throw another bear in the canoe

Oh no! Oh, Anne. I will miss her. She was a great and funny lady and an amazing example of women in science fiction.

Wow. This was the first I heard of it, since it seems like it hasn't been publicly announced yet. I'm crying right now...Anne's work has been a huge inspiration to me and I have been involved in the Dragonriders of Pern "fandom" for more than ten years now. She is definitely one of my author heroes.

Random House, Tor.com, and Avon have all confirmed it. Alas.

thanks for upping the signal, Bear. Just saw this on your twitter feed and now I'm crying.

I guess I needed to cry anyway, but DAMN am I gonna miss her. She was/is? one of my heroes.

I argued mightily with her narratives at times, but I am crying, too.

Dammit.

Sadness. Her books, along with Katherine Kurtz, are probably why I survived junior high.

Her dragons drove me *nuts*, but yes. Dammit.

Oh dear. Not very surprising, but saddening nonetheless...

Alas.

Not a huge surprise, but sad. I met her a few times in my early years in fandom, and got considerable pleasure from some of her books then.

I first ran into Pern in fifth grade. It's been almost a decade since I've been able to read the series, because I read it so many times in a row that I still have almost the entire narrative of Dragonflight (and lots of Dragonsdawn) permanently burned into my head. The movie in my head actually starts play in advance of the text with extra vividness...it's like literary feedback. I don't think there's another series that I've not been able to pick up...because I picked it up too much.

...guess it's time to see if that deja vu has finally faded.

What you said. She made me feel it was okay not to want to be second fiddle in my life, too.

At the time, nobody else was going to give us that.

Dragonsong is literally the book that saved my life by getting me into SciFi/Fantasy reading.

thank you for showing me that girls could ride dragons.

THIS.

Oh, lord, I was just talking about her this morning (not having heard yet). Synchronicity bites.

I haven't been able to read her in over a decade, but she gave me a great deal of pleasure during my tenure as a solitary child, and if I ever finish the stranded-space-colony book, it's because I had Dragonsdawn to push off against.

Dang
Just dang.

Dammit, 2011.

I want Joanna Russ and Diana Wynne Jones back too, please.

Oh, sad. She meant a lot to me long ago. Alas, I grew away from her style and hadn't read her in a long time, but I was glad she was still out there.