Farewell, Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey holds a weird place in my heart. She was not my favorite, as I tend to go more of harder military sci fi and her stuff felt very soft, even feminine, to me. However, this is a result of her intention rather than any failing in her writing. I like to think that she saw the universe as a place where strife existed but peace and love could as well.
The reason she is special to me is that she was instrumental in my developing a love of science fiction through an act of kindness. As a kid we were very poor (food stamp poor) and the only books I could get were the $.10 paperbacks from the local thrift store. This unfortunately meant that reading a series was nigh impossible, as I would find the third and fifth in a series, but never the first and second and never in any kind of order. I had not read much science fiction when I had the fortune to come across a copy of the Dragonriders of Pern, first in the Dragonrider series. I read it and it was kind of mind blowing for my youthful brain. Telepathic dragons who get ridden by guys and fight space worms? The ability to bond with a friend for life who would love you unconditionally? All on an alien planet far from the PTSD inducing life that was my home and school world? Sign me up please!
The problem, as aforementioned, was that it would be many a moon before I saw another in the series. However, one of my mom’s friends was over visiting and notice me reading my copy for like the fifth time. She went home and a week later stopped by with the entire series to date, laid out in order. Seems she was a fan. It was wonderful. I consumed the entire series in about two weeks and proceeded re reread the series for most of the rest of the year. At that point I started saving up whatever money I could get (mostly from collecting aluminum cans like a homeless person, although this was before it became popular with the homeless. However, as a result I have experience as a dumpster diver) and buying sci fi novels instead of candy or junk. I always kept an eye out for McCaffrey novels. I read the Ship that Sang, an anthology Anne edited, and was introduced to several other authors. I read the Crystal Singer series and was introduced to the concept of of hot women in space singing for crystals (the cover art was pretty good on that one. Hey, it was the early ’80s).
By that time my love of reading and science fiction was firmly entrenched in my mind and continues to this day. Over time my taste shifted over towards more military stuff, as well as stories with more tragic characters or endings (ever read Iann Banks?). I remember in 6th grade we had an assignment to read 300 pages of a novel (our parents would sign off for each book we finished) in a single semester. I found that laughable and set a personal goal of 10,000 pages, which I achieved (and cemented my place as a loser nerd with my classmates. Maybe I should have set a goal of learning to throw a football). Reading has been my friend for my entire life and a big part of that I lay thankfully at the feet of Anne McCaffrey.
I was extremely saddened to learn of her death yesterday, and hope her legacy carries through and inspires other young people to love reading. I also hope that if they make a movie out of her books they follow the pattern set by the Lord of the Rings trilogy rather than Green Lantern pattern. There have been some very well done movies made from novels lately, and I hope the same movie makers are the ones to get a hold of the Dragonriders. Anne McCaffrey’s legacy deserves the best.
(Lord of the Fail image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Thanks for reading. I might go see a movie on Thanksgiving (cough cough no life cough cough), so I should have something to write about this weekend. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again, and talk to you all later.
Dave
