I wanted to write my own tribute to the passing of Anne McCaffery. Like other writers and readers who posted about her passing I wanted to add my own contribution. This was sad news to hear, because some of her books were influential to me, not as much as a writer but definitely as a reader.
It's very difficult, in my opinion, to be a successful sci-fi writer. Sci-fi is a difficult genre to master, and Anne McCaffery did it--AND did it in a way that was enormously successful. What was also unique about her is that she was writing in the genre during a time when sci-fi was mostly dominated by the boy's club. One of the things that one sees a lot in sci-fi, unfortunately, is a lack of believable and realistic female characters you like to root for, or in roles in which women are typically wives, mothers, and the emphasis on their importance in the story has only to do with their reproductive qualities. Sadly, this trend still exists today. But Ms.McCaffery was one of the first,…