“‘And a time to every purpose under heaven,'” Robinton murmured, his throat almost too tight for him to speak. He felt incredibly tired, overwhelmingly sleepy. “Yes, very true. How splendidly true. And what a wonderful time it has been!”
She was more than a bit homophobic and her books were uneven at best, but I loved them when I was a kid and I can’t but be sad at her passing – the first woman to ever win a Hugo or a Nebula, the first woman to have a sci-fi book on the New York Times Bestseller List. She was, simply, a giant.
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Hrm. I never thought of her as homophobic. Actually, a bit more the opposite: she had sequences where the characters were gay and had homosexual relationships, and the reactions from the other characters were nearly always tolerant and accepting.
Sure, in many places the writing danced around the issue, but I always took that as a “sign of the times” and not so much her personal opinion.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I kind of thought she was already dead. I do remember liking her when I was a kid, because to a little girl dragons are just ponies that can fly, but I wonder how well they would hold up now that I pay into a pension.
@Cookie McCool: See the second image? It seems reasonably accurate. I’ve never liked the series any less for that.
Jorm, her homophobia started showing up relatively late, and in some odd ways. It wasn’t an overt sort of “gays are horrible terrible people” type of homophobia, but a more insidious, superficially benign sort: “gay people can be perfectly lovely, why some of my best friends are gay men, but… being gay means you can never be a strong leader, a gay man is always kind of weak and emotional, etc.” A sort of tyranny of low expectations and rigid gender roles.
Or just google “Anne McCaffrey tent peg”, and start reading.
To be fair, the tent peg thing may be a bit of an Internet legend, as to the best of my knowledge it “was quoted from an interview” that then couldn’t be found again. If the original source can’t be found or quoted, perhaps it’s best to not continue to circulate it as though it definitely represented her opinion. But if I’m wrong, I’m wrong.
My first experience of Anne McCaffrey was in 1984 at the age of eight, when I read the “Smallest Dragonboy” story in a science fiction anthology (which I read the hell out of : it also included an extract from the Star Wars novelization, an H.G. Wells short story “The Star”, a Logan’s Run-esque story called Half-Life and various others). In any event, I loved it, and promptly lapped up the two ‘main’ trilogies. I remember that Dragonsong was the last book I could find, and I was massively disappointed in its comparative weakness.
Heck, even re-reading it years and years later, and with all of its Mary-Sue-esque weaknesses, I got a little choked at the end of ‘Dragonsinger’.
I never really read any of the books after ‘All the Weyrs of Pern’, which I think effectively concluded the main story-line.
I never really followed the whole ‘homophobic’ controversy, and I know that she has been accused of effectively advocating quasi-rape in the mating sequences.
Still, I loved the hell out of those books. Given David Eddings recent passing, the creators of two out of my three favourite fantasy series as a 8-13 year old have now died.
[Sigh] I feel old.
Well, shit.
She wrote the first gay men I ever noticed in science fiction, and I’ll continue to value that.
My parents were 2 years younger than her and my experience is that Anne McCaffrey was astoundingly un-homophobic for her generation.
Exactly how I felt. Pern was part of my childhood indoctrination into SciFi. I have a big stack of her later stuff–and there were tens and tens of books–from my romance-reading mother-in-law’s collection, where she crossed over into that audience. I seem to recall liking “The Ship Who Sang,” but she did go on.
Still, yes, a titanic contributor to the genre.
I never noticed her homophobia either and I’m gay. I loved her Pern books as a kid ( though I stopped reading them when I saw ‘dolphins’ in the title). I also loved her Pegasus/Rowan series (until they had kids). She was a pleasure to read.
In retrospect, my only complaint was she didn’t know when to stop writing a series before it got silly. But I’ll always have warm memories of her books. RIP.
Like seemingly everyone else in this thread I read her Pern series in middle school, and a few of her other books (Crystalsinger and something centered around fashion).
I’m not sure about homophobic, but looking back I think that a lot of her sexual politics had a distinct air of romance novel about them. Lots of people overcome with lust or passion beyond the bounds or rational thought. I remember a pretty iffy sex scene in the White Dragon.
Still, it’s sad that she’s gone, but it’s good to know her legacy will be a gateway into science fiction for lots of young readers.
I can see how some of her writing could appear homophobic. At least in the Pern books gay men were always Green or Blue Riders, with an occasional Brown, and as such never leaders…but the fact is she was writing about them. She was including them in stories where they could have been completely ignored and no one would likely have noticed.
Technically, Pat Lupoff won a hugo in ’63 and Juanita Coulson won a Hugo in ’65, a few years ahead of Ms. McCaffrey.
(But they both won for best fanzine, though — but then again Ms. McCaffrey’s was “only” a tie for best novella.)
Rest In Peace
Kelex, I’m not sure that helps the case too much. Isn’t the implication that those male riders pair up only because their dragons mated, and they didn’t have any choice in the matter?
It been 2 decades since I’ve read the books, so I’m sorry if I’m getting the details wrong, but it’s not a romantic relationship, is it? I thought it was just a physical thing during the dragon’s ‘heat’ phase. If a different dragon mates the next time out the pair gets split up, right?
I’ve never read an Anne McCaffrey book, but her stories were Julie Power’s favorites in “Power Pack”…and ever since I learned that as a young teen, I’ve had nothing but positive thoughts about the woman ever since. Rest in peace, indeed.
“She was including them in stories where they could have been completely ignored and no one would likely have noticed.”
I am not sure Ms. McCaffrey was homophobic for her times, but inclusion cannot be the standard. Go watch _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ and get back to us on how positive it was that an Asian character was “included.”
John 2.0: it can be a romantic relationship. One of the books has a Dragonrider paired up with the Weyr’s harper, and the later books make it clear that if the riders don’t want to be together, they can find someone else to be with. In other words, the dragons’ emotional state does force the rider to have sex with someone, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be with the other dragon’s rider. Although that might not have been the case in the early books, now that I think about it…
Highlyverbal: Sorry, I meant including them as normal people, not abrasive stereotypes. I could have been more clear there.
Some kinds of inclusion don’t redeem the difficulties that they create — for the precise reason of those difficulties. Anyone can see this when it rises to the level of abrasive stereotypes; it’s obvious then. But we should at least make an effort to measure it when it is a bit more subtle, eh?
Cele Goldsmith won a special convention award–which IS a Hugo Award(tm) in 1962 for her work as editor of Fantastic Magazine. McCaffrey was the first woman to win a Hugo for a work of fiction.
It is reasonably well-known that McCaffrey had stopped writing Pern novels until she suddenly had to raise a *lot* of money in a hurry because of tax problems. The later books definitely have an air of unpleasant duty, followed then by “you’ll buy them regardless of quality? okay, open wide!” feeling to the entire line. I never condemn a writer for giving their fans what they want; writing is hard under the best of circumstances, and ignoring that kind of clamor is obviously difficult.
@ womzilla… are you SURE Ms. Goldsmith received a genuine Hugo?
from http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-categories/ (scroll to bottom)
“Some Worldcons give out special awards during the Hugo Awards ceremony. These awards are at the committee’s discretion, rather than by general vote. Such special awards may not use the Hugo Award rocket and are not considered Hugo Awards, but they are sometimes included in lists of Hugo Awards because they were presented at the same ceremony.”
I’m not sure whether this is amusing or disheartening, but MGK comes up as the second most popular link when you google “Anne McCaffrey tent peg”…