McCAFFREY, Anne

Born 1 April 1926, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Daughter of George Herbert and Anne McElroy McCaffrey; married Wright Johnson (divorced 1970); children: Alec Anthony, Todd, Georgeanne

Anne McCaffrey earned a B.A. from Radcliffe College in 1947 and studied voice and drama; she also took some graduate courses in meteorology at the University of the City of Dublin. She directed opera before abandoning professional ambitions in theater arts and worked as a copywriter from 1948 until 1952, but began writing full-time in the late 1950s.

Prominent as a popular author of science fiction and fantasy, McCaffrey has also written gothic mysteries: Ring of Fear (1971), The Mark of Merlin (1971), The Kilternan Legacy (1975), Stitch in Snow (1984), The Year of the Lucy (1986), and The Lady (1987). She edited Cooking Out of This World (1973), a collection of recipes by various science fiction writers, and a sequel, Serve It Forth (1996), edited with John Gregory Betancourt. McCaffrey now resides at Dragonhold, County Wicklow, Ireland.

Revealing her love for her adopted home, McCaffrey often employs Irish characters and motifs, sometimes thinly disguised, in her fiction. Her work usually features young, mostly adolescent protagonists who are misunderstood by society and authority figures, but who eventually prove to possess wonderful talents that will expose and rectify the evil of their conservative cultures. McCaffrey won a devoted female readership by featuring female protagonists, telling critic Robin Roberts that her heroines are "victims who became survivors. That's important for women today." She was the first science fiction writer to make the New York Times bestseller list, and the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the most prestigious awards granted in the fields of science fiction and fantasy.

"The Ship Who Sang" (1964) is one of the earliest works in which McCaffrey broaches the issue of sexual stereotypes. This story of Helva, one of many severely physically deformed infants whose healthy brains are encapsulated in spaceships to enable them to lead productive lives, emphasizes the humanity of such cyborgs and their "normal" partners rather than their original genders. Thus the caring relationship which develops between Helva, the "brain" of a spaceship, and her first partner, its "brawn," is predicated upon their mutual love of music rather than their sexual identities. In 1969 this story was anthologized with five others about Helva as The Ship Who Sang. A subsequent anthology, Get Off the Unicorn (1977), contains a further story about Helva, "Honeymoon." Other novels about similar brain/ brawn relationships include The Ship Who Searched (1992), PartnerShip (1992) with Margaret Ball, The City Who Fought (1993) with S. McCaffrey Stirling, and The Ship Who Won (1994), with Jody Lynn Nye.

In 1968 "Weyr Search" won the Hugo award, presented by the members of the World Science Fiction Association, for best short story of the year, while "Dragonrider" won the Nebula, presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Both of these works were later incorporated into Dragonflight (1968), the first volume in the Dragonriders of Pern series for which McCaffrey is best known. This series earned a loyal audience for its depiction of the telepathic bonding between humans and a dragon-like alien species native to the planet of Pern. McCaffrey describes not only the rapport between individual humans and dragons as they fight the life-threatening spores that periodically attack Pern, but also the ways in which this rapport permeates the intricate, almost feudal social structure of Pern. Dragonflight focuses upon an independent, courageous female protagonist, Lessa, who reappears as a minor character in the later novels.

McCaffrey's concern with women's roles and struggles in Pern's society is most vividly realized in Dragonsong (1976) and Dragonsinger (1977), both of which center upon Mennolly, a young woman whose ambition to be a harper runs counter to Pern's social norms for women. Like Lessa, Mennolly achieves her goals through perseverance, courage, and quick wit. Because Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums (1979) are designed for a juvenile audience, they lack the scope of characterization and development of other novels in the series. The later Pern novels include the highly acclaimed All the Weyrs of Pern (1991); Nerilka's Story (1986), The Dolphins of Pern (1994), Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern (1997), Dragonseye (1997), and The Masterharper of Pern (1998).

Decision at Doona (1969) is akin to the Dragonriders series in its presentation of the evolving, intricate relationship between humans and another sentient alien species. The Hrrubans, lion-like beings, are as reluctant as Terrans to coexist on the colony planet of Doona. The lifesaving friendship of two of their offspring brings the two species together. Later novels, Crisis on Doona (1992) and Treaty at Doona (1994), were written with Jody Lynn Nye.

Dinosaur Planet (1978) and its sequel The Survivors (1984), collected together as The Ireta Adventure (1984), also feature a woman protagonist whose professional competence and personal integrity are essential plot elements. They touch again upon the relationships between humans and aliens.

Freedom's Landing (1995), Freedom's Choice (1997), and Freedom's Challenge (1998) are a trilogy about slave labor and rebellion in a space colony, featuring a pleasing alliance-turns-romance between the human protagonist, Kris, and a renegade member of the slaver race.

Other characteristic novels include Acorna, the Unicorn Girl (1997) and Acorna's Quest (1998), both written with Margaret Ball and dealing with a magically talented unicorn-like girl who winds up on a child slave-labor planet and fights to improve the children's lot. A quasiseries beginning with To Ride Pegasus (1974), developing with Pegasus in Flight (1990), and expanding into the Rowan series concern a group of "psionically talented" people who search for acceptance, and the chance to help humanity at war with hive-mind aliens. The Rowan herself is a tremendously gifted orphan girl whose story, like so many of McCaffrey's, is a Bildungsroman, which evolves into a generational epic with the following novels Damia (1992), Damia's Children (1993), and Lyon's Pride (1994). Other popular series include the trilogy Crystal Singer (1982; revised and expanded in 1983), Killashandra (1985), and Crystal Line (1992), featuring the musician Killashandra Ree; the Planet Pirates series, a collaboration with Elizabeth N. Moon and Jody Lynn Nye, composed of Sassinak (1990), The Death of Sleep (1990), and Generation Warriors (1991); and a trilogy coauthored with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Powers That Be (1993), Power Lines (1994), and Power Play (1995), which examine the struggle between forcibly implanted colonists on the wintry planet Petaybee and a heartless mining corporation.

McCaffrey's work has been criticized for occasionally being overly romantic and sentimental. Certainly some of her earlier fiction, such as Restoree (1967) and "A Wonderful Talent" (1969), is susceptible to this charge and to that of sexual stereotyping. In her other works, however, such flaws are counterbalanced by believable, intriguing portraits of human and alien interaction and by the creation of female protagonists who successfully struggle against discrimination in their societies.

Other Works:

Alchemy and Academe: A Collection of Original Stories Concerning Themselves with Transmutations, Mental and Elemental, Alchemical and Academic (edited by McCaffrey, 1970). Dragonquest (1971). The White Dragon (1978). The Coelura (1983). The Renegades of Pern (1989). The Rowan (1990). Rescue Run (1991). The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall (1993). The Dolphins' Bell (1993). The Girl Who Heard Dragons (1994). An Exchange of Gifts (1995). Black Horses for the King (1996). No One Noticed the Cat (1996). Space Opera (anthology edited with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, 1996). A Diversity of Dragons (with Richard Woods, 1997). If Wishes Were Horses (1998). Nimisha's Ship (1999). The Tower and the Hive (1999).

Bibliography:

Allen, B., "Toward a Feminine Style of Psyche: Women Creating Myth" (thesis, 1985). Barr, M. S., Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond (1993). Berger, L., "Variations on the Traditional Hero/Dragon Conflict in the Realms of the Beowulf Poet, Tolkien and McCaffrey" (thesis, 1989). Brizzi, M., Anne McCaffrey (1986). Harkins, P., "Myth in Action: The Trials and Transformation of Menolly," in Science Fiction for Young Readers (1993). Nye, J. L., The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern (2nd edition, 1997). Stephensen-Payne, P., Anne McCaffrey, Dragonlady and More: A Working Bibliography (4th edition, 1996). Wood, R., The People of Pern (1988). Friend, B., "Virgin Territory: The Bonds and Boundaries of Women in Science Fiction," in Many Futures, Many Worlds: Theme and Form in Science Fiction (1977). Sargent, P., ed., Women of Wonder (1974). Sargent, P., introduction to The New Women of Wonder (1977).

Reference works:

DLB 8 (1981). Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections (1978).

Other references:

Algol/Starship (Winter 1978-79). Facts on File Bibliography of American Fiction 1919-1988 (1991). Locus (March 1993). New York Review of Science Fiction 10 (June 1989).

—NATALIE McCAFFREY ROSINSKY,

UPDATED BY FIONA KELLEGHAN