Over the past thirty years I had some wonderful times hanging around with Anne at conventions. Didn’t really know her that well besides all the fun parties and a few dinners I got to share with her over the decades. I was a major fan of her writing and how she helped so many young writers along the way. She will be missed. My thoughts go out to her family and very close friends.
A sad day in the fiction universe.
Bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith has written more than one hundred popular novels and well over two hundred published short stories. His novels include the science fiction novel Laying the Music to Rest and the thriller The Hunted as D.W. Smith. With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. He writes under many pen names and has also ghosted for a number of top bestselling writers.
Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.
Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He is now an executive editor for Fiction River.
WMG Publishing Inc. is now my major publisher of all my coming novels, collections, and short stories.
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I was so sad to hear about this today. Her Pern stories really inspired me as a teen reader, showing me how great fight scenes and character interactions could be done. She was also wonderfully gracious to her fans. She will be sorely missed.
Man, a very very sad day indeed.
SUX big time.
The PERN novels were some of the first books I raided from my uncle’s fantasy/sci-fi collection as a tween.
McCaffrey, Piers Anthony, Moorcock, Lieber and Howard pretty much set me on the road to reading and writing spec fiction.
sad day indeed…
She certainly helped me. The second SF book I ever read was “Dragondrums”…certainly a life inspiration.
So sad, but she’ll be read forever.
I can remember going through the Pern novels available in the early ’80s and loving every one of them. She had a big influence upon me as a young teen writer.
I never met her, but I had always heard wonderful things about her.
Rest in peace, Anne McAffrey.
I was telling a friend the news earlier and he reminded me of a little Anne Mc Caffrey story as told by fantasy author Terry Brooks in his memoir…
Brooks was at a convention or a conference or whathaveyou and talking about the writing process. He had just given what he called his ‘usual spiel’ about the necessity of outlining your novel before you write it or you’ll write yourself into a corner, screw it all up, yada yada yada.
Brooks then sits down and has Anne, who is sitting next to him on the panel, turn to him and say. “Terry, I’ve never outlined anything in my life.’
Sounds like my kind of writer….
I just finished one of Todd’s Pern stories and still look forward to returning to Pern in any new stories Todd writes.
I have every book Anne wrote, and lots of her short stories, so I am able to revisit them any time I like, but still, a sad, sad day.
My heart goes out to all her family and friends. She will be sorely missed by me.
So we’ve lost another of the giants. Damn.
Wayne
That’s really sad. I loved reading her books as a kid.
It is a pity I will never get to meet her, even though I would probably have ended up going all fanboy at her.
She had some writing advice on her blog, recently, which just about sums it up:
“I’ve been asked this so many times I never have the same answer anymore!
First — keep reading. Writers are readers. Writers are also people who can’t not write.
Second, follow Heinlein’s rules for getting published:
1. Write it.
2. Finish it.
3. Send it out.
4. Keep sending it out until someone sends you a check.
There are variations on that, but that’s basically what works.”
I read the first chapter of the first Pern book as a stand-alone short story when it appeared in F & SF…or Analog…or wherever.
Later, when I began reading that first book while serving in the Royal Navy, I said, “Hey! It’s that neat short story!”
Too cool…she will be missed!
I never had the privilege of meeting her, but some of her books remain among my all time favourites. Not so much the Pern novels, but Restoree which I first read some 40 years ago, the Ship Who Sang, and the Crystal Singer stories. She brought a lot of joy and comfort to a great many people.
RIP
Hahaha! Great story, Joemontana. The closest I get to an outline is writing out the main characters and the main plot line, and some small details. Aside from that, I don’t do it. I remember R. A. Salvatore saying that when he starts a new book, he writes an outline, emails it to the publisher. They read it, issue him a check, then he throws the outline away and starts writing. lol. classic!
Anne’s books were one of my first introductions to the world of genre novels – I vividly remember sitting in my sister’s room and looking at the covers of Dragonflight, The Ship Who Sang… She created amazing worlds and fantastic stories, all people with characters we loved and cared about.
She will be sorely missed and long may she be read!
I never had the fortune to meet her, but I remember reading her Pern stories, starting with “Weyr Search” back when they were first published in Analog — I’d been reading it for about a year then, and I was at the golden age of science fiction: fourteen. Great stuff, and of course told as science fiction, not fantasy. I’ve enjoyed a lot of her stuff since.
She will indeed be missed.
It truly is sad when we lose such a great contributer as Anne. I too have never had the fortune to read her books, but have been meaning to for years now. Well, she’s probably hanging out with Robert Jordan and some of the other greats, having a good time.
I doubt she’s resting. She’s probably writing away and infusing her work into some fortunate yet hapless writer who is unwittingly channeling her.
She will be missed.
I’ll miss her writings also. And even though I know little about her as a person- never met her and don’t think I know anyone who has- it sounds like she was a neat person to know also.
I read her first Pern book many years ago and rejoiced when I discovered a second set; dragonsong- singer-drums. Since then I have read most of them even though not all.
I loved her Pern books. I remember she was really the one who got me into reading fantasy.
I can remember curling up to her books at 13/14.