INFLUENTIAL sci-fi fantasy author Anne McCaffrey has died at the age of 85.
Publishers Random House said McCaffrey died at her home in Ireland on November 21 shortly after suffering a stroke. She is survived by two sons and a daughter. Her ex-husband, from whom she had been divorced for nearly 40 years, died of cancer in October 2009.
Best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne was born in Massachusetts, USA, and emigrated to County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1970. Her son Todd worked with her on four Pern books and wrote a further three by himself.
In April 2011, Copperheart Entertainment announced it had closed a deal to adapt the first Pern novel, Dragonflight, into a feature film, with David Hayter (X-Men 2, Watchmen) to pen the screenplay.
Ill health forced McCaffrey to cancel an appearance at the 2011 Dragon*Con, held in September in Atlanta, Georgia, with Todd writing on her official website: "What seemed to be indigestion last week has now turned out to be something more serious - some incident with her heart, the full details of which are still to be determined by tests.
"Mum very specifically asked me to apologise to those who had hoped to see her there, saying: 'Sorry that old age came up and bit me on the ass.'
"The directors at Dragon*Con have said that she's to rest and get better so she can come next year."
Anne published almost 100 books, co-authored another 30 and was widely regarded as a pioneer for women writers in the sci-fi/fantasy genre.
In 1968, she became the first woman to win a Hugo Award for a work of fiction and in 1969 the first woman to win a Nebula Award. In 1978, her book White Dragon was the first science fiction book by a woman to appear on The New York Times Best Seller List. She was inducted into The Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006.
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[Source: Coventry Telegraph - The Geek Files]
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