Anne McCaffrey: Science Fiction Storyteller

In the author's acknowledgements she thanks the people without whose help she would not have been able to write a book instead of a long essay. This book is chock full of interesting details and amusing anecdotes, but it reads like the long essay the author originally thought it to be. It is short and very light on description. Some interesting subjects are mentioned but only briefly. Very little was expanded on in a way commensurate with the volume of her subject's life works. In a biography, I like to learn more about the subject's personality. I was fortunate enough to meet Anne McCaffrey once and would have loved to be in a position to get to know her better (once I got over being in awe of her imagination). In a nutshell, this little tome is a gem for die-hard fans; an absolute must have, to round out any McCaffrey collection. It would not do much to entice an unfamiliar reader to read Anne's marvelous works.

This is a well-researched detailed biography of the life of Anne McCaffrey, starting with her childhood and following the development of her writing career to the present. It does a good job of presenting the major events in McCaffrey's life and situating what novels she was working on at various times amongst those events. Included are quite a number of interesting photographs, a chronology, a partial list of McCaffrey's works, and sources for further reading including web sites. I really enjoyed reading this biography, and while I was already pretty well informed about McCaffrey's life I did learn new things from this book.It should be noted that this book is part of series which is aimed at teens, and this is evident as the book stops to explain terms such as magna cum laude. But I think that McCaffrey fans of all ages will find it a very good read, just as they enjoy her own books that were aimed at a younger audience.