McCaffrey

One of the few authors I find hard to give away is Anne McCaffrey.

The series I love the best of hers is Pern.

I am glad to see that it will continue now that her son Todd J. McCaffrey is taking it on, though she's seems to be someone who will be writing forever. Maybe she'll even do like Asimov and continue to publish after she dies!

I'm usually leary of a family member continuing a series after the original published author dies.

Dune is a very good example of why. Frank Herbert did great things with the story. His son Brian got a hold of it and now I can't read the series, except the original books.

Gah. Sorry for the deleted post.

Anyway. The point I was going to make was that at least Todd is getting his start while Anne is still around to supervise and make sure he's actually a decent writer and on the same basic page that she's been on. Brian is just sort of running on his own, taking his dad's notes and using a completely inappropriate co-writer to try and finish things off.

I agree with you.

I just read Hunters of Dune and it was kind of lacking. It read too fast. Frank Herbert should have stopped after the original trilogy, but I guess too many fans wanted more and Brian cashed in on that, though I think he wrote one with his dad.

I do feel Todd is doing well and Anne seems to be writing along side him.

What did you think of Christopher Tolkein publishing his father's books?

Never read dune so I can't say, but honestly Todds books set my teeth on edge, because he is repeating plot ideas that Anne had already done - plague (twice!), kid hoping to be a harper but not allowed, and because the lore about whatch whers and the exploding firestone is not in any of the books that are before and after.

As for Christopher, thats different as he is not publishing any original fiction in his fathers world, he's publishing JRR's notes which are edited and commented on by him for the most part.

Actually I had thought that when Anne McCaffrey brought the Pern series back to the First Landing that the series would end. I guess Todd wanted to get started by "filling in" with stories "in between" his mother's books. I did catch the repeat on plot lines.

I guess if I still want dragons I can go to Christopher Paolini whose third book I have on order at Amazon as we speak.

To be honest, I stopped reading the Pern books after Dragonsblood, with the whole time-travel-plague storyline. I just lost interest in the series, you know? It's gone on too long. I don't think it's necessarily Todd's fault, though. He's definitely a better writer technically-speaking than the Brian Herbert-Kevin Anderson team; there just aren't any good ideas flowing at this point, it seems. Pern's history and lore have been pretty well mapped out by now! Not much new to add.

I guess I am just a dedicated Pern person and will continue reading them regardless - one gets that way some times

I used to be that way with the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony.
Then he stopped trying with the story, and the series lost my ability to love it.

I just got back into Xanth recently, thanks (?) to my son.

I had been away from them for years but the latest ones do sound a lot like the ones I read but with a different generation of people.

They're still good when you want a quick read.

I tried the first couple of Pern books written by Todd McCaffrey, but they just weren't the same. The flow was off and I just couldn't lose myself in Pern like I do with the ones written by Anne. I've pretty much decided not to try anymore by Todd.

Sometimes authors (or their offspring) just don't know when to stop - some TV shows are like that.

I haven't enjoyed Todd McCaffrey's books either - the recycled plots are annoying. And the names! 26 letters in the alphabet and all the "villain" characters would have names starting with "T". A lot of the names were very similar, making it really hard to figure out exactly what was happening.

I'm probably never going to read another new Pern book. I'll just stick to re-reading the old ones.

I haven't even tried Todds book, being put off by many reader reviews as above - although I've not read all of the Pern books either, but I do dip in for an enjoyabel re-read from time to time. The early ones are still the best.

Anyone on this thread may be interested in the LT group Weyr and Hold for all Anne McCaffrey's writings.

Thanks, I'll go there adns ee what is there.

Yeah, Todd's books are way too annoying for me. Part of it is, as mentioned above, he's recycling plots and 'inventing' lore - stuff that wasn't known and should have been if it had happened - or letting people not notice things they should (neither dragons nor riders noticed that firestone totally changed its characteristics?). But the big stumbling block for me is the logic errors - particularly in Kin and Fire, which are the same story from different viewpoints (which Anne also did very badly in Masterharper!). Important events happen (like the harper apprentice/spy objecting to his Master taking a new apprentice, and getting jumped up to Journeyman), and then later are ignored/negated by equally featured events (the same kid is later given a suit of Harper blue and made a 'real apprentice' - and he's happy about this. Huh?). I create a universe in my head while reading and those sort of blatant errors really mess things up for me. I haven't read Dragonharper and don't intend to. A great pity, because I love Pern, but Todd's vision just doesn't mesh with the stories I love.