My favourite authors - Anne Mccaffrey

One of my favourite authors is Anne McCaffrey.  I haven't read every book she wrote, but a fair number of then from different series.  Her books have been a constant presence in my life for many years.

I own a lot of the Pern books.  The debate has raged for years whether these are SF or fantasy.  I think it depends which books in the series you read.  If you read the books dealing with the colonists landing on Pern, you find technology a-plenty.  The dragons are bio-engineered from the fire lizards, and the colonists carry Aivas with them, a high-level AI.  All the Weyrs of Pern rediscovers Aivas 2500 years later, and successfully blends the fantasy elements of the series with hard science.

One of my favourite series is the Doona books.  Here, colonists settle on Doona and gradually come to realise they're not alone.  I love the way McCaffrey paints the Hrrubans as fully-rounded aliens, and I also love the way the two species have the wisdom to learn to live together.  There are xenophobes in both species, but friendship prevails.

I love the way she's created a sentient planet in the Petaybee books.  They give us a vision of powerful companies with their own militaries who own planets and are far too powerful for the good of the people.  She also has telepathic clouded leopards who help the humans. I wish.

Then there's the Freedom books, the Catteni stories.  I like the way humans are shown to be inventive and quickly rebuild a civilization when dumped on an empty planet with just a cup, a knife, and a blanket for technology.  

Another of my favourite books is from the 'brainship' series of books.  The Ship Who Searched has a brainship and her archaeologist brawn searching for alien ancient remains. The book partly inspired my book Eyemind. 

I met Anne McCaffrey at Octocon in Ireland a few years before she died, and I'm glad I managed to meet and talk with my heroine.  She's been lighting up my life for many years with her ideas and her simple storytelling.