When I learned that Anne McCaffrey had died, I was physically shaken by the news. We take for granted that the great and momentous authors and actors of our age will be no more. McCaffrey will never pen another Dragonriders of Pern novel or a new work that is unlike any other.

Too often, writers are pigeonholed into a specific genre and don't find much success outside of it. McCaffrey was one of the few that could transcend beyond the boundaries of fantasy and delve into the realms of science fiction and others. McCaffrey was an amazing writer and inspiration to many writers still today.

She may be gone, but her works will live on and no one will forget the name Anne McCaffrey. She helped create the foundation of modern fantasy writing. She brought the trials and tribulations of the modern world and brought them into Pern. If you read the books and relate them to the time period they were written, you can see many parallels between the two.

I am proud to say that I count McCaffrey as one of my many inspirations for my writing career. I still break out her books every now and then when I need to re-energize my batteries with a good story. I can only hope that one day my writing is 1/100 as good as hers. The fantasy and literary world has lost a bright star and she will be missed by her fans and her colleagues.