Beloved science-fiction author Anne McCaffrey has passed away at the age of 85. This news just hit me in the gut. Thanks to my sci-fi-loving father, I grew up on the Pern books: read them to tatters, still have my old copies, named my World of Warcraft hunter after one of the characters. My sixteen-year-old is as big a Pern fan now as I ever was. I can pick up Dragonsong any day of the week and happily lose myself in Menolly's first encounters with the fire lizards.
I've always loved the bio in the back of Anne McCaffrey's books: "My hair is silver, my eyes are green, and I still freckle: the rest is subject to change without notice." That wry good humor shone through in everything she wrote. The breadth and depth of her imagination was astonishing.
Oh, how we will miss her.
