RIP Anne McCaffrey

FAN: Discuss various fictional worlds that don't qualify for SF.

Moderator: Steve

Post Reply
User avatar
Terralthra
Requiescat in Pace
Posts: 4741
Joined: 2007-10-05 09:55pm
Location: San Francisco, California, United States

RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Terralthra »

Locus Magazine wrote:SFWA Grand Master Anne McCaffrey, 85, died November 21, 2011 of a massive stroke at home in Ireland.

McCaffrey is best known for her long-running Pern series of SF novels and stories. She was the first woman to win both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards, with “Weyr Search” (1968) and “Dragonrider” (1969) respectively. Pern novel The White Dragon (1978) was the first hardcover SF novel to make the New York Times bestseller list. Many of the later books in the Pern series were written in collaboration with McCaffrey’s son Todd. In all she authored or co-wrote more than 100 titles, beginning with first novel Restoree (1967).

Her other works include the Freedom series, the Doona series (with Jody Lynn Nye), the Dinosaur Planet series (with Jody Lynn Nye and Elizabeth Moon), the Crystal Singer series, the Brain & Brawn Ship series (with Margaret Ball, Mercedes Lackey, S.M. Stirling, and Jody Lynn Nye), the Petaybee series (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough), the Talent series, the Tower & Hive series, the Acorna series (with Margaret Ball, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and various other authors), and the Coelura series.

Anne Inez McCaffrey was born April 1, 1926 in Cambridge MA. She attended Radcliffe College, graduating in 1947, and worked as an advertising copywriter while directing and performing in stage productions. She married H. Wright Johnson in 1950, and had three children. She divorced Johnson in 1970, and moved to Ireland, where she opened a stable and began raising horses.

Her many honors include being named a SFWA Grand Master (2005); induction into the SF Hall of Fame (2006); and a Robert A. Heinlein Award (2007).

See the January issue of Locus for a complete obituary and appreciations.
Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern, Talents, Crystal Singer, and Ship/Brawn series were part of what got me so engrossed with scifi and fantasy to begin with. Her imagination and storycraft will be missed.
User avatar
Ahriman238
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4854
Joined: 2011-04-22 11:04pm
Location: Ocularis Terribus.

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Ahriman238 »

I never much read her, except one or two of the Pern books, which my mother was a bit of a fanatic for. Requiesat in Pace.

EDIT: I seem to recall her son wrote a few Pern books himself. It's sort of comforting to think that this may not be the end of the series, and that before she died she got to see her son suceed as a writer.
"Any plan which requires the direct intervention of any deity to work can be assumed to be a very poor one."- Newbiespud
User avatar
Forgothrax
Padawan Learner
Posts: 255
Joined: 2011-10-01 10:38pm
Location: Michigan, USA, Terra (sometimes)

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Forgothrax »

I was never that much into Pern, to be honest (they seemed a bit over-hyped to me), but her Brainship/Brawn series was wonderful. She was a truly great writer. *raises glass in a toast*
Sinewmire
Padawan Learner
Posts: 468
Joined: 2009-12-15 12:17pm

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Sinewmire »

I grew up on Anne McCaffrey novels, the Pern series and the Freedom series, they pretty much formed my (horrifically mistaken) early teen ideas of romance.

I actually started re-reading the pern series today.

RIP Anne.
Mother's father's father, who departed for all time between, said this was the key to the mystery, and it came to him while doodling: he said that he said: ARRHENIUS? EUREKA! MYCORRHIZA... Flamethrowing fire-lizards to wipe out the spores. Q.E.D.
"Our terror has to be indiscriminate, otherwise innocent people will cease to fear"
-Josef Stalin
User avatar
fgalkin
Carvin' Marvin
Posts: 14557
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:51pm
Location: Land of the Mountain Fascists
Contact:

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by fgalkin »

"It's a proven fact that a single anal sex experience causes one to be
homosexual. The hormones released by a sexual situation involving the anus
being broached, are the same hormones found in large quantities in
effeminate homosexual males. For example, when I was much younger I knew a
young man who was for all intents and purposes, heterosexual. He was
mugged, and involved in a rape situation involving a tent peg. This one
event was enough to have him start on a road that eventually led to him
becoming effeminate and gay."

Source

Watch out for those tent pegs, Anne.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
User avatar
Steve
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 9762
Joined: 2002-07-03 01:09pm
Location: Florida USA
Contact:

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Steve »

I might be wrong, but last time I heard that was some kind of internet myth that got disproven by snopes or some other site. Again, might be wrong.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
User avatar
Terralthra
Requiescat in Pace
Posts: 4741
Joined: 2007-10-05 09:55pm
Location: San Francisco, California, United States

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Terralthra »

Snopes doesn't have any official page on the subject, but the forum thread on it indicates no original source was ever found, no name of the interviewer, etc.
User avatar
Korto
Jedi Master
Posts: 1196
Joined: 2007-12-19 07:31am
Location: Newcastle, Aus

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Korto »

Huh. Used to love her books when I was young. Went off them eventually due to her being "too nice", and I was starting to prefer darker and grittier, but a shame none-the-less.
“I am the King of Rome, and above grammar”
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
User avatar
Rogue 9
Scrapping TIEs since 1997
Posts: 18631
Joined: 2003-11-12 01:10pm
Location: Classified
Contact:

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Rogue 9 »

Ahriman238 wrote:I never much read her, except one or two of the Pern books, which my mother was a bit of a fanatic for. Requiesat in Pace.

EDIT: I seem to recall her son wrote a few Pern books himself. It's sort of comforting to think that this may not be the end of the series, and that before she died she got to see her son suceed as a writer.
I'm told he sucks at writing Pern, though, something about insisting on coffee and chickens. I heard about her death on NPR on the way to a friend's house the day after, and when I told him he immediately panicked about him finishing the last book.

At any rate, may she rest in peace. I never read much of her books, but perhaps I will someday.
It's Rogue, not Rouge!

HAB | KotL | VRWC/ELC/CDA | TRotR | The Anti-Confederate | Sluggite | Gamer | Blogger | Staff Reporter | Student | Musician
User avatar
Broomstick
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 28724
Joined: 2004-01-02 07:04pm
Location: Industrial armpit of the US Midwest

Re: RIP Anne McCaffrey

Post by Broomstick »

Todd's first couple of Pern books were meh at best, but a couple of them have actually added something to the Pernaverse. The question is how much of that was his mother's influence, and how much was him improving as a writer.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. Leonard Nimoy.

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
Post Reply