I'd say it is a lot darker world without Anne McCaffrey.

Not just for her Dragonriders of Pern stories, but many of her other stories, even if I did not like them all.

I' met her three times, twice at book signings, and once at a Science Fiction convention, where, needless to say, she was author Guest of Honor.

She was sharp as a tack on almost any subject, not just her stories.

Her son Todd has taken over the stories, and his first efforts were good, but I am disappointed in his last two, especially the very last one.

I have everything she wrote on the Pern series, and have probably given away 3 times as many used paperbacks to get people hooked on the stories. I even have the very first Magazine version of the first stories. Interestingly, one of the 'oldtimer' weyr leaders changed names from the magazine novelette, to the paperback, and again form there to the hardbound.. off the top of my head, I can't be sure, or in what order, but the three were, I think, N'ton, T'ron, & T'ton.

Anne, you will be missed. Nobody I know of has developed an entire society as well as you did.

Holly