Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern is a fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 or science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey

Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American-born Irish writer, best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. Over the course of her 46 year career she won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award...

. It was the seventh book published in the Dragonriders of Pern

Dragonriders of Pern

Dragonriders of Pern is a science fiction series written primarily by the late American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey, who initiated it in 1967. Beginning 2003, her middle child Todd McCaffrey has written Pern novels, both solo and jointly with Anne. The series comprises 22 novels and several short...

series by Anne or her son Todd McCaffrey

Todd McCaffrey

Todd J. McCaffrey is an Irish American author of science fiction best known for continuing the Dragonriders of Pern series in collaboration with his mother Anne McCaffrey.-Life:...

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With this book, McCaffrey jumped 1000 years back in Pern history from the setting of the first book, Dragonflight, to a time memorialized in song and rendered legendary from the standpoint of the previous books.

Plot summary

The story involves a deadly disease that nearly wipes out the Pernese population. Moreta is a weyrwoman at Fort Weyr who sets out to save the human population, racing against time itself. The follow-up novel, Nerilka's Story

Nerilka's Story

Nerilka's Story is a fantasy or science fiction novella by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. It was the eighth book published in the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne or her son Todd McCaffrey.-Plot summary:...

, tells the tale of the same event, from a different perspective.

Themes

It addresses such issues as quarantine

Quarantine

Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....

, public response to emergency restrictions on travel and assembly, and also describes how "modern" forms of transportation, especially air travel

Aviation

Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...

, can spread a disease worldwide during its incubation period

Incubation period

Incubation period is the time elapsed between exposure to a pathogenic organism, a chemical or radiation, and when symptoms and signs are first apparent...

, allowing the disease to spread far more widely before pathologists

Pathology

Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....

 are able to recognize the magnitude of the outbreak

Outbreak

Outbreak is a term used in epidemiology to describe an occurrence of disease greater than would otherwise be expected at a particular time and place. It may affect a small and localized group or impact upon thousands of people across an entire continent. Two linked cases of a rare infectious...

.

Chronology

Moreta was the last Pern book published before The Atlas of Pern

The Atlas of Pern

The Atlas of Pern by Karen Wynn Fonstad is an authorized companion book to the science fiction Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey...

(1984), a companion book prepared by Karen Wynn Fonstad

Karen Wynn Fonstad

Karen Wynn Fonstad, née Wynn was the author of several atlases of fictional worlds.Born Karen Lea Wynn in Oklahoma City to parents James and Estis Wynn, she graduated from Norman High School in Norman, Oklahoma, and then earned a B.S. degree in Physical Therapy and an M.A...

 in consultation with McCaffrey. As such Moreta's geographical settings from peninsulas to stables are illustrated by maps and other drawings and its chronology is explicitly presented in the Atlas.

Awards

Moreta was one of five nominees for the annual Hugo Award for Best Novel

Hugo Award for Best Novel

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

 and it placed sixth for the annual Locus Award for Best Novel

Locus Award for Best Novel

Winners of the Locus Award for Best Novel, awarded by Locus magazine. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year....

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