Part of Series
She was born human... reborn as much, much more. Her name was Nancia Perez y de Gras. Like the other five young people aboard, she was an aristocrat... a member of one of the illustrious High Families. And, like the others, she was a new graduate, just starting out on her own career. But while the rest were bound for less-than-glamorous assignments—for reasons they preferred to conceal—on planets in a remote sector of the galaxy, Nancia was already on duty and proud of it: as a brain-ship for the Courier Service.
Author
Anne McCaffrey was born on April 1st, 1926, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her parents were George Herbert McCaffrey, BA, MA PhD (Harvard), Colonel USA Army (retired), and Anne Dorothy McElroy McCaffrey, estate agent. She had two brothers: Hugh McCaffrey (deceased 1988), Major US Army, and Kevin Richard McCaffrey, still living. Anne was educated at Stuart Hall in Staunton Virginia, Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey, and graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. Her working career included Liberty Music Shops and Helena Rubinstein (1947-1952). She married in 1950 and had three children: Alec Anthony, b. 1952, Todd, b.1956, and Georgeanne, b.1959. Anne McCaffrey’s first story was published by Sam Moskowitz in Science Fiction + Magazine and her first novel was published by Ballantine Books in 1967. By the time the three children of her marriage were comfortably in school most of the day, she had already achieved enough success with short stories to devote full time to writing. 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. She died at the age of 85, after suffering a massive stroke on 21 November 2011. Obituaries: Locus, GalleyCat.
