I might be late to this knowledge, but it appears Anne McCaffrey (author of the Dragonriders of Pern series, among many others) passed away two days ago. She was profoundly influential to my adolescence, and even if I disagree with some of her underlying themes in her later novels, her earlier books (such as Refugee and Dragonflight) are, personally speaking, incredible pieces of sci-fi/fantasy.

Here's a brief obituary at io9.com

This thread is for sharing your impressions of Anne McCaffrey's works as a whole -- specific book discussions should probably go in individual threads.

So, to start the discussion, here are some questions:

1) What was your first Anne McCaffrey book?
2) Which is your favorite of her worlds?
3) Has she influenced you as either a person or writer?

Oh dear, I am so sorry to hear that!
I love Ann's books. I even have a signed one.

The first Dragonriders of Pern was the first book of hers I read, and my favorite.

The first one I read by her was The Rowan. I loved those books, and that world is my favourite, though the Freedom world is pretty awesome too.

I don't think she ever directly influenced me, but I did- scratch that - do love her books.
I'm sad to see that she's gone. I am glad that Todd (Her son) writes the Pern novels still.

Oh man, I am so sorry to hear this!
I also love her books.

The Rowan series is excellent.
Her Crystal Singer series is good too.

Of course, the Pern books are the best.
Todd has been doing a pretty good job writing in that world.

I found Todd McCaffrey's books to mostly be rather boring and badly-written, personally. His pacing is off, and his characters try to follow Anne's patterns of "mostly perfect but still interesting" and instead come off -- sorry, but I do think this -- as fanfic characters instead. They're caricatures rather than characters. They don't feel real. Maybe I'm just prejudiced?

I've been reading a lot of her books I never did read as a kid -- mostly the Brainship books -- and find that I love them immensely. She definitely enjoyed addressing difficult issues, like disability, and though I think her view of the psychological issues was rather overly rosy, she deals with the realities of immobility gracefully and with sympathy.

The first few books he wrote were most definitely that way, but the most recent ones I felt were better.

Perhaps his mother had been coaching him more, knowing he would be carrying on her name?

btw...did you know that his name isn't really McCaffery....it's something else.
I think the first time he wrote with his mother he used his real name.
He must have later changed his name...

Really? I should try reading Todd's later books. Dragonsblood in particular was pretty awful. Which do you recommend?

I did wonder about the last name when looking at the McCaffrey family tree at one point. He's a grandson, right?

Todd is definitely her son (it says so in the book).

Dragon's Kin and Dragon's Fire were the 2 he wrote with Anne, and among his first ones. They were pretty bad. You could tell which parts were written by Anne, and which parts were written by him.

I thought Dragonsblood wasn't that bad.
It was written more along the lines like Anne did...I always thought that it was a "younger" audience in mind.

Huh, if I think about Todd's stuff being aimed at a younger audience, that does make sense.

I also think that he may have done some of the writing for The Tower and the Hive. That just kind of dragged on and on, and it wasn't as careful prose as her earlier stuff. I've gotten through most of the Brainships books, the Killashandra/Crystal Singers books, and am almost through with Sassinak, and there are so many themes that are coming through in her work. I wonder if a biography of her will be coming out?

It should.

I forgot about Sassinak.
Wasn't that something she did with Elizabeth Moon?

Moon's Serrano series is just wonderful...almost pure science fiction, but very entertaining.

I believe so, yes. Or maybe it was with Jody Lynn Nye? She began collaborating on a lot of books in the 90s, if I recall correctly.

I haven't read Elizabeth Moon, but I'll look her up the next time I'm in a bookstore that sells English books... the Japanese don't run to translations of anything but the most famous American books. ;)

Elizabeth Moon is from Austin (where I live).

I've never seen her around town though (lol)

Really? That's awesome. I'm still waiting for the courage to ask one of my mentors if I can meet her mother, another famous author. Anyway, we're getting off-topic, and no one else has come in to comment on Anne McCaffrey, so I'm wondering if her books are a little old for most of the people here on Mene.

I cannot believe it! First Diana Wynne Jones and now Anne McCaffrey! T.T

I know, I know. It's the passing of an age. And JK Rowling hasn't done anything after Harry Potter, and she was where my hopes lay.

PapillonCameo, which is your favorite McCaffrey book?

The Ship Who Sang, and of course her Pern books ... But I also like To Ride a Pegasus .

To Ride a Pegasus... that's the collection of early Talent stories, right? With the guitar/singer combo, and the thief? I don't own that, so I've only read it a few times. The two other Pegasus books I own, and have the audiobooks for besides, so I think I know every word of them. :S

Yes, I do believe it's that collection. I've been meaning to read it again, but I haven't had the time.

The Ship Who Sang series is really good too.

I'm amazed that people don't know about her.
She WAS fantasy... but with a scifi edge with the Dragonrider books.

Kinda like her predecessor, Andre Norton. She was so early in the scifi genre that she had to write under a male pen-name cuz females didn't write scifi stuff.
So if you ever see a Paul North book, that's Andre Norton.

She was hard scifi, but also had a fantasy series...the Witch World...

Oooh, I remember Witch World. I only read a few books, but they were really inspiring.

Yes, Anne McCaffrey set a lot of precedents and paved serious ground for female sci-fi/fantasy writers. Have you read Restoree?

Yup.
I don't think that you can even buy any of the Witch World series anymore.
I have a few here and there, but that was back when I couldn't afford to buy books, so most of them I read from the library.

I wish I had the entire series now.

I haven't read Restoree. Who wrote it?

I know that Mercedes Lackey also credits McCaffery.

Restoree was one of Anne McCaffrey's first books. If you read it thinking of the classic "Hard SF" authors and their female characters (or lack thereof), it's an amazing piece of writing that challenges stereotypes. I don't know if I'd call it "postmodern"—actually, I don't think any of her stuff would qualify for that label—but it's certainly quite an overturning of the typical SF depiction of women.

I'm amazed that I hadn't heard of it!

It's a standalone, and most people only read her longer series novels. I wish she'd continued developing that world, or incorporated its canon into her larger Federated Sentient Planets... but then again, she seems to have multiple versions of the FSP. I was finishing Generation Warriors today, and learned that in those stories (the Sassinak/Death of Sleep) stories, the FSP is run by the Thek, not the humans. In contrast, in the Talents books, the FSP refers initially only to the human worlds until the Mrdini and Hivers are discovered. If I recall correctly, that is. And the Pern novels also use an FSP, don't they?

I don't think the Pern novels do.

At least, she never really goes into it. She says that Pern was colonized, but she doesn't say much about where the colonies came from.