Anne McCaffrey has died

[Lyrehc]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45409015/ns/today-books/#.TsxcmfKwXxY

I'm sad. I've outgrown her writing but she was one of my first "favorites" in Science Fiction.

[spencer]

That is indeed sad news. She brought me many hours of enjoyment.

[Doolipalally]

That is sad to hear. Thanks for posting, as I hadn't seen it anywhere else.

She had a truly great imagination. I think as the years went by her work became less ambitious and she relaxed into what she knew, but she's brought me many hours of enjoyment too. I re-read the first of the Dragonrider series recently and was surprised to find it was a little darker and edgier than I remembered.

[kaffe]

I have always been a big fan of The dragonriders. One of my characters Flnor was supposed to be F'nor but fat finger or misremembered. Did not catch the mistake but decided to keep it. He resides in Weyr Keep.

[psychoadept]

One of my characters Flnor was supposed to be F'nor but fat finger or misremembered. Did not catch the mistake but decided to keep it. He resides in Weyr Keep.

Ha! I saw that name and thought "I wonder if that's supposed to be F'nor?" I just figured the name generator wouldn't let you have an apostrophe (which it probably wouldn't).

I'm sad about Anne McCaffrey, too. I can remember reading Pern books as early as 4th or 5th grade.

[texlaw1992]

I remember seeing the series "Dragon Riders of Pern" in various bookstores back in high school. I never got around to reading one. Now I feel I should have made the time, oh well, RIP.

[Young Ned]

The Dragonriders books were my introduction to her as well, and I'm saddened but not surprised by her death. She was 85, after all.

Her books did tend to be warmer and fuzzier than a lot of science fiction, especially in her later writing, but I never had a problem with that. I think she influenced a lot of writers, even ones like George R.R. Martin. I mean, look at the setup premise for A Song of Ice and Fire: there's a tremendous threat to human life that comes from a particular direction every few hundred years; it's been much longer than usual since the last time it came, and nearly everybody believes it's a myth now; the organization that guards against it has very low membership and has never been smaller... Hello, Dragonriders of Pern!

I do think she wasn't too skilled as a book critic. Basically, she seemed to like almost everything! I've seen glowing quotes from her on the covers of everything from really good books to really mediocre books. One of the first of those quotes I ever saw got me to read a series that I rather liked but everyone else seems to have forgotten: The Windhover Tapes (http://www.sfreviews.net/windhover1.html), anyone? But I do think she helped jumpstart the careers of several young writers with those quotes, and if some of them weren't quite as successful as others, what of it? If the worst thing you can say about someone is that her book reviews were too kind, that says a lot about her. In a good way. :)

[scout1idf]

I've never read any of the Dragonriders of Pern books.

I always meant to pick them up and give them a read, but I got hooked on The Forgotten Realms and so I still haven't.

Maybe after I finish the series I'm reading now, I'll see about giving them a try....

[Oldschool]

Rest in Peace Ms. McCaffrey.

Funny thing is when I first read this thread and everyone's reminiscences the first work I thought of was one I've never read/bought - a cookbook.