Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published Aug. 29, 1994 by Del Rey.
Let the queen of dragons herself take you back to the earliest days of Pernese history as Anne McCaffrey brings to life events that shaped one of the most popular worlds in all of science fiction, in this first-ever Pern short-story collection.
Generally the stories are about the relocation and reorganization of the southern colony in response to the "First Pass" of the "Red Star"—an erratic planet that periodically brings a biological menace, in the form of falling thread. The twelfth Dragonriders of Pern book, First Fall shares its early setting only with one previously published book in the series, Dragonsdawn (1988). MacCaffrey places Dragonsdawn and First Fall in a perspective of the ancient history of Pern.
The history of Pern was pretty thoroughly sketched out in the original books; honestly I don't think there's enough to say about it to make it much of a story. The (sadly) usual dose of weird sexism and kind of not-exactly-consensual sex made me grit my teeth through some parts.
