“Dragonrider,” which was first released as a two-part Analog serial (December 1967 and January 1968), was the second Pern story, appearing after the shorter novella “Weyr Search” (October 1967). Together, the two stories formed the first Pern novel, Dragonflight (1968). When the online version of the ITTDB was in a nascent stage, my friend Allison Thompson-Brown reminded me that the dragons can travel to a new when as well as a new where, and that time travel first appeared near the end of “Dragonrider.” Time travel on Pern occurs in a single, static timeline, so the dragons and their riders can never change anything known to be certain in the past.
Robinton’s eyes widened as he digested this astonishing news.
“That is how we forestalled the attack on Nerat yesterday morning. We jumped back two hours between times to meet the Threads as they fell.”