Anne McCaffrey, Science Fiction and Fantasy Author, Dies at 85

Anne Inez McCaffrey, the science fiction and fantasy author best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series, died Monday at her home in Ireland at the age of 85.

Her publisher, Random House, announced that McCaffrey died shortly after suffering a stroke on Nov. 21 at her home.

Random House in a post on its site said: “It is with great sadness that Del Rey Books and Random House report the passing of beloved author Anne McCaffrey. Anne McCaffrey was best known for her award-winning and immensely popular Dragonriders of Pern® novels.”

“McCaffrey died at her home in Ireland on November 21st shortly after suffering a stroke. She was 85 years old.”

McCaffrey published nearly 100 books mainly on fiction. She was born on April 1, 1926, in Cambridge, Mass., from where she immigrated to Ireland in 1970.

She was the daughter of a retired U.S. Army colonel, George Herbert McCaffrey, and a real estate agent, Anne Dorothy McElroy McCaffrey.

McCaffrey in her biography on her Web site has shared some insights about her first novel which was published in 1967:

“Her first novel, ‘Restoree,’ was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in s-f novels in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. It is, however, in the handling of broader themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly the two series ‘The Ship Who Sang’ and the fourteen novels about the ‘Dragonriders of Pern,’ that Ms. McCaffrey’s talents as a story-teller are best displayed.”

McCaffrey became the first woman to win a Hugo Award for a work of fiction and the first woman to win a Nebula Award, and in 2006 she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

McCaffrey is survived by a daughter and two sons.

McCaffrey's ex-husband, Horace Wright Johnson, from whom she had been divorced for nearly 40 years, passed away in October 2009 of cancer.