When the first humans came to settle the planet Pern, they did not come
alone: intelligence-enhanced dolphins also crossed the stars, to
colonize the oceans of the new planet while their human partners settled
the vast continents. But then disaster struck in the form of Thread,
deadly silver spores that fell like rain from the sky, devouring
everything - and everyone - in their path. And as the human colonists'
dreams of a new, idyllic life shattered into a desperate struggle for
survival, the dolphins were forgotten, left to make their own life in
the seas of Pern. As time went by, human memory of dolphins was lost to
legend, and only the occasional tall tale of "shipfish" rescuing
fishermen lost at sea kept the legend alive. But the dolphins never
forgot, and from generation to generation they preserved their oral
history against the day when humans at last might remember their old
friends, and once again the seas would resound with the ringing of the
dolphins' bells from docks and ships... Now, centuries later, the
dragonriders of Pern were on the verge of ridding their planet of Thread
forever. But T'lion, a young bronze rider, was not old enough to
participate in that great venture. Instead, he and his dragon, Gadareth,
were relegated to conveying people from place to place - until he and
Readis, son of the Lord Holder of Paradise River Hold, made contact with
the legendary "shipfish." And as the dragonriders grappled with the
ending of an era, T'lion, Readis, and the dolphins faced the start of a
new one: reviving the bond between land- and ocean-dwellers and, in the
process, resurrecting the dreams of the first colonists of Pern...
