6:08 pm

Anne McCaffrey

25 Nov 2011




I am feeling slightly stricken right about now.


Not half an hour ago, I'd finished work, managed to pop by the local supermarket for essentials, managed to get a cab, managed to enjoy the music said cabbie was playing (bhangra!!), managed to save my achy toe (more on that another time) and was generally feeling good about myself.


And then I saw in the papers that Anne McCaffrey had passed. 2 days ago. Of a stroke. Yes... stricken was quite apt when I read the article.


Anne McCaffrey wrote some of the earliest fantasy I'd ever read as a child and set me on a path of wonderment and happiness. As a teenager, her books still managed to enthrall. And as an adult, her books bring on nostalgic smiles. Each and every time.


Anne McCaffrey wrote the epic Pern series, for those not familiar. Dragons! Fighting for survival! On a strange planet! She was prolific, both on her own and with her son Todd. I think I have had, at one stage, all the Pern books. Some borrowed babies have wandered permanently away, so I'll have to ensure that I've got the full range now McCaffrey is gone. :( I stopped buying them when she wrote with her son. Something got lost, I felt, with that collaboration. But now I shall buy them, nevertheless!


Her offshoots were, to me, pretty good reading too... especially The Ship That Sang. I don't know why it struck a cord with me, but it did. But that's the beauty of books, yes? It's such a rich, personal relationship one has with one's books... and like all relationships, full of unique joys and loves to be treasured.


Man, was McCaffrey talented.... I have her Freedom series too. Yes, I enjoyed that a lot too. She had so many original ideas that saw fruition!


I could go on.... she really was one of my all time favourites. :( She'll be very sorely missed but will ALWAYS be loved. 




RIP and god speed, Madame. Your legacy will never die.



2 comments:

john said...

Oh goodness. I hadn't heard that she'd died. I think I spent more time on Pern than in high school one year. I enjoyed her first three Dragonrider books more than anything else that she'd done.
I suppose all of the dragons have gone between now.
And I'd rather have heard it from you, friend, than read it on the new somewhere. Thank you.

Fiona Kathleen Hogan said...

oh John,
She was a living legend to me :)

PS You are always more than welcome!