Goodbye Anne

< | | >

22 November 2011 @ 08:05 pm

Goodbye Anne

Anne McCaffery has died. You know the first time I read about Lessa I thought she was a fictional version of my mom - tiny, fierce, and trying to do what's right even when she was set against the world. I'm so grateful for All the Ships who Sang, all the women in the Towers, the Crystal Singers and the Dragonriders and the Harpers and the Talents.

And I didn't think on hearing this news that I'd be moved to tears, but I am. While I may have grown up and looked back at her works as being just as imperfect and problematic as any human beings' works are, they helped me grow up to be *able* to see that, and I'm grateful to her for it.

also posted to dreamwidth | you can reply here or there | um, but don't worry, i'm still an lj girl

10 scribblers | scribble?

10 scribblers —

( 10 scribblers — scribble? )

silentflux on November 23rd, 2011 01:08 am (UTC)

Oh. Wow. This is so amazingly sad. Her worlds informed so much of my youth and my creative growth - they still do. I don't know what to say other than her work and life made a lasting impression on me and many others - I can't think of a better tribute to such an amazing woman.

(Reply) (Thread) (Link)

katekat1010 on November 23rd, 2011 01:11 am (UTC)

I agree - and really, her words informed like not just a generation of readers, but generations, plural. And they're just damn good stories, you know?

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)

silentflux on November 23rd, 2011 01:30 am (UTC)

Exactly! Her stories are the yardstick I measure by - fiction and fantasy fiction. And you're talking about generations plural - all my introductions to Anne's work came from my mother who read her when she was young. As soon as I was reading at that level, around 11 or so, my mom handed me those books from her library (not YA fiction, lol). And I still go back and read them time and again when I need something good instead of rolling the dice on what's out there in fantasy nowadays.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)

katekat1010 on November 23rd, 2011 12:45 pm (UTC)

My intro came from her books on my mom's bookshelf too, and if I had daughters I would so be handing them over! I still go back to them too - though funnily enough not to the dragonriders, but to 'The Ship Who Sang' and the short stories of the woman in the tower.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)

mishloran on November 23rd, 2011 02:42 am (UTC)

I have a whole bunch of her dragonriders books on my shelf. Shame.

(Although if I recall, she was a bit hard line about "no fanfiction ever" and I think tried to prosecute a fan for doing so once? ...I'm not saying she ought to die for this, or that it was a good thing, I'm just sayin'. Sometimes the author ain't as awesome as the stories. I suppose is what I'm saying.)

(Reply) (Thread) (Link)

katekat1010 on November 23rd, 2011 12:50 pm (UTC)

She definitely was on the hardline about fanfiction, and also had some very very strange ideas about gay relationships in the Dragonriders (and actually all the dragon-mating sex in those books is really dub con if you look at it with outside eyes). At the same time, she produced so many stories about so many different kinds of women in sci fi that marked other authors in significant ways, beyond James Tiptree or Ursula LeGuin....and she also wrote some of the first stories I read where there were big age differences, thus opening the way for me for Buffy/Giles.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)

missus_grace on November 23rd, 2011 06:08 am (UTC)

I heard the news on FB.

I loved many of her stories, but the Dragonriders of Pern will always be my favorite.

Godspeed, Mrs. McCaffrey.

(Reply) (Thread) (Link)

katekat1010 on November 23rd, 2011 12:50 pm (UTC)

Indeed lady, indeed.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)

samanthahirr on November 27th, 2011 11:09 pm (UTC)

Oh MAN. the Crystal Singers, the Dragon Riders, the HARPERS, and oh, oh, SASSINAK. sniffle. I need to pull out my old books next time I visit my parents' house! While my friends were learning from Jane Auel, Virginia Andrews, and Sweet Valley High, I'm so glad I had McCaffrey's heroines to show me an alternative.

(Reply) (Thread) (Link)

katekat1010 on November 29th, 2011 04:01 am (UTC)

Oh GODS me too! I remember seeing those Virginia Andrews books ALL over at the time I was running around on my second reading of the dragonrider books and years later when i actually picked it up, was so incredibly grateful I had something so much better to read.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)

Log in