The White Dragon (The Dragonriders of Pern Series Volume III [3])

497 pp. "The Dragonriders of Pern is an extensive science fiction series of novels and short stories primarily written by Anne McCaffrey. Since 2004, McCaffrey's son Todd McCaffrey has also published Pern novels, both in collaboration with Anne and on his own. As of July 2010, the series consists of 21 novels or novellas and several short stories, most of which have been collected in two volumes. Some controversy has arisen over the genre this series belongs to. While the earlier novels in the series have a clear fantasy slant to them (low levels of technology, fire-breathing dragons, feudal societies), the nature of the prologue explaining the events take place on a colony world precludes it being anything but science fiction. The publisher (Del Rey) lists them as science fiction titles and McCaffrey herself describes them as science fiction and stresses the scientific rationales behind the world she has created. In more recent novels, the series moves toward more overt science fiction as the colonists rediscover their links to the past and develop much higher levels of technology."