Anne McCaffrey is a writer with quite a reputation. She has been writing for at least thirty years, and has acquired a devoted following, particularly for her Pern stories. There are many more books of hers that I haven't read. Randomhouse books, the publisher of the DelRey line of science fiction books, is sponsoring the Anne McCaffrey Archives where you can find out everything about her. I suppose that a good measure of her popularity is the large number of authors that collaborate with her. I liked her earlier work best, but that may be more due to my changing tastes than her changing strength.

Find out more about Anne McCaffrey here.

  • Pern series: Dragonflight (1968),
  • Dragonquest (1971),
  • Dragonsong (1976),
  • Dragonsinger (1977),
  • The White Dragon (1978),
  • Dragondrums (1979),
  • The Harper Hall of Pern (1979),
  • Dragonsdawn (1988),
  • The Girl Who Heard Dragons,
  • Dragonseye (1997) - The Pern stories quickly became a household word among science fiction fans. Pern is a habitable planet that is periodically imperiled by parasites from another planet whose orbit brings it close enough to allow the parasites to cross the intervening space. Using genetically engineered "dragons" the humans on Pern fight the "thread" each time the Red Star passes. Various stories concern major and minor characters, and how they deal with a suddenly changing world. Some of the stories were written for the younger set. The books that I think of as the original Pern trilogy are Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon. There are several other books that I haven't read. For more information on McCaffrey's famous world, you might check out the FAQ.
  • Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern (1983) - Moreta is a character that is foreshadowed in some of the other Pern stories. This book tells about her. I think it is one of McCaffrey's best.
  • The Chronicles of Pern: the First Fall (1993) - A prequel to the original Pern stories, telling of how human colonists faced incredible odds to make survival on their new home possible. Of all the Pern stories besides the first few, I liked this one the best for its originality, compared to the preceding stories.
  • Dinosaur Planet series: Dinosaur Planet (1978) - Greedy carnivorous heavy worlders make life difficult for their nice vegetarian colleagues. This idea, of people throwing off the thin veneer of civilization when the restraints of a larger society are removed, is a fairly commonly used device. McCaffrey does a creditable job here, offering some thoughts on morality and even animal rights.
  • Dinosaur Planet Survivors (1984) - Sequel to Dinosaur Planet. The nice vegetarians from the earlier story emerge from their stasis to deal with the remnants of the descendents of their carnivorous assailants.
  • The Ship Who Sang series: The Ship Who Sang (1969) - In some distant future, brains of people whose bodies cannot live without intensive life support are encased in a cyborg body, from where they learn to run the machinery of civilization. Each such "brain" is assigned a "brawn", a person who represents the "brain" and helps where help is needed. This story concerns a female "brain" and her male "brawn". Nice story. Even my mom liked it.
  • PartnerShip (1992) - With Margaret Ball. Another cyborg girl meets brawn boy story. Fun.
  • The City Who Fought (1993) - With S.M. Stirling. This was fun to read, as opposed to most military science fiction. I am guessing that Stirling supplied the implacable enemies and their dastardly deeds, while McCaffrey produced the very human personalities of the cyborg city mind and its "normal" friends. The story was possibly written with a middle school audience in mind, considering that a younger person plays a major role in the plot.
  • Crystal Singer series: Chrystal Singer (1982) - I liked this story. Frustrated singer escapes from unreasonable demands to use her special talents elsewhere. McCaffrey's heroine is the sort of person that is immediately sympathetic - driven by personal hopes and dreams, and making the best of a difficult situation. I think that McCaffrey's women aren't anything like Jo Clayton's women - they are more self centered, more manipulative. Both authors are fairly rare, even among women writers of science fiction, in that they usually create strong and leading roles for their female protagonists.
  • Killashandra (1985) - Sequel to Chrystal Singer
  • Chrystal Line (1992) - Sequel to Killashandra. If you liked what came before, you'll enjoy this one, too.
  • Damia series: Damia (1992) - Saving the universe with the power of her mind. Sorry, but I think that this story is a fairly sloppy piece of writing. No doubt it pays the bills, but McCaffrey's work is capable of much better. In fact, the plot line is so worn with time, that I suspect it is a refugee of her slush pile, published on the strength of her reputation.
  • Damia's Children (1993) - Sequel to Damia. Not an improvement.
  • Freedom's Landing (1995),
  • Freedom's Choice (1997) - I think I read Freedom's Landing. I'm not sure though. Make of that what you will.
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