Another fan.
RIP
I’ll have to scour the bookshops. I’ve indoctrinated the kid with the Earthsea trilogy, it’s time she traveled to Pern.
She was the one who got my into science fiction. I had always loved to read and one day there was an excerpt from Dragonsong in my 7th grade literature book. I loved it and had to find the rest and thus I discovered the science fiction section of the book store…
The Pern books were among the first science fiction/fantasy that I read when I was a kid - my grandmother gave them to me, and I will always remember how much she liked them. I don’t know how many times I’ve read the original Pern trilogy.
Her books made my childhood a little less lonely. RIP Ms. McCaffrey.
The ship is no longer singing… 
Somewhere a chorus of fire-lizards is keening.
Man…just last week, my mother bought a whole mess of books by her (3 complete (save the last book) series: Tower and Hive, Petaybe, and Freedom’s <whatever>)…
I was never a huge fan outside of the Pern, Crystal Singer, and Brainship books, but those books were a huge part of my teenaged years, so, it’s really too bad.
The Harper Hall books were my angsty-teenage-girl books of choice. Maybe I should drag them out and re-read them…
Damn, that sucks.
There are two CDs out with music from Pern done by Tania Opland and Mike Freeman, with lyrics by Anne. The Masterharper of Pern, and Sunset’s Gold, respectively.
I’ve only read bits and pieces of her work, never a whole book, but she always struck me as a class act. May she rest in peace.
The Ship who Sang was the first of hers that I read, later followed by the Dragonriders, with Get Off The Unicorn somewhere in there. Some worked better than others, and the first half of Dragonflight was probably the best of the bunch. I always picture my old college at Durham when I read the Harper stories. 
Aw man. Her Pern books (at least the first six of 'em) were some of my favorite fantasy novels. I remember thinking, when I started writing, that if there was one amazing idea I wish I’d created myself, it was McCaffrey’s development of the relationship between humans and their dragons/fire lizards. In particular, the relationship between F’nor and Canth, and Canth and Brekke after the whole horrible Kylara incident, was so damn touching. (F’nor is my favorite character, and Canth is my favorite dragon by far. Humble as a brown dragon rather than a hoity-toity bronze who gets to boink the golds, yet quietly confident enough that he could beat the bronzes to mate with Brekke’s gold dragon. Also the whole trip-to-the-Red-Star incident was awesome.)
In her later years, she became somewhat notorious among the fan world for being hugely against fanfiction, and shutting down fan sites (a stance I believe she eventually softened on), as well as for her… well, less-than-enlighted view of homosexuality. The latter diminished my respect for her somewhat (the former did too, but I do believe it’s an author/creator’s perogative to allow or disallow fan usage of his/her work).
But her books, particularly Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon, and the Harper Hall trilogy, remain among my favorite memories of college-age reading. Like others, I think it’s time for a revisit to Pern.
I think, for her generation, she had a fairly enlightened view of it. It was pretty obvious what happened (before women started to impress dragons other than golds) when a green mated. She may not have explicitly examined it in her solo Pern books (the collaborations and eventual solos by her son Todd acknowledge it in the text, rather than the subtext), but it she were so against it, she’d have made greens impress only women. I’ve never heard that she had actually condemned homosexuality right-out.
I still insist on lumping them into science-fiction, along with Cherryh’s Morgaine books, but I never seem to win the argument ;).
I’m with you. They aren’t fantasy. They may be soft sci-fi instead of hard (what is between? Where is it?) but the general assumption seems to be that all the things the dragons do are psi abilities, not magic, as such.
Well, I’m thinking of the infamous Tent Peg Statement. But since it’s not sourced very well (it appeared in a fanzine) then perhaps I’m off-base. Anyway as I said, it didn’t diminish my appreciation for those first six books, and the amazing world she created.
I guess when I think of dragons I think fantasy. There’s just so little what I think of as “science fiction” in the early books – before they got to that AIVAS ship and began to explore their real past – that this proto-medieval/renaissance society, coupled with pseudo-knights (dragonriders) protecting fiefdoms, that it feels like a typical fantasy setting. But I’m not an expert in the whole fantasy/sci-fi genre so I should probably just shut up. For that matter, the early books are also sort of romance novelly, so she was clearly fine with avoiding labels and just writing in whatever style that suited her.
I wonder why the books never made it to film or TV?
I had heard of the “greens and blues choose only homosexuals” thing before, but not the “tent peg” thing. I still see that as not homophobic so much as misinformed. I still think it’s a generational thing. Frankly, for a lot of people in the Greatest Generation (which is what I think McCaffrey was), the simple suggestion that homosexuality is generally a natural variation and not a disgusting perversion IS enlightened.
For one thing, the dragons would have been very difficult and expensive to depict outside of an animated format.
Dragonflight appeared in Analog under John Campbell. That, if nothing else, proves its science fiction. People’s definition of the genre is far too restrictive these days.
Never made it to film because by the time the special effects could have kept up with the books, the film audience hadn’t heard of her.
I was going to post “who is your favorite Dragonrider / Dragon of Pern” thread, and nominate F’Nor / Canth as mine
Brian