R.I.P.
1926-2011
I can't even begin to guess how many hours I've spent reading and rereading her books. She caught my imagination hook, line and sinker. The Crystal Singer, The Ship Who Sang, The White Dragon, Get Off the Unicorn, To Ride Pegausus... I'm so sad she's gone, but so happy she gave us so many wonderful, memorable characters - Helva, Nerilka, Moreta, Killashandra, the Rowan, Sara, and all the other McCaffrey non-simpering, many-dimensional, independant but fallible heroines.
I must give a special mention to her very first novel Restoree, which one site states was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in s-f novels in the 50s and early 60s. All I know is that I still have the copy I bought as a young gal, and that I absolutely adored that book in my teens. There was a time when I read it about every six months, and could quote lines from it. But then I also read The Ship Who Sang so many times and wept with every, single reading, and bought one Pern book after another in quick sucession back in the eighties, and enjoyed The Tower and Hive series and the Petaybee books and...
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Anne.
4 comments:
Restoree was the first McCaffrey I had - it's even signed by her. Then I picked up The Ship Who Sang, and then onward into Pern.
I agree with your sentiments completely.
Thank you, Anne, and sleep well.
A signed McCaffrey - what a treasure. And that of all her books it should be 'Restoree' makes me just a little envious :)
I got a lift home from the Arvo Job tonight, and a good portion of the long drive was spent talking about Anne's books. What an amazing legacy.
Anne McCaffrey - part of my life. I loved The Ship Who Sang and it has become part of my memory, as if I had actually experienced the events.
I must have read Restoree, because I recall the plot line, but I have to admit I don't clearly remember it.
The Dragon Riders were part of life also for many years, and I kept browsing the new titles of the series even when the later stories no longer appealed to me. I used to dream further adventures set in that world and live in my imagination through the dreams she had started in my head.
She leaves a beautiful legacy in my imagination.
Isn't it lovely how so many people have such wonderful memories of her books? And that we all became so immersed in her worlds? How many writers can do that?
The Ship Who Sang seems to win hands down as an across the board favourite no matter how old people are when they read it, but Restoree, I think, has to be read at a certain age for it to fully captivate. As for the Dragonriders - I was there too, on Pern, probably three weyrs to the west of where you were, with a dragon as my best, most faithful companion.
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