PREQUEL to dragon riders of Pern.
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.
It is ninth book in the Dragonriders of Pern series, but chronologically it takes place before any of the other books. It was published in 1988, by Del Rey in the United States and Bantam in the United Kingdom. UK editions have had various subtitles: Dragonsdawn: The First Chronicles of the Colony of Pern and Dragonsdawn: The Earliest Legend of Pern.