Dragonsblood is the first Pern novel not written by Anne McCaffrey. It was written by her son, Todd McCaffrey. Dragonsblood is an unusual novel in that it spans events at the end of the First Pass and beginning of First Interval, and also events straddling the Second Interval-Third Pass border. At the end of the Second Interval, a plague spreads through the Dragons and Fire-lizards, threatening Pern's survival. Through the use of "timing it" and transtemporal telepathy, a cure is developed just in the nick of time.