When I was a young duckling of 9 or 10 years, confused and frightened by the divorce of my parents, I discovered the genre of writing known as science-fiction.  While my first book was Frank Herbert's Dune, and my favorite author Robert Heinlein (whose status remains unchanged some thirty-plus years later), the first series of books I ever read was the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey.

I don't know how I found it, to be honest.  It may have come my way via Official First Friend of The Pond Vaucaunson's Duck, which means it probably came from the library of Vauc's father, Dr John.  It may have been one of the many books I read when I visited mid-state Illinois.  It's even possible I stumbled upon it on my own.  However it occurred, I remember being utterly fascinated by the combination of ugly politics, high action, (what I now think of as shallow) characterization, and everywhere, everywhere there be dragons.  Psychic dragons. 

As a young'un, I totally loved the whole Pern universe.  I inhaled the six books in the series (Dragonflight, Dragonquest, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums, and White Dragon) as fast as they came my way, then read it again.  And again, because I knew that the story was over.  Then Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern came out, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven: it was a prequel, which meant plenty of time (and stories) for more books!  I was slightly confused by Nerilka's Story, the next book, because it told the same story as Moreta, just from a different point of view... nowadays, I find that sort of thing to be very clever, perhaps an offshoot of my love for secondary characters (don't tell me what Kirk does, tell me what Redshirt #4 did).

And then, somewhere along the way, I "grew up."  Oh, I still read the Pern books when they came out, but the critic in me began to notice the fairly bland characters, the overly-simple plotting, the incredible amount of Mary-Sue-ing and on and on.  I began to think of McCaffrey's world as one for a younger Me.  I was excited to have The Masterharper of Pern come out, as it finally filled in the backstory of my favorite character of the universe, Robinton.  Then... the books kept coming, but I stopped reading.  Then they kept coming, but with Anne McCaffrey's son Todd's name on the cover, and I rolled my eyes.  Not for me, thank you very much.  I had moved on to deeper, harder science-fiction.

Today, Anne McCaffrey passed away after suffering a massive stroke.  While I haven't opened one of her titles in years, inside of me that scared nine year old mourns the loss of a very creative writer, whose books helped shaped the sci-fi reader I am today.  Thank you, Anne.

UPDATE: Friend GreyDuck has similar thoughts.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:00 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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