Free Dragonwriter by Todd McCaffrey Page A

involuntary association with F’lar has become a true partnership.
    McCaffrey’s willingness to assert the importance of a romance of equals in her dragonriders’ relationships remains an important legacy for science fiction, but the sexual complexity of the dragonrider community may have been even more groundbreaking. Dragonriders have a noticeably different attitude toward sex than other groups on Pern due to the effect of dragon sexuality on the dragonriders’ emotions and actions. Sex outside of traditional relationships is common. Also, if a rider of a female dragon is male, then he may very well end up mating with the male rider of a male dragon. McCaffrey depicted these relationships positively and even includes a romantic and sexual relationship between a male rider and a non-dragonrider male, a healer. While the Dragonriders of Pern does not present a polemic view of homosexuality, on Pern, homosexuality is normal and accepted.
    Through both dragon-human relationships and Lessa and F’lar’s partnership, McCaffrey valorized collaboration and relationship as an alternative model of leadership. However, this emphasis on collaboration, a traditionally feminine model of cooperation, extends beyond the content of her work to the development of it. As a writer, McCaffrey chose to open her worlds to other writers in what is sometimes called a “shared universe.” McCaffrey has cooperated in more shared universes than any other science fiction writer, sharing not only Pern but also many other planets and concepts with several other writers. She cow-rote numerous books in the Brainship universe, the Powers series, the Doona series, and the Planet Pirates series, among others. These books, authored with mid-list and early-career writers like Elizabeth Moon and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, to name just two award-winning authors who cowrote with McCaffrey, provided invaluable financial and emotional support. Evidence of McCaffrey’s generosity, these shared universe series show her influence as a writer who could create not just one very popular world, but several.
    It is always a tribute to an author’s genius if her works survive her own death and seem to have a life of their own (for example, Mary Shelley and Frankenstein ). To create creatures, settings, and plots that can successfully continue in others’ hands is a great tribute to a writer’s creativity. Anne McCaffrey’s Pern seems to be one of these.
    McCaffrey carefully planned for this legacy, first cowriting books with her son Todd before turning the series over to him before she passed. As I write, the twenty-sixth Pern novel is being published. Todd McCaffrey wrote four Dragonriders of Pern novels before his mother died and has continued the series with four others—all have made the New York Times Bestseller List. Just as Anne mentored and encouraged other writers, she also developed a writer in her own family.
    Pern’s continued popularity in Todd’s hands is, however, only one measure of Anne McCaffrey’s literary legacy. Her influence has been attested to by many other writers of subsequent generations and can be seen in the work of numerous writers who later continued and further developed the motifs she pioneered. After McCaffrey died in November 2011, there were dozens of moving tributes to her importance and influence. In an interview, Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series, described herself as a big fan of McCaffrey’s and explained how her dragons were influenced by those of Pern. Similarly, Robin Hobb, author of the Rain Wild series, recently discussed the unique features of McCaffrey’s dragons and acknowledged she followed McCaffrey’s lead in creating scientifically plausible and intelligent dragons. Sharon Shinn’s beautiful genetically altered humans with wings and their powerful and compelling use of music in her Samaria series owe a great deal to