chosen for the leading role  at Lord Groghe's Gather...and then his voice broke. Suddenly his whole  future at Harperhall became uncertain. But Masterharper Robinton,  Menolly and Sebell had other plans for Piemur. They were sure that his  quick wits and discretion could be used to keep a check on the  troublesome Oldtimers and their strange traffic in fire lizards. So,  whilst serving as a messanger-drum apprentice, Piemur carried out  special errands for the three. And it was on one such errand that he  realized his wildest dreams.

Dragondrums

(Dragonriders of Pern: 6): deception and discretion loom large in this fan-favourite from one of the most influential fantasy and SF writers of all time

Todd McCaffrey

Kindan is an apprentice harper at the Harper Hall but he is finding the lessons very difficult and although he has his friends, Nonala, Kelsa and Verilan, he also has enemies, such as the bully Vaxoram. Things begin to improve for Kindan when he beats Vaxoram in a duel and Vaxoram becomes first his servant and then gradually his trusted friend. Then Kindan impresses a fire-lizard and becomes the proud owner of the magnicent Valla. At the hatching he meets Koriana, daughter of Lord Holder Bemin of Fort Hold. She also impresses and she and Kindan fall in love, but her parents disapprove and she has to return to Fort Hold. Then a plague begins to spread across Pern, killing nearly everyone infected. Kindan and his friends search the harper records to see if they can find a cure, but all they can find is mention of a similar plague over a hundred Turns past. As the plague gets worse Kindan and Vaxoram are sent to Fort Hold to help tend the sick. Kindan will be reunited with Koriana, but will she be free of the plague, and will he be able to find a cure before more people die?

Dragon Harper

Pern AL 50: the geneticist Wind Blossom is nearing the end of her long life and is painfully aware that the colonists are running out of the modern technology the settlers brought with them to Pern and that they are forgetting how to use what they do have. Society is beginning to revert to a feudal system and Wind Blossom is concerned that future generations may be hit by an illness they have no tools to fight and that mankind may subsequently be wiped off the face of Pern. 
 
AL 507: Lorana is training to be an animal healer but when she arrives at Benden Weyr she impresses a golden dragon and becomes a dragonrider. However, a deadly and mysterious plague begins to wipe out the dragons, leaving mankind no defence against the deadly Thread which has just begun to fall. Lorana has two firelizards who manage to travel Back in time to Wind Blossom's era. Wind Blossom discovers what is wrong with the dragons and comes up with a cure. She also devises a way to leave clues for Lorana so that she can discover the cure in her time and save the dragons, and thus the future of mankind on Pern.

Dragonsblood

When Fiona, the only surviving member of Lord Holder Bemin's family, Impresses a queen dragon, she doesn't begin to realize the perils and privileges that come with her new role.As she grows into a young woman and her dragon reaches her full growth, Fiona faces not only the possibility of losing her dragon to the sickness that has claimed so many others but also the challenges of becoming a Weyrwoman in her own right. What, she must ask herself, is she willing to give up in order to become a queen rider?And, although the marvellous queen dragon has chosen her, is she really suited to the life of a queen rider? 
 
As the injured dragons at Fort Weyr begin to outnumber those fit to fly against Thread, Weyrleader K'lior comes up with a desperate plan - to send the least injured and the older weyrlings back in time, so that they can grow strong enough to fight Thread in the past and then returnto help the Weyr.But will only twelve older weyrlings and thirty lightly injured riders be enough to save Fort Weyr?Forced to stay behind because her dragon is still too young, Fiona must confront a life-and-death choice.

Dragonheart

Fantasy

Although Lorana cured the dragons' sickness so many died from the disease that there are no longer enough dragons to fight the deadly Thread, and more dragons and their riders die each Threadfall. With their numbers dwindling, Lorana made the decision to fly forward in time in a desperate bid to bring dragons from the future to fight Thread. She knew that jumping so far in time would result in her losing her baby, but without her jump all life on Pern is doomed. 
 
Back at Telgar Weyr Fiona, Kindan and T'mar realise what Lorana has done. They are desperately sad, but two things give them hope. The first is that Fiona is expecting twins, and the second the fact that all the dragonriders are exhausted, a sign that they are Timing it - existing elsewhere in space and time - which gives them hope that Lorana has found a way through time to help them. 
 
Sure enough, led by messages left for them by Lorana, they fly through space to the Dawn Sisters, the ships hanging in space that brought their ancestors to Pern. From there they look down at the beautiful planet and see a previously undiscovered continent - this is where they are Timing it and where they are reunited with Lorana. Now they can increase the number and strength of the dragons before going back to their own time to fight Thread. Although Lorana found she couldn't break time, she has found a way to cheat it.

Dragon's Time

Young Kindan has no expectations other than joining his father in the mines of Camp Natalon on Pern. Mining is fraught with danger, but fortunately the camp has a watch-wher, a creature distantly related to dragons and uniquely suited to specialized work in the dark, cold mineshafts. 
 
Then disaster strikes, leaving Kindan orphaned and the camp without a watch-wher. Grieving, Kindan is taken in by the camp's new Harper and finds a measure of solace in a burgeoning musical talent . . . and in a new friendship with the mysterious Nuella. It is Nuella who assists Kindan when he is selected to hatch and train a new watch-wher, a job that forces him to give up his dream of becoming a Harper; and it is Nuella who helps him give new meaning to his life. 
 
Meanwhile, long-simmering tensions are dividing the camp. As warring factions threaten to explode, Nuella and Kindan begin to discover hidden talents in the watch-wher - talents that could very well save an entire Hold and which show them that even a seemingly impossible dream is never completely out of reach ...

Dragon's Kin

When Masterharper Zist takes over as Harper for Natalon's coal-mining camp, he takes with him his apprentice, the orphaned, mute Pellar, and Pellar's fire-lizard Chitter. Pellar has become a gifted tracker and Zist gives him his own mission - to find out if the recent thefts of coal are the work of the Shunned, criminals condemned to a life of wandering and hardship. Halla is one of the children of the Shunned. Though innocent of their parents' crimes, these children have inherited their cruel punishment. With no shelter when the lethal Thread falls again they will have no protection against it. Life is even tougher for Halla, all her family are dead and she must fend for herself. Yet Halla is kind and gentle, devoted to helping those more helpless than she, unlike Tenim, a fellow child of the Shunned. Tenim is in league with Tarik, a crooked miner from Camp Natalon, who helps him steal coal in exchange for a cut of the profit. But Tenim soon realizes there is a lot more to be made from firestone, the volatile mineral that enables the dragons of Pern to burn Thread out of the sky. Tenim doesn't care what he has to do, or whom he has to kill, in order to corner the market. Cristov is Tarik's son. Dishonored by his father's greed and treachery, he decides he must make amends somehow... even if it means risking his life by mining the volatile firestone, which blows up at contact with the slightest drop of moisture. 
 
When the last remaining firestone mine explodes in flames, a desperate race begins to find a new deposit of the deadly but essential mineral, for without it there can be no defence against Thread. But Tenim has a murderous plan to turn the tragedy to his own advantage, and only Pellar, Halla and Cristov can stop him - and ensure that there will be a future for all on the world of the Dragonriders.

Dragon's Fire

Shortly after Fiona's return to Fort Weyr, three Turns older and wiser, her queen, Talenth, is infected with the dreaded sickness that has consumed so many of Pern's precious fire-breathing dragons. Talenth's recovery and the recovery of all the other dragons of Pern is delivered by the unflagging efforts of Lorana and Kindan at Benden Weyr - but their one vital clue is only bought with the loss of all the dragons of Telgar Weyr. 
 
Fiona is sent to relieve the distressed weyrfolk of the now-dragonless Weyr. When her queen, Talenth, rises to mate, Fiona finds herself not only Telgar's senior Weyrwoman but in the center of the dilemma that confronts all Pern - how can the one thousand fighting dragons do the job of three thousand? And, if they can't, how long will it be before all of Pern is consumed by Thread?

Dragongirl

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.

Dragonsdawn

(Dragonriders of Pern: 9): discover Pern in this masterful display of storytelling and worldbuilding from one of the most influential SFF writers of all time…

‘Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels are truly foundational books; it’s hard to imagine the modern-day landscape of fantasy and science fiction without them.’ Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series 
 
When Lessa chose a dragon over her birthright, the hold she was to have inherited passed to Lord Jaxom instead. But Jaxom then muddied generations of Pern tradition by impulsively Impressing Ruth, a small, white dragon, as a child. From that moment on, the debate has raged. Is Jaxom now a dragonrider, or a lord holder? All anyone agrees on is that he cannot be both. But perhaps it is all academic anyway, for no one expects Ruth to survive. 
 
But Ruth not only survives, he thrives. With Jaxom on the cusp on adulthood, the thing the pair most desire is to fight Thread side-by-side with the larger dragons. Jaxom knows what his dragon is capable of, and now that he is – mostly – grown, he is determined to buck tradition. Fortunately, a teenage rebellion may be the key to both Pern’s salvation and winning the woman of his dreams. 
 
Don’t miss the original trilogy from Anne McCaffrey’s beloved Dragonriders of Pern series: 
DRAGONFLIGHT • DRAGONQUEST • THE WHITE DRAGON

The White Dragon

(Dragonriders of Pern: 3)

After a vicious plague swept through the world of Pern, there are no longer enough dragons to fight off the current onslaught of Thread, the deadly spore that falls like rain from the skies and devours everything organic in its path. 
 
Pern's last best chance to rebuild the decimated dragon population lies with a group of young dragonriders and their dragons left stranded on an unexplored island. Leadership of these dragons and riders falls to Xhinna, female rider of a blue dragon, who, as the most experienced dragonrider in the new Weyr, must earn the respect of all who follow her, as not everyone is ready to accept a female wingleader. She must solve the problem of how to get sufficient numbers of dragon eggs, although her newfangled ideas, like letting green dragons mate and lay eggs to hatch new dragons, cause uproar. All the while she must protect her people and baby dragons from the predators and, worse, traitors or all hope for Pern will be lost!

Sky Dragons

Dragonriders of Pern is an epic of the fantasy genre for a reason. Discover why this series is so beloved and lose yourself in Pern: a world of dragons and other worldly forces; a world of mighty powers and omnious threats, from New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Anne McCaffrey. If you like David Eddings, Brandon Sanderson and Douglas Adams, you will love this. 
 
'Anne McCaffrey, one of the queens of science fiction, knows exactly how to give her public what it wants' - THE TIMES 
 
"Thank heavens for Anne McCaffrey"-- ***** Reader review 
 
"An EXCEPTIONAL work of fantasy, brilliantly written" -- ***** Reader review 
 
"Another fabulous book from Pern's history" -- ***** Reader review 
 
"A great story both as a stand-alone novel... and as part of the Dragonriders series" -- ***** Reader review 
 
******************************************************************************* 
 
IN A GREAT HALL, A DESTINY UNRAVELS... 
 
When Menolly, daughter of Yanus Sea Holder, arrived at the Harper Craft Hall, she came in style, aboard a huge bronze dragon, followed by her nine fire lizards. 
 
The Masterharper of Pern, aware of her unique skills, had chosen her as his only girl apprentice. 
 
But the holdless girl had first to overcome many heartaches in this strange new life. 
 
Two things sustained her - her devoted lizards, a subject on which she was fitted to instruct her Masters - and the music... music of compelling beauty, music-making where at last she was accepted. 
 
The Dragonriders of Pern series continues in Dragondrums.

Dragonsinger

(Dragonriders of Pern: 5)

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