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Authors: Todd McCaffrey
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(blunted) swords, or sings in the choir. She likes horses, dark chocolate, topographic maps, and traveling by train.
W hen Robin Roberts approached Anne McCaffrey about writing her biography, the response among the family was âYes, please!â Anne had talked for a while of taking time off to write her autobiography and had even started it once, but writing about herself wasnât as compelling to her as writing about Lessa or Killashandra or Helva.
Robin, with an academicâs eye, listened much and spoke little, and soon was embraced by Anneâs much-extended family. We were quite open with her, and her Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons is currently the best biography of Anne McCaffrey available.
We were thrilled when we discovered that Robin was made Dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, not only for her but also for what it means to science fiction and fantasy as a whole: that the literature, so often derided in the past, has moved into general acceptance.
In this essay, Robin gives tribute to the literary impact of Anne McCaffrey from an academic standpoint.
Flying in New Directions
Anne McCaffreyâs Literary Impact
Â
ROBIN ROBERTS
WHEN ANNE MCCAFFREY published her first science fiction story in 1953, and even in the â60s and â70s, women writers and womenâs concerns were marginalized in science fiction, as they were in the real world. As shocking as it sounds today, in the mid-twentieth century, an editor could dismiss womenâs writing as âdiaper copy,â the phrase implying not only that the pages were disposable, but also, pejoratively, that the writing focused on womenâs mundane preoccupations, including romance, family relationships, emotions, and children. While some women had always written science fiction, its so-called Golden Age was dominated by male writers and characters. Male science fiction writers tended to emphasize action and problem solving, with female characters serving only as dangerous distractions to the male hero. (A classic example is Tom Godwinâs 1954 story âThe Cold Equations,â selected as one of the best science fiction stories published before 1965 by the Science Fiction Writers of America; it features a pretty and foolish young girl who stows away on a one-man spaceship, endangering the lives of many people.) Science fiction magazines were edited by men, and the readership was presumed to be male; plots, illustrations, and dismissive comments about women and female aliens revealed a suspicion, and even fear, of femininity.
Until Anne McCaffrey. Through her original and compelling worlds, aliens, and plots, McCaffrey demonstrated that women writers could write powerful and popular science fiction.
As a young woman, I remember being frustrated by the limited roles available to women in science fiction. I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and other male writers, but I yearned for heroines with whom I could identify. Dragonflight and The Ship Who Sang opened my understanding of what women could do and be. (McCaffreyâs books inspired me to write one of the first nonfiction books on gender and science fiction and to teach science fiction in university courses.) I wasnât alone. McCaffreyâs fiction received recognition not only from the mainstream reading public, but also from science fiction fans and her peers, other published science fiction writers. In 1978, her Pern novel The White Dragon appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List. McCaffrey also has the distinction of being the first woman to win science fictionâs two awards: the Hugo (awarded by readers) and the Nebula (awarded by published writers). McCaffrey authored 100 publications, sold millions of books, and her titles appear in more than a dozen languages. Many readers who thought they didnât like science fiction changed their minds after reading one of McCaffreyâs novels, and dozens of
W hen Robin Roberts approached Anne McCaffrey about writing her biography, the response among the family was âYes, please!â Anne had talked for a while of taking time off to write her autobiography and had even started it once, but writing about herself wasnât as compelling to her as writing about Lessa or Killashandra or Helva.
Robin, with an academicâs eye, listened much and spoke little, and soon was embraced by Anneâs much-extended family. We were quite open with her, and her Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons is currently the best biography of Anne McCaffrey available.
We were thrilled when we discovered that Robin was made Dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, not only for her but also for what it means to science fiction and fantasy as a whole: that the literature, so often derided in the past, has moved into general acceptance.
In this essay, Robin gives tribute to the literary impact of Anne McCaffrey from an academic standpoint.
Flying in New Directions
Anne McCaffreyâs Literary Impact
Â
ROBIN ROBERTS
WHEN ANNE MCCAFFREY published her first science fiction story in 1953, and even in the â60s and â70s, women writers and womenâs concerns were marginalized in science fiction, as they were in the real world. As shocking as it sounds today, in the mid-twentieth century, an editor could dismiss womenâs writing as âdiaper copy,â the phrase implying not only that the pages were disposable, but also, pejoratively, that the writing focused on womenâs mundane preoccupations, including romance, family relationships, emotions, and children. While some women had always written science fiction, its so-called Golden Age was dominated by male writers and characters. Male science fiction writers tended to emphasize action and problem solving, with female characters serving only as dangerous distractions to the male hero. (A classic example is Tom Godwinâs 1954 story âThe Cold Equations,â selected as one of the best science fiction stories published before 1965 by the Science Fiction Writers of America; it features a pretty and foolish young girl who stows away on a one-man spaceship, endangering the lives of many people.) Science fiction magazines were edited by men, and the readership was presumed to be male; plots, illustrations, and dismissive comments about women and female aliens revealed a suspicion, and even fear, of femininity.
Until Anne McCaffrey. Through her original and compelling worlds, aliens, and plots, McCaffrey demonstrated that women writers could write powerful and popular science fiction.
As a young woman, I remember being frustrated by the limited roles available to women in science fiction. I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and other male writers, but I yearned for heroines with whom I could identify. Dragonflight and The Ship Who Sang opened my understanding of what women could do and be. (McCaffreyâs books inspired me to write one of the first nonfiction books on gender and science fiction and to teach science fiction in university courses.) I wasnât alone. McCaffreyâs fiction received recognition not only from the mainstream reading public, but also from science fiction fans and her peers, other published science fiction writers. In 1978, her Pern novel The White Dragon appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List. McCaffrey also has the distinction of being the first woman to win science fictionâs two awards: the Hugo (awarded by readers) and the Nebula (awarded by published writers). McCaffrey authored 100 publications, sold millions of books, and her titles appear in more than a dozen languages. Many readers who thought they didnât like science fiction changed their minds after reading one of McCaffreyâs novels, and dozens of
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