Vale - Anne McCaffrey (1926 - 2011)

It was with great sadness that I learned today of the death, at 85, of Anne McCaffrey on November 21 in Ireland.
McCaffrey introduced me to the world of Pern, to dragonriders, to crystal singers, to a world of wonder and delight. I devoured Anne McCaffrey's books with relish and often returned to them time again to revisit old friends and take comfort in their worlds. My battered copy of  The Crystal Singer (1982) once was new but now shows many reads, as do my remaining few copies of titles from the Pern series.
Whilst I may have moved on to other fantasy authors and explored new worlds with them I nonetheless owe a huge debt to McCaffrey for first feeding my burgeoning teenage love of fantasy fiction and providing a balance to my reading. At the same time I was first reading about Pern I was also devouring tales of Middle Earth and The Land, McCaffrey helped counter the huge landscapes and epic tales of Tolkein and Donaldson with shorter, often bittersweet tales of dragons and acceptance and discovering oneself in the larger community.
She is greatly missed.