Dragon's Kin

Young Kindan has no expectations other than joining his father in the mines of Camp Natalon on Pern. Mining is fraught with danger, but fortunately the camp has a watch-wher, a creature distantly related to dragons and uniquely suited to specialized work in the dark, cold mineshafts.

Then disaster strikes, leaving Kindan orphaned and the camp without a watch-wher. Grieving, Kindan is taken in by the camp's new Harper and finds a measure of solace in a burgeoning musical talent... and in a new friendship with the mysterious Nuella. It is Nuella who assists Kindan when he is selected to hatch and train a new watch-wher, a job that forces him to give up his dream of becoming a Harper; and it is Nuella who helps him give new meaning to his life.

Meanwhile, long-simmering tensions are dividing the camp. As warring factions threaten to explode, Nuella and Kindan begin to discover hidden talents in the watch-wher - talents that could very well save an entire Hold and which show them that even a seemingly impossible dream is never completely out of reach...

About the Authors

Anne McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. A prolific bestselling author, she is best known for her handling of broad themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly in her tales of the Talents and the novels about the Dragonriders of Pern. Anne McCaffrey lived in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland until her death in 2011.

Todd McCaffrey, Anne's son, is a computer engineer living in Los Angeles. The approved heir to Pern, his first solo Dragonriders of Pern novel, Dragonsblood, was published in 2005.