A - Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey. Such a strong voice in the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy. This lady is The reason that I put pen to paper. (Well, finger to keypad). Not Tolkien. Not that guy that wrote Charlotte’s Web, though that is a nice and touching story. Very sweet. About a pig and a spider. But Anne, she wrote about Dragons. dragons! And when she wrote about them she made you believe in them. There ARE Dragons. Dragons and all these other worlds that we haven’t even begun to think about yet. I mean seriously. Crystals that are sentient, all part of a larger whole. (deeper meaning...hmmmm? Though I will admit, the Petaybee series is a bit heavy handed with the lessons.) 

Here There Be Dragons

    The first book that I picked up of her’s was Dragonflight, one of the books in the Dragonriders of Pern series. The first, or third, depending on what bandwagon you’re on. Regardless. It was all over from there. I believe I was around 7 or 8, and that Halloween I went dressed as Lessa, thereby cementing my stand in ‘nerd-dom’ for all time. I remember that Halloween because I did a lot of explaining about my costume. Who Lessa was. What the book was about. Who Anne McCaffrey was...  I’m not sure if I got a whole lot of candy...
    After I finished the Pern series,and started in on the Crystal Series, I started thinking... how awesome it is that this lady can just create whole entire Worlds out of thin air! What a crazy concept! Up until then my experience with fiction had been Anne of Green Gables, or Little Women. But Anne opened up a whole new world (literally..and Literally!) of possibilities! I moved on from Anne’s worlds to Narnia. To L’Engle. To Pratchett. To Piers Anthony. To Tolkien. To Frank Herbert and Dune.
    And the more I read of these amazing worlds, the more I wanted to create my own. The more I believed I could. The more I wanted a pet dragon of my own...
 
    So, here’s to you Anne. First Lady of Science Fiction and Fantasy. You broke so many barriers to make us all believe in your dragons.

 And we do.