There are four basic social classes: Weyrfolk (including Dragonriders) who live in Weyrs, Holders who rule Holds (cities, towns and farms), Crafters, and the Holdless who have no permanent home (including traders, displaced Holders, and brigands). The Pernese live in a pre-industrial society, with lords, holds, harpers (musicians, entertainers, and teachers), and dragons, with occasional examples of higher technology (like flamethrowers, the telegraph, chemical fertilizers, and powerful microscopes and telescopes). Later books deal with the initial colonization of Pern and the genetic modification of small native animals into creatures capable of carrying humans in flight. The bonding instantly creates a very close, lifelong relationship – the dragon almost invariably commits suicide at the rider's death, and a rider whose dragon died bears a deep emotional wound which can never be fully healed. A human rider has a telepathic bond with their dragon, formed by Impression at the dragon's hatching. The Pernese use intelligent firebreathing dragons to fight Thread. The Red Star has a 250-Turn (Pernese year) elliptic orbit around Rukbat, and when its orbit brings it close enough, Thread rains down on Pern at predictable intervals over about 50 Turns. Thread comes from the Red Star, actually another planet. Humans have colonized the planet Pern in the Rukbat star system, but have lost much of their technology and history (including their origin on Earth) due to periodic onslaughts of Thread, a mycorrhizoid spore that voraciously consumes all organic material, including humans and their crops, given the opportunity. The two novellas included in the first novel, Dragonflight, made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo Award for writing fiction as well as the first to win a Nebula Award. The series (as of 2022) comprises 24 novels and two collections of short stories.

Beginning in 2003, her middle child Todd McCaffrey has written Pern novels, both solo and jointly with Anne. Dragonriders of Pern is a science fantasy series written primarily by American author Anne McCaffrey, who initiated it in 1967.

Falling Hard by Shelly Bell