Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
She does mention the Pern colony origin in a preface to Dragonflight, but I think it's not until the sixth book (The White Dragon) that we actually get any information about this prior colony, and not until Dragondawn (8th? 9th?) that we get information about genetic engineering. In The Reader's Guide to Science Fiction, the reviewers write that she tends to leave scientific explanations of her world to others, and that was true at the time (mid-seventies). I personally didn't feel that her scientific explanations, even when provided, were very strong, and certainly didn't think they were the strongest part of her work.
|
Anne tends to substitute handwavium for science, but I think most of her readers neither noticed nor cared. They read her for other reasons. The Pern stories first appeared in bastion of hard science fiction Analog magazine, which is somewhat amusing, considering how hard the science wasn't. If she were starting nowadays, I suspect she would be classified as writing romance novels, or SF/Romance crossovers a la Catherine Asaro. (And I did encounter one non-SF book of hers that was a romance featuring a couple of gay trapeze artists.)
Quote:
|
I agree with bbusybookworm that the Harper Hall books, including The Masterharper of Pern, were the best of the lot. Her interest in and knowledge of music really strengthened those books, without getting in the way of some excellent characterization. While I will occasionally re-read some of her other books, those are the ones I return to over and over.
|
Agreed. The best of the Ship Who Sang stories were informed by the love of music as well.
Quote:
Asking fans to copyright books in her name as well as their own is a good way of avoiding the "fanfiction plagiarism" problem from the direction you mention, as well as requiring fans to acknowledge her contribution to the fanfiction.
I wonder if/how that was implemented for PernMUSH?
|
I have no idea.
______
Dennis