Lessa is ready to come out of hiding and reclaim her birthright, but first she must save the planet of Pern from the deadly silver Threads.

All seems well on Pern until a mysterious ailment strikes killing myriads of holders, craftsmen, and dragonriders. Pern is left in mortal danger with no one to rise to char the prarasitic Thread. The dragonriders of Pern are in danger from a mutated strain of influenza.

Deadly spores threaten the human colony of Pern unless the colonists, with help from geneticist Kitti Ping, can develop fire-breathing dragons to combat the menace The beautiful planet Pern seemed a paradise to s new colonists -- until unimaginable terror turned it into hell Suddenly deadly spores were falling like silver threads from the sky, devouring everything -- and everyone -- in their path. It began to look as if the colony, cut off from Earth...

The greatest dream of the dragonriders was to find a way to eradicate Thread completely, so that never again would their beloved Pern be threatened with destruction.

On the planet Pern, two farseeing dragon riders train their troops--mounted on genetically engineered dragons--for the battle with the Thread, an evil force. Portents of all sorts, including violent storms and erupting volcanos, point to the Thread's coming, but most of the planet prefers to ignore them, lulled into complacency by 200 years of peace.

With the planet of Pern no longer threatened by Threadfall, its inhabitants are free to build new lives for themselves with the help of recently discovered ancient technology, until a terrifying new peril from the sky endangers the planet.

The dragons of Pern are dying and the only person who can save them has been dead for over 400 Turns. This fantasy is written by Anne McCaffrey's son, Todd, heir to the literary world of Pern.

Weyrwoman Fiona struggles to keep her surviving Weyr in fighting shape while Lorana plans a complicated time-travel journey to save their world.