One of McCaffrey's best attributes is her ability to keep a story moving. In Dragonflight, for example, the actual span of time is several planetary years.

The queen dragon Ramoth hatches from an egg and matures to bear her first clutch. Yet the reader is never aware of the amount of time passing, so quickly does McCaffrey keep the action moving.

One technique that contributes to this fast pace is her use of short sen tences, paragraphs, and even chapters during scenes of intense action or emotion. She also sustains the pace with a series of small climaxes which culminate in the final triumphant scene of the Weyrs' arrival four hundred years into their future. F'lar's fight with Fax, Lessa's accidental projection into her own past where she becomes her own premonition, the first battle with Thread, are just a few of the incidents McCaffrey uses, not only...