h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

dragondrums is a rollicking good story, nd dragonsinger:harper of pern is great. The dolphins of pern heads into more sci fi territory, as do most of the later books.

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern is a lovely bit of pernese history, a real legend...

I find McCaffrey quite variable, and her ingenuity seems to run out about halfway through her active career... but it's science fantasy par excellence and quite fun if not always well written. Dragonflight, Dragonquest, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger (hrm, I'm noticing a pattern), Moreta, Nerilka (if only for the interesting secondary history aspects), All the Weyrs of Pern (though some background from White Dragon is necessary), and The Harper of Pern are probably the best of the Pern series.

McCaffrey's Freedom series (Freedom's Landing, et al) are quite good - though I find the first two better than any of those that follow.

The Crystal Singer trilogy is interesting and fits with her Ship who Sang series quite nicely.

Her Pegasus trilogy is a wonderful romp on the same basic idea that gave rise to X-Men, and I think in its way somewhat better.

I personally found Anne McCaffrey to be very female orientated - the literary equivalent of chickflick I guess. Which is fine if you're a girlie I reckon - not for me though.

I've noticed that not many men I know enjoy reading her stuff... I dont see the problem, strong female leads and some politics, thoughts and feelings... Sounds like my life (alas, minus the firelizards!)

In my post I'd nearly put "girlie science fantasy par excellence" but didn't want to scare the OP off! McCaffrey really is more girlie, though... I've run across very few men who can read her without laughin.

I've been an active member of McCaffrey fandom for a few years now (almost as long as h2g2, in fact). In my experience, it is about 2/3 female, with a fair sprinkling of gay people among the men ... despite her treatment of gay people in her fiction. Admittedly, she isn't at all derogatory or dismissive - someone used the phrase 'old-fashioned', and that's probably the fairest term.
I think her work has weakened a bit recently, but only in the last 10 years or so. The consensus seems to be that it was a mistake to continue past 'All the Weyrs of Pern', which would have presented a very appropriate finale to the series. After that, there are a couple of prequels worth reading, but the books set after AtWoP are definitely weak.
Out of the other series, I really like most of them. Her other major series, the 'Pegasus' and 'Tower & Hive' books are very good, but again slightly weaken right at the end. The Acorna series also gets a lot worse, but starts extremely well IMO so is worth catching.
I've gone on too long. I'll just mention the main fandom forum: www.annemccaffreyfans.org

hmm... A foray I may have to make...

Had forgotten about Acorna -the first book was amazing and the world/characters seemed very interesting, and it really quite rapidly fell apart.

Of the post-All Weyrs books, I always felt Dragonseye and the Robinton biog were the strongest - probably because she was working with old material, not trying to figure out what was to come now that she had fixed the major problem with the planet (which seems like a very odd move indeed, to get rid of the one thing that drives existence on Pern, regardless of how badly the characters wish it). I've always felt the Pern novels were the most compulsively readable of her books, and of all her novels, they are the ones that have the most consistant standard of writing - the rest are a bit hit or miss even from chapter to chapter, in my opinion. Always fun. But post lit degree(s) I'm finding her harder and harder to read without wanting to grab a red pen and write all over the book...

I always felt that McCaffrey was kind of unusual in her treatment of gays in her fiction (I assume you're mostly talking of the Brown/Blue/Green male-male pairings in Pern?), if only that she didn't make that big of a deal about it most of the time. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but I wonder if at the time of those earlier books being published, the normalcy she attributed to such relationships was not unusual. (It has admittedly been yonks since I read those earlier novels, though... I may misremember some of this).

I think I'm missing the implication here... In my memory, she tends to 'let them be'... She doesnt tend to go into detail about the relationships of any of the green and blue riders (unless they are lead characters for a reason) and I believe the implication is that being gay is not a problem, but equally it isnt particularly advertised, any more than any other relationship is... and among dragons riders at least, it's assumed that very few long term formal relationships are formed, particularly among the promiscuous and fickle greens and blues... Essentially, a green/blue couple are unlikely to be ruling any weyrs etc and therefore wont tend to need to formalise anything, weyrs being hotbeds of symbiotic, orgiastic free love that they are....

"Essentially, a green/blue couple are unlikely to be ruling any weyrs etc and therefore wont tend to need to formalise anything, weyrs being hotbeds of symbiotic, orgiastic free love that they are...."

Actually, I think that may be the old-fashioned-ness that the previous poster was referring to in a nutshell.

(what topic drift? )

>>I've noticed that not many men I know enjoy reading her stuff... I dont see the problem, strong female leads and some politics, thoughts and feelings<<

You should read The Wheel of Time (that's if you haven't already).
Nearly all the major characters are women and women essentially rule the world in the setting it is in...at least for now...

hm, I didnt think of it as 'old fashioned' ness, because there were also (certainly later... or at least I thought so.. Hang on! I'm gonna have to do some reading!!!) female riders??? (i.e. non-gold) and that it was unnecessary to go into detail. She's not Jilly Cooper after all. Well, not ALL the time

... And I guess I just assumed their cultural view was different. I assume most sci fi and fantasy cultures differ from my own...

Oooh! I've never thought so hard about McCaffreys' work!

And they weren't entirely pushed into the background.

Aside from that, one of the things I love about the books is how the culture changes and devolves from the space pioneers who land and start living there through to the seemingly primitive feudal system, then coming back around to having wider knowledge and developing sciences etc... It fascinates me!

see above for my about wheel of time Orcus... It was a relatively long one!

Missed that, earlier but I guess it looks like it was a simulpost with my . Anyway

gotta love RJ eh

I have a slight obsession with ornamented hair sticks...

*ignores the Anne McCaffreyness - I never really liked her*


Another author you might like to try would be Harlan Ellison. Try 'The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart of The World'* It's a selection of short stories (some rather weird)


*I *love* giving that title to someone when we're playing 'charades'

Thanks for those!

I'll try to get a few to look at tomorrow. If I can find them!

>>*I *love* giving that title to someone when we're playing 'charades'<

My favourite charade challenge is 'Naked Lunch'

What type of book is that?