Like most modern fantasy writers, McCaffrey owes a debt to J. R. R. Tolkien. Like Tolkien, McCaffrey creates a world of her own, complete with map, culture, flora, and fauna. There is a medieval feel to the Pern culture, with holds dependent upon weyrs for protection from Thread, as fiefdoms depended upon their lords, and in return for this protection hold supports weyr.

Craftsmen are organized into guilds, with apprentices, journeymen, and masters; they are part of but independent from the holds and weyrs. And last, like Middle Earth, Pern is a semiliterate society with much ancient knowledge forgotten, some preserved by trained copyists, and much else passed on by rote, samples of which McCaffrey provides throughout.

However, McCaffrey's Pern books are science fiction, not fantasy. There is no magic in Pern. It is a carefully thought-out world based more on the rational than the wish...