The Collection
The stories are not united by any theme, but three of four are set about 2500 years "After Landing", the beginning of human settlement on Pern. That is just before or during the "Ninth Pass" of the "Red Star", an erratic planet that periodically brings a biological menace from space. Those three stories therefore share a Pernese historical period with most of the previous books in the series (11 of 16).
The seventeenth Dragonriders of Pern book, A Gift of Dragons was the last one in the series written by Anne McCaffrey alone, before the entry of her son Todd (see Dragon's Kin). It was published first in the US and four months later in the UK with the same cover art, by Del Rey Books and Bantam UK, two imprints of Random House. Three of the four stories were previously published, one as a small book.
Read more about this topic: A Gift Of Dragons
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