Dragonquest

Dragonquest is a science fantasy novel by the American-Irish writer Anne McCaffrey, first published in 1971. It is the second book of the Dragonriders of Pern series and is set seven years after Dragonflight.

It opens with tension rising between the Oldtimers, the dragonriders who came forward four hundred turns in time to help protect Pern and its people from Thread, and the contemporary dragonriders they came to reinforce. F'nor, the rider of the brown dragon Canth, tries to mediate between the two sides, and the attempt escalates instead: an Oldtimer named T'reb, disturbed by his green dragon being in heat, stabs him.

F'nor is sent to the Southern Continent to recover from the wound, and while he is there he falls in love with Brekke and discovers what some of the Oldtimers have been doing in the south, away from the Weyrs that brought them forward. The book continues directly from the first novel, with the same riders and the same war against Thread, and it is the second of the Dragonriders of Pern sequence.