DragonLady

Before Christopher Paolini and Eragon, there was Anne McCaffrey and the dragonriders of Pern.

In 1967, Analog magazine published the novella Weyr Search. The novella would eventually serve as the basis for McCaffrey's first Pern book, Dragonflight -- kicking off a series that includes over 20 novels and two short story collections. Weyr Search tells the story of Lessa, a young woman living on the colonized planet of Pern, who is picked by the dragonriders to be a Candidate for the new queen dragon. If she's chosen (by the dragon, not the riders) to actually become a rider herself, she'll become the most powerful person on the planet, telepathically bonded to a queen dragon who is virtually unstoppable. And yet, it's a dangerous time to be the only queen rider on Pern, because something is returning to the skies ... something that only the dragonriders can stop ...

McCaffrey said that she came up with the idea for the Pern series by asking herself, "What if dragons were the good guys?" Before McCaffrey, the dragons in most fantasy and sci-fi series followed the model of J.R.R. Tolkien's Smaug, the dragon (and evil antagonist) of The Hobbit. McCaffrey was one of the first modern authors to imagine a world where dragons were the heroes instead of the villains. But it wasn't just dragons that benefited from the "good press" they received in McCaffrey's science fiction tales.

Weyr Search would give Anne McCaffrey the distinction of being the first woman to win either a Hugo or Nebula award (which are awards given to authors of science fiction and fantasy). She'd win both, in 1968, for the novella. (Author Kate Wilhelm also won a Nebula that year for her short story The Planners.) But in addition to presenting dragons in a positive light, McCaffrey also brought another rarity of the time to her sci-fi stories: strong female characters.

With characters like Ripley from the Alien films, Sarah Connor from Terminator, and Dana Scully from The X-Files, it's easy to forget that engaging, well-developed female characters are still a relatively new phenomenon in the fictional worlds of sci-fi. And in the late 60s, such characters appeared far less frequently. But in her stories of Pern, as well as in books like The Ship Who Sang and Crystal Singer, McCaffrey presented female characters that were strong, capable, flawed, changing, and -- above all -- human. Rightly known for her inventive story devices (read more about the "brainships" in The Ship Who Sang) and skill at worldbuilding (her world of crystal singing being almost as engaging as Pern), she's also beloved as a writer for her characters. In a time when few were writing about female characters as anything but shallow stereotypes, McCaffrey tried to write her female characters as real people -- and she succeeded.

When I was in high school, I was a big McCaffrey fan, and a huge Pern nut. Looking back on it now, it's not hard to see why McCaffrey's dragon stories appealed so much to me (and to millions of other fans; McCaffrey's books routinely topped the best-seller lists). Who wouldn't want a super-intelligent dragon as their best friend? There's always an element of cool escapism to sci-fi and fantasy, and just as readers of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series might imagine the fun of being a wizard, McCaffrey's intricately-detailed sci-fi worlds offer a similar window of imagination.

And yet, like all great sci-fi and fantasy, McCaffrey's stories go beyond mere escapism. Take away the unicorns and dragons, and you're left with intently human stories about characters who are struggling to overcome obstacles and help each other. McCaffrey's worlds are about escapism, but her characters  inspire her readers. To young female readers in particular, the Pern books provide characters to both relate to and admire, in a field where such characters were once severely lacking.

McCaffrey passed away last week at the age of 85, but Pern will continue on, both in the novels she wrote and in the Pern stories still being written by her son Todd McCaffrey. And her fans -- myself included -- will remain grateful for the wonderful worlds she took us to.

-- Post by Ms. B