Anne McCaffrey
Nov. 23rd, 2011 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indiana_jI'm a bit behind due to the chest cold, so everyone probably already knows, but Anne McCaffrey passed away the other day. I normally don't comment much on the passing of celebrities but, well, it's Anne McCaffrey.
I was an early reader (Tolkien when I was 6, with help, of course) and I spent a lot of time growing up with my nose in a book. Tolkien and Terry Brooks were my gateway to fantasy novels and remain some of my favorite authors, if only due to sentimental value.
The problem was that they were male writers showcasing male characters (actually, bless him, Brooks' quickly started to put in female characters at the second and third book in the series). And we traveled, a lot, so sometimes the book selection wasn't as robust as it could have been.
And then, through the help of a wonderful librarian who did everything in her power to put new books in my hand, I discovered Dragonflight, a book written by a woman with a female main character. Instantly, an entire other side to fantasy / sci-fi opened up. A character I could relate to - girls had been the main characters in other books but always in things like the Babysitters club! She influenced the kind of characters I would like to read about and while I sometimes experienced frustration in attempting to find books with female main characters back then, there's a cornucopia of them now.
I wasn't a Pern die-hard and I can barely remember what the books were about now. But I can happily say that Anne McCaffrey influenced my reading habits from an early age. She made me aware that women could be writers, too, and female characters could be just as interesting as their male counterparts. I'll always be grateful to her and her writing for that.
And to Mrs. Keifer, the librarian, for doing her best to make sure that I always had something new to read, even if she had to buy a new book with her own money.
I was an early reader (Tolkien when I was 6, with help, of course) and I spent a lot of time growing up with my nose in a book. Tolkien and Terry Brooks were my gateway to fantasy novels and remain some of my favorite authors, if only due to sentimental value.
The problem was that they were male writers showcasing male characters (actually, bless him, Brooks' quickly started to put in female characters at the second and third book in the series). And we traveled, a lot, so sometimes the book selection wasn't as robust as it could have been.
And then, through the help of a wonderful librarian who did everything in her power to put new books in my hand, I discovered Dragonflight, a book written by a woman with a female main character. Instantly, an entire other side to fantasy / sci-fi opened up. A character I could relate to - girls had been the main characters in other books but always in things like the Babysitters club! She influenced the kind of characters I would like to read about and while I sometimes experienced frustration in attempting to find books with female main characters back then, there's a cornucopia of them now.
I wasn't a Pern die-hard and I can barely remember what the books were about now. But I can happily say that Anne McCaffrey influenced my reading habits from an early age. She made me aware that women could be writers, too, and female characters could be just as interesting as their male counterparts. I'll always be grateful to her and her writing for that.
And to Mrs. Keifer, the librarian, for doing her best to make sure that I always had something new to read, even if she had to buy a new book with her own money.