Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. Currently doing my umpteenth read-through completely accidentally. I wanted to read one of the books then got sucked in. I'm nine books in and read several of them in one sitting, despite having read them all plenty of times.
And while I'm on the subject, I don't think I've ever seen anyone taking about Pern online but I see mentions of Isaac Asimov every few weeks. They're of a similar age and Pern is equally good as Isaac's work, if not better. Grumble grumble...
I'm a lifelong pern fan, but... the immense fear of thread won't come across well on the screen in my opinion. And thread fighting will be hard to make such that it has the same magnitude as it can in your imagination. All in all, thread is over played. It can't be such a harrowing fight in the skies, and still be so devastating if one got through unnoticed. Cause if the fight in the skies was so hard, more would get by, and some would get missed over the years. And that is played off as the end of the world. In your imagination, that can work, but on screen, not so much. That means they would need to make some fundamental change to film it.
You're probably right, but I was trying to say it deserves more recognition. I don't think it would be a good TV show either. And Eragon has put me off all dragon-related adaptations I think!
It changes based on the book and situation, honestly. Sometimes a weyr boasts than none has got through their wings for several years. Sometimes it's just a couple of Threads. But often, whenever a character is caught outside, it's taken to be certain death. For example
Spoiler
Menolly's fire lizards die as they're hatching and go out into thread
I can't remember the book, but one punishment for murderers is to leave them outside in Threadfall to be killed
In Renegades of Pern, many of the traders die in the opening chapter despite there being dragonriders nearby
I feel like a lot of Anne McCaffrey's writing is inconsistent and is more based on what's good for the plot than anything else. And (at least in the early editions I own) could have done with a better proofreader. Couple of spelling mistakes, but a lot of people and dragon names changing and other consistency errors. But I still love the books, don't get me wrong!