{"id":9865,"date":"2011-11-24T08:26:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T19:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=9865"},"modified":"2011-11-24T13:22:28","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T00:22:28","slug":"a-personal-tribute-anne-mccaffrey-1926-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/11\/24\/a-personal-tribute-anne-mccaffrey-1926-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"A Personal Tribute: Anne McCaffrey, 1926-2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many of you will already know the news that came out yesterday, that science fiction writer, Anne McCaffrey, has died, aged 85, at her home in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Anne McCaffrey’s first novel, Restoree<\/em><\/strong>, was published in 1967 and she went on to author such well known works as the Dragonriders of Pern<\/span>, Crystalsinger<\/span>, and Rowan<\/span> series, and such classics as The Ship Who Sang<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

She was the first female author to win a Hugo Award<\/strong> for a work of fiction: for the novella, Weyr Search<\/em><\/strong> (a forerunner of Dragonflight<\/em><\/strong>) in 1968, and the first female author to win a Nebula Award<\/strong>, for Dragonrider<\/em><\/strong>, in 1969. The third book in the original series, The White Dragon<\/strong><\/em>, is held to be the first science fiction novel to make the New York Times Besteller List.<\/p>\n

Of her first novel, Restoree<\/strong><\/em>, Anne McCaffrey always said she wrote it because: “I was so tired of all the weak women screaming in the corner while their boyfriends were beating off the aliens. I wouldn’t have been\u2014I’d’ve been in there swinging with something or kicking them as hard as I could.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What can I say? Restoree<\/em><\/strong> was the first Anne McCaffrey book I read, when its combination of a smart resourceful heroine at the centre of the action, together with its strong romantic elements, was everything a\u00a0 mid-teen reader could wish for. I quickly progressed to Dragonflight<\/em><\/strong>, which I also loved (and now feel is much the stronger book, while retaining a considerable soft spot for Restoree<\/em><\/strong>), and The Ship Who Sang<\/em><\/strong>, both of which I consider classic science fiction. No question, Anne McCaffrey was both an inspiration and an influence on me as a science fiction-fantasy reader and aspiring author—for showing me that science fiction could be adventurous, both smart and fun, but most of all that it was unquestionably a kind of storytelling that women did—both as authors and central protagonists.<\/p>\n

So I would like, not just to remember and celebrate Anne McCaffrey, but to thank her: for the stories and for putting women centre stage in SFF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of you will already know the news that came out yesterday, that science fiction writer, Anne McCaffrey, has died, aged 85, at her home in Ireland. Anne McCaffrey’s first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967 and she went on to author such well known works as the Dragonriders of Pern, Crystalsinger, and Rowan series, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9865"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9879,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9865\/revisions\/9879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}