Veronica Carstens, German First Lady (1979–1984), died he was 84.

Veronica Carstens (née Prior)  was the wife of the German President Karl Carstens.^[1][2]

^{(18 June 1923 – 25 January 2012)}

She began medical studies in 1941, which she interrupted during the war to work as a nurse. In 1944 she married at Berlin-Tegel Karl Carstens, whom she had met a year befor. Temporarily she was a housewife. In 1956 she continued her medical studies, graduating in 1960.
From 1960 to 1968 she worked as a medical assistant and in 1968 she opened her medical practice in Meckenheim near Bonn.
Carstens was by profession a doctor of medicine, and she maintained her practice throughout her husband's tenure as president. She was a strong advocate of naturopathy and homeopathy, and in 1982 the Carstens established the Carstens-Foundation (Carstens-Stiftung) – a major funder of alternative medicine research in Europe.^[2][3] She was an honorary member of the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg).^[4]
She was widowed in 1992. After she had retired from public life in 2009, she lived in a sanitarium in Bonn.


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Carlos Escarrá, Venezuelan politician, Attorney General (since 2011), died from a heart attack he was 57.

Carlos Escarrá  was a Venezuelan politician.

(26 November 1954 – 25 January 2012)

He served as attorney general of Venezuela and a member of the National Assembly of Venezuela for Aragua State,^[1][2] and was a member of the board of directors of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). He was a constitutional lawyer and a former judge for the Supreme Court of Venezuela.^[3] In August 2011, he was chosen as attorney general by lawmakers allied with President Hugo Chávez.
Escarrá died of a heart attack on January 25, 2012, and was replaced by Cilia Flores.^[4]

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Shiv Kumari of Kotah, Indian Hindu royal, died she was 95.

Her Highness Rajmata Shiv Kumari of Kotah was an Indian Hindu royal and the daughter of Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikane

(1 March 1916 – 12 January 2012)

Early life

Born in 1916 (although other sources indicate 1913 and 1915) she was married to Maharao Bhim Singh of Kotah in 1930. She was not, however, bound by the traditional restrictions of the Purdah. Kumari’s father ensured that she received modern education along with her male siblings at home. The Rathor Rajput princesses was skilled in shooting and bagged more than forty tigers both before and after her marriage.^{[citation needed]}
As the Maharani of Kotah she became committed to the cause of education along with her contemporary and friend, Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur. Kumari is vice-president of the latter’s Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls’ Public School in Jaipur.

Politics

While her husband was the ceremonial governor of Rajasthan, Kumari was also active in politics and was elected to the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly as an independent member from Khanpur (Jhalawar District) from 1966-71. Along with her husband and family she traveled all around the world in the early decades of India’s independence.
Kumari was active in the socio-economic uplift of the Rajput community and is the vice-president of the Rajput Sabha. Like her contemporaries in Indian royalty she remained interested in the preservation of wildlife and jungle habitat. She managed a small estate near Kota called Nawal Bagh, which had been bequeathed to her by Maharao Bhim Singh.

Rajmata

Following the death of Maharao Bhim Singh in 1991, Kumari became the Rajmata (Queen Mother) while her son Brijraj Singh became the next Maharao. The royal residence of Umaid Bhawan was converted into a hotel but she continued to reside in the upper portions of the palace until her death in January 2012.

Death

Kumari died on the evening of 12 January 2012. She had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Bharat Vikas Parishad Hospital in Kota on 9 January following a deterioration in the functioning of her kidneys. On the afternoon 12 January she was brought back by her family to her residence, the Ummed Bhawan Palace, without any improvement in her condition and the doctors declaring her death only a matter of time. Her last rites were performed on 13 January 2012.^[1]



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Gerre Hancock, American organist, died he was 77.

Gerre Edward Hancock^[1] was an American organist, improviser, and composer died he was 77. Hancock was a Professor of Organ and Sacred Music at the University of Texas, Austin. He died of cardiac arrest in Austin, Texas on Saturday, January 21, 2012. ^[2]

^{(February 21, 1934 – January 21, 2012)}

Hancock was born in Lubbock, Texas. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from The University of Texas at Austin and his Master of Sacred Music degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York, from which he later received the Unitas Distinguished Alumnus Award. A recipient of a Rotary Foundation Fellowship, he also studied in Paris at the Sorbonne and during this time was a finalist at the Munich International Music Competitions.
Hancock served as Organist at Second Baptist Church, Lubbock, TX, Assistant Organist at Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New York, Organist and Choirmaster at Christ Church (now Christ Church Cathedral) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Organist and Master of the Choristers at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue from 1971 to 2004.
Hancock's compositions are published by Oxford University Press (OUP). His textbook, Improvising: How to Master the Art, also published by OUP, is studied by organists throughout the USA.
Hancock studied organ with E. William Doty, Robert Baker, Jean Langlais, and Marie-Claire Alain, and improvisation with Nadia Boulanger and Searle Wright (1918–2004). A Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, Dr. Hancock was a member of its National Council and was a founder and past president of the Association of Anglican Musicians. He served on the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York City and taught improvisation on a visiting basis at the Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University in New Haven, CT, and The Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.
In 1981 he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music and in 1995 was appointed a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. Hancock received honorary Doctor of Music degrees from the Nashotah House Seminary and The University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. In May 2004 he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree (Honoris causa) from The General Theological Seminary in New York. He is listed in “Who’s Who in America,” and his biography appears in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition. In 2004 he was honored in a ceremony at Lambeth Palace in London where he was presented the Medal of the Cross of St. Augustine by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In May 2009, Hancock was made Doctor of Music (Honoris causa) at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. In June 2010, Dr. Hancock was presented the International Performer of the Year Award by the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. This is viewed by many as the most distinguished award that the American Guild of Organists bestows upon its colleagues.^[3]
A featured recitalist and lecturer at numerous regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists and at national conventions of the Guild in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Washington DC, Detroit, Houston and New York City, Hancock also represented the AGO as recitalist at the Centenary Anniversary of the Royal College of Organists in London. Hancock was heard in recital in many cities throughout the United States and worldwide. On occasion he performed in duo recitals with his wife, Dr. Judith Hancock.
His compositions for organ and chorus are widely performed. He recorded for Gothic Records, Decca/Argo, Koch International and Priory Records, both as a conductor of The St. Thomas Choir and as a soloist.


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Bruce Fine, American sports team part-owner, died he was 74.

Bruce Fine  served as a vice president and part-owner of the Cleveland Indians baseball team in the 1970s  died he was 74..^[1][2] He also served as treasurer and director of Midwest Bank in Cleveland .^[3]

^{(July 7, 1937 - December 28, 2011)}

 

He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and died in Carefree, Arizona.



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Jerry Robinson, American comic book artist (Batman) and reputed creator of The Joker, died he was 89.

Sherrill David Robinson, known as Jerry Robinson, was an American comic book artist known for his work on DC Comics' Batman line of comics during the 1940s died he was 89.. He is best known as the self-proclaimed creator of the Joker,^[2] and for his work on behalf of creators' rights.
He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004.


(January 1, 1922 – December 7, 2011)

Early life

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Robinson graduated from Columbia University.^[3][4]

Career

1939–1943

Robinson was a 17-year-old journalism student at Columbia University in 1939 when he was discovered by Batman creator Bob Kane, who hired him to work on that fledgling comic as an inker and letterer.^[5] Kane, with writer Bill Finger, had shortly before created the character Batman for National Comics, the future DC Comics. Robinson rented a room from a family in The Bronx near Kane's family's Grand Concourse apartment, where Kane used his bedroom as an art studio. He started as a letterer and a background inker, shortly graduating to inking secondary figures. Within a year, he became Batman's primary inker, with George Roussos inking backgrounds. Batman quickly became a hit character, and Kane rented space for Robinson and Roussos in Times Square's Times Tower.^[6]
Approximately a year and a half after Robinson and Finger were hired by Kane, National Comics lured them away, making them company staffers. Robinson recalled working in the bullpen at the company's 480 Lexington Avenue office, alongside Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, as well as Jack Kirby Fred Ray, and Mort Meskin, "one of my best friends, who[m] I brought up from MLJ".^[6]
By early 1940, Kane and Finger discussed adding a sidekick. Robinson suggested the name "Robin" after Robin Hood books he had read during boyhood, saying (in a 2005 interview) that he was inspired by one book's N.C. Wyeth illustrations.^[6] The new character, orphaned circus performer Dick Grayson, came to live with Bruce Wayne (Batman) as his young ward in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940). Robin would inspire many similar sidekicks throughout the remainder of the Golden Age of Comic Books.
Batman's archnemesis, the Joker, was introduced around the same time, in Batman #1 (Spring 1940). Though Kane claimed he and writer Bill Finger came up with the idea for the Joker, most comic historians credit Robinson for the iconic villain, modeled after Conrad Veidt in the 1928 movie, The Man Who Laughs.^[5] Credit for that character's creation, however, is disputed. Robinson has said he created the character.^[6] Kane's position was that:

“

Bill Finger and I created the Joker. Bill was the writer. Jerry Robinson came to me with a playing card of the Joker. That's the way I sum it up. [The Joker] looks like Conrad Veidt — you know, the actor in The Man Who Laughs [the 1928 movie based on the novel] by Victor Hugo... Bill Finger had a book with a photograph of Conrad Veidt and showed it to me and said, 'Here's the Joker.' Jerry Robinson had absolutely nothing to do with it. But he'll always say he created it till he dies. He brought in a playing card, which we used for a couple of issues for him [the Joker] to use as his playing card.[7]

”

Detective Comics#38 (May 1940), the debut of Robin. Art by Bob Kane and Robinson.

Robinson, whose original Joker playing card was on public display in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the Jewish Museum in New York City, New York, from September 16, 2006 to January 28, 2007, and the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, Georgia from October 24, 2004 to August 28, 2005, has countered that:

“

Bill Finger knew of Conrad Veidt because Bill had been to a lot of the foreign films. Veidt... had this clown makeup with the frozen smile on his face. When Bill saw the first drawing of the Joker, he said, 'That reminds me of Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs.' He said he would bring in some shots of that movie to show me. That's how that came about. I think in Bill's mind, he fleshed out the concept of the character.[8]

”

Robinson was also a key force in the creation of Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred Pennyworth, and the villain Two-Face.^[3]
In 1943, when Kane left the Batman comic books to focus on penciling the daily Batman newspaper comic strip, Robinson took over the full penciling, along with others such as Dick Sprang. Only Kane's name appeared on the strip.

1944–2007

From 1944 to 1946, Robinson and his friend Meskin formed a studio which produced material for the short-lived Spark Publications. Robinson worked on numerous other characters for several publishers, at one point doing freelance illustrations for a textbook publisher. After leaving superhero comics, he became a newspaper cartoonist and created True Classroom Flubs and Fluffs, which ran during the 1960s in the New York Sunday News (later incorporated into the Daily News). Robinson would later launch a political satire feature, Still Life, in the early 1970s.^[5]
Robinson never saw himself only as a comic-book artist. In the 1950s, he started drawing cover illustrations for Playbill and tried his hand at political sketches, producing what he considered his best work: “I did 32 years of political cartoons, one every day for six days a week. That body of work is the one I’m proudest of. While my time on Batman was important and exciting and notable considering the characters that came out of it, it was really just the start of my life.”^[9]

Robert Sikoryak created this portrait of Jerry Robinson for The New Yorker (May 2, 2011).

Robinson was president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1967 to 1969 and served a two-year term as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists starting in 1973.
During the mid-1970s, Robinson was a crucial supporter of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in their long struggle with DC Comics to win full recognition and compensation as the creators of Superman. With comics artist and rights advocate Neal Adams, Robinson organized key support around Siegel and Shuster, to whom DC, in December 1975, granted lifetime stipends and a credit in all broadcast and published Superman works.^[5][10] In 1978, he founded CartoonArts International, which as of 2010 has more than 550 artists from over 75 countries.^[11][12]
During 1999, Robinson created an original manga series, Astra, with the help of manga artist Shojin Tanaka and Ken-ichi Oishi. This was later on released in English through Central Park Media by their manga line CPM Manga as a comic book miniseries and then a trade paperback.
On May 26, 2007, DC Comics announced that Robinson had been hired by the company as a "creative consultant". The press release accompanying this announcement did not describe his duties or responsibilities.^[13] Robinson died in his sleep at age 89 on the afternoon of December 7, 2011 in Staten Island.^[3][5]

Books

In 1974, Robinson wrote The Comics, a comprehensive study of the history of newspaper comic strips.

Awards

Robinson won the National Cartoonists Society Award for the Comic Book Division in 1956, their 1963 Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for Still Life, their 1965 Special Features Award for Flubs and Fluffs and their Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. Robinson was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004. Robinson received the Sparky Award for lifetime achievement from the Cartoon Art Museum at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con International.


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Anne McCaffrey, American fantasy writer (Dragonriders of Pern series), died from a stroke she was 85.

Anne Inez McCaffrey  was an American-born Irish writer, best known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series died from a  stroke she was 85.. Early in McCaffrey's 46-year career as a writer, she became the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction and the first to win a Nebula Award died from a  stroke she was 85.. Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.
In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction.^[3][4] She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on 17 June 2006.^[5][6][7]

Life and career

Anne Inez McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the second of three children of Anne Dorothy (née McElroy) and Col. George Herbert McCaffrey. She had two brothers: Hugh ("Mac", died 1988) and Kevin Richard McCaffrey ("Kevie").^[8][9] Her father had Irish and English ancestry, and her mother was of Irish descent.^[10] She attended Stuart Hall (a girls' boarding school in Staunton, Virginia),^[11] and graduated from Montclair High School in New Jersey.^[12] In 1947 she graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College with a degree in Slavonic Languages and Literature.^[8]
In 1950 she married Horace Wright Johnson (died 2009),^[13] who shared her interests in music, opera and ballet.^[14] They had three children: Alec Anthony, born 1952; Todd, born 1956 and Georgeanne ("Gigi", Georgeanne Kennedy), born 1959.^[8]
Except for a short time in Düsseldorf, the family lived for most of a decade in Wilmington, Delaware. They moved to Sea Cliff, Long Island in 1965, and McCaffrey became a full-time writer.^[15]
McCaffrey served a term as secretary-treasurer of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1968 to 1970. In addition to handcrafting the Nebula Award trophies, her responsibilities included production of two monthly newsletters and their distribution by mail to the membership.^[16]
McCaffrey emigrated to Ireland with her two younger children in 1970, weeks after filing for divorce. Ireland had recently exempted resident artists from income taxes, an opportunity that fellow science-fiction author Harry Harrison had promptly taken and helped to promote. McCaffrey's mother soon joined the family in Dublin.^[17] The following spring, McCaffrey was guest of honor at her first British science-fiction convention (Eastercon 22, 1971). There she met British reproductive biologist Jack Cohen,^[18] who would be a consultant on the science of Pern.^[19]

Writer

McCaffrey had had two short stories published during the 1950s. The first ("Freedom of the Race", about women impregnated by aliens) was written in 1952 when she was pregnant with her son Alec. It earned a $100 prize in Science-Fiction Plus.^[20] Her second story, "The Lady in the Tower", was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction by editor Robert P. Mills and purchased again by editor Judith Merril for The Year's Greatest Science Fiction.^[a] McCaffrey said "she thought of the story when wishing herself alone, like a lady in an ivory tower".^[21]
Judith Merril matched McCaffrey with her long-time literary agent Virginia Kidd (died 2003) and invited her to the Milford Writer's Workshop (to which she returned many times), where participants each brought a story to be critiqued.^[22] After her first Milford workshop in 1959 she worked on "The Ship Who Sang", the story which began the Brain & Brawn Ship series. At the story's end, the spaceship Helva sings "Taps" for her human partner. Decades later, McCaffrey's son Todd called it "almost an elegy to her father".^[23] In interviews between 1994 and 2004, she considered it her best story and her favorite.^{[24][25][26][27]} "I put much of myself into it: myself and the troubles I had in accepting my father's death [1954] and a troubled marriage."^[25]
McCaffrey then wrote two more "Ship" stories and began her first novel. Regarding her motivation for Restoree (1967), her son recalled her saying, "I was so tired of all the weak women screaming in the corner while their boyfriends were beating off the aliens. I wouldn't have been—I'd've been in there swinging with something or kicking them as hard as I could".^[28] McCaffrey explained that it did not require a sequel; it "served its purpose of an intelligent, survivor-type woman as the protagonist of an S-F story".^[29]
Regarding her 1969 Decision at Doona (which she dedicated "To Todd Johnson—of course!"), her son recalled that he was directed to lower his voice in his fourth-grade school play when his mother was in the auditorium. That inspired the Doona story, which opens on "an overcrowded planet where just talking too loud made you a social outcast".^[30] As a settler on Doona, the boy talker has a priceless talent.
McCaffrey made a fast start in Ireland, completing for 1971 publication Dragonquest and two Gothic novels for Dell, The Mark of Merlin and The Ring of Fear.^[31][32] With a contract for The White Dragon (which would complete the "original trilogy" with Ballantine), her writing stalled. During the next few years the family moved several times in the Dublin area and struggled to make ends meet, supported largely by child-care payments and meager royalties.^[33]
The young-adult book market provided a crucial opportunity. Editor Roger Elwood sought short contributions for anthologies, and McCaffrey started the Pern story of Menolly. She delivered "The Smallest Dragonboy" for $154, and four stories which later became The Crystal Singer.^[34] Futura Publications in London signed her to write books about dinosaurs for children.^[35] Editor Jean E. Karl at Atheneum Books sought to attract more female readers to science fiction and solicited "a story for young women in a different part of Pern". McCaffrey completed Menolly's story as Dragonsong and contracted for a sequel before its publication in 1976. The tales of Menolly are continued in Dragonsinger: Harper of Pern, and Dragondrums as the "Harper Hall Trilogy". ^[36] With a contract with Atheneum she was able to buy a home (named "Dragonhold" for the dragons who bought it).^[37] Her son wrote, 20 years later, that she "first set dragons free on Pern and then was herself freed by her dragons."^[38]

Dragons

Some time after their move to Long Island, Todd McCaffrey recalls, his mother asked him what he thought of dragons. She was brainstorming about their "bad press all these years". The result was a "technologically regressed survival planet" whose people were united against a threat from space (in contrast to an America divided by the Vietnam War). "The dragons became the biologically renewable air force, and their riders 'the few' who, like the RAF pilots in World War Two, fought against incredible odds day in, day out—and won."^[39]
The first Pern story, "Weyr Search", was published in 1967 by John W. Campbell in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. It won the 1968 Hugo Award for best novella, voted by participants in the annual World Science Fiction Convention.^[3] The second Pern story, "Dragonrider", won the 1969 Nebula Award for best novella, voted annually by the Science Fiction Writers of America.^[3] Thus she was the first woman to win a Hugo for fiction^[7] and the first to win a Nebula.^{[citation needed]}
"Weyr Search" covers the recruitment of a young woman, Lessa, to establish a telepathic bond with a queen dragon at its hatching, thus becoming a dragonrider and the leader of a Weyr community. "Dragonrider" explores the growth of the queen dragon Ramoth, and the training of Lessa and Ramoth. Editor Campbell requested "to see dragons fighting thread [the menace from space]", and also suggested time travel; McCaffrey incorporated both suggestions. The third story, "Crack Dust, Black Dust", was not separately published, but the first Pern novel (Dragonflight, published by Ballantine Books in 1968) was a fix-up of all three.^[40]
If John Campbell was midwife to Dragonflight (with its major components published as award-winning novellas), agent Virginia Kidd and editor Betty Ballantine provided advice and assistance for its sequel Dragonquest. It was almost complete (and the contract for another sequel signed) before the 1970 move to Ireland. Both Ballantine and fellow writer Andre Norton made suggestions for the mutant white dragon.^[41]
Readers waited a long time for the completion of the original trilogy. Progress was not made until 1974–1975, when the New England Science Fiction Association invited McCaffrey to its annual convention (Boskone) as guest of honor (which included publication of a novella for sale on-site). She wrote A Time When, which would become the first part of The White Dragon.^[b]
The White Dragon was released with new editions of the first two Pern books, with cover art illustrated by Michael Whelan. It was the first science-fiction book by a woman on the New York Times bestseller list, and the cover painting is still in print from Whelan. The artists share credit for their career breakthroughs.^[c][d]

Collaborations

McCaffrey said of her collaborations with Todd and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, "While I would dearly love to have the energy to tell a tale all on my own, I really cannot say that I am not ably represented with my collaborations". In the Pern collaboration with Todd, she was mainly "making suggestions or being a sounding board".^[13] According to Todd, McCaffrey also gave Todd and his sister Gigi permission to write their own stories set in the Pern universe.^{[citation needed]}

Death

McCaffrey died at age 85 on 21 November 2011 at her home in Ireland, following a stroke.^[42]

Books

Classification

In August 1987, Locus: The magazine of the science fiction & fantasy field ranked two of the eight extant Pern novels among the 33 "All-Time Best Fantasy Novels", based on a poll of subscribers; Dragonflight was #9 and The White Dragon #23.^[43] Commenting on the Locus list, David Pringle called them "arguably science fiction rather than fantasy proper"^[44] and named McCaffrey a "leading practitioner" of the planetary romance subgenre of science fiction.^[45][e]
McCaffrey considered most of her work science fiction and enjoyed "cutting them short when they call me a 'fantasy' writer". All the Pern books may be considered science fiction, since the dragons were genetically engineered by the Pern colonists. Regarding science, she said "I don't keep up with developments, but I do find an expert in any field in which I must explain myself and the science involved".^[24] Astronomer Steven Beard often helped with science questions,^[46] and McCaffrey acknowledged reproductive biologist Jack Cohen several times.^{[example needed]}
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame citation of Anne McCaffrey summarizes her genre as "science fiction, though tinged with the tone and instruments of fantasy", and her reputation as "a writer of romantic, heightened tales of adventure explicitly designed to appeal—and to make good sense to—a predominantly female adolescent audience."^[7]
McCaffrey said in 2000, "There are no demographics on my books which indicate the readers are predominately of an age or sex group. Dragons have a universal appeal"!^[25] Formerly, it was another matter:

I started writing s-f in the late 50's/early 60's, when readership was predominantly male. And their attitudes unreconstructed. [... Women] began reading s-f and fantasy—and, by preference, women writers. My stories had themes and heroines they could, and did, relate to. I never had any trouble with editors and publishers. I had trouble getting male readers to believe I was serious, and a good enough writer to interest them.

In 1999, the American Library Association gave McCaffrey the 11th Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, citing The Ship Who Sang (1969) and the first six Pern books^[47] (those sometimes called the "original trilogy" and the "Harper Hall trilogy").

Restoree

McCaffrey's first novel was Restoree, published by Ballantine Books in 1967. Unlike most science-fiction books of the era, Restoree's heroine is a strong-willed, intelligent woman who is willing and able to think for herself and act on her own initiative. McCaffrey was widely quoted as saying that Restoree was intended as a "jab" at how women were usually portrayed in science fiction.^[48]

Federated Sentient Planets universe

Several of McCaffrey's series (and more than half her books) are set in a universe governed by the "Federated Sentient Planets" ("Federation" or "FSP"). Although Pern's history is connected to the Federation, McCaffrey only used it as a backdrop for storytelling and did not consider her different "worlds" to be part of the same universe.

Dragonriders of Pern series

Main article: Dragonriders of Pern

See lists in publication order and Pern chronological order

McCaffrey's best-known works are the Dragonriders of Pern series. These are set on a planet known as Pern, settled by colonists from Earth. The advanced technology of their ancestors has been lost, so the inhabitants of Pern have reverted to a society similar to western medieval Earth. However, before the loss of this advanced technology the original colonists produced genetically engineered dragons. These dragons are now flown by elite "dragonriders", who communicate telepathically with them. Together, they defend Pern against pernicious "thread" which cross space periodically from a nearby planet (the "red star") and threaten to destroy all life on Pern.

The Brain & Brawn Ship series

Main article: The Ship Who Sang

See list of books

The Brain & Brawn Ship series comprises seven novels, only the first of which (a fix-up of five previously published stories) was written by McCaffrey alone.^[49] The stories in this series deal with the adventures of "shell-people" or "Brains", who as infants (due to illness or birth defects) have had to be hard-wired into a life-support system. With sensory input and motor nerves tied into a computer they serve as starship pilots (or colony administrators), seeing and feeling the colony or ship as an extension of their own body. They perform this job to pay off their debt for education and hardware, and continue as free agents once the debt is paid. To compensate for the Brains' inability to move within human habitats they are paired with partners known as "Brawns", who are trained in a wide array of skills (including the protection of their Brain counterparts). It was considered impossible for a person to adjust to being a shell after the age of two or three. An exception, in The Ship Who Searched, was a shell-person who was seven when she became quadriplegic.
The Ship books are set in the same universe as the Crystal Singer books; Brainship-Brawn pairings were also characters in the second and third volumes of that series.

The Crystal universe

See list of books

The Crystal universe is the setting for five books, including the Crystal Singer trilogy. The first book (and first of the trilogy), The Crystal Singer (1982) is a fix-up of four stories published in 1974–1975.^[50]
The Crystal Singer series revolves around the planet Ballybran. Under a permanent biohazard travel restriction, Ballybran is home to one of the FSP's wealthiest (and most reclusive) organizations: the Heptite Guild. Source of crystals vital to a number of industries, the Heptite Guild is known to require absolute, perfect pitch in hearing and voice for all applicants (especially those seeking to mine crystal by song). The second and third books feature brainships which were not main characters in the Brain & Brawn Ship series.

Ireta

See list of books

The Ireta series (as catalogued by the Internet Speculative Fiction Database) comprises five novels: two "Dinosaur Planets" by McCaffrey in 1978 and 1984 and three "Planet Pirates" co-written during the 1990s.^[51]
They share a fictional premise, and some characters and events overlap. "Dinosaur Planets" follow the Exploration and Evaluation Corps team on the planet Ireta, which did not expect to find dinosaurs. In "Planet Pirates", all is not well in the FSP: pirates attack the spacelanes. Survivors on Ireta and the survivors of space pirate attacks join forces.

The Talents universe

Main article: To Ride Pegasus

See list of books

"The Talents Universe" (as catalogued by the Internet Speculative Fiction Database) comprises two series: "Talent" and "The Tower and Hive" and share a fictional premise. Eight books (all by McCaffrey alone) are rooted in her second story (1959) and three stories published in 1969.^[52]
The Talents universe involves a society built around the Talents of telepathic, telekinetic individuals who become integral to the connectivity of interstellar society.

The Barque Cat series

See list of books

This series covers the origin of the barque cats in the Tower and Hive series.

Doona

See list of books

Two civilizations in near-identical circumstances – an overlarge, lethargic population and a tragic history with sentient aliens – end up attempting to colonize the same planet by accident. What the humans do not know is that the people they have misidentified as nomadic natives are more technically advanced than themselves (and under no such illusions regarding the humans). The books are set in the time of "Amalgamated Worlds", but a sentence in chapter ten of Crisis at Doona hints that there is "a desire to form a Federation of Sentient Planets". This sets the books just prior to the FSP universe (which comprises much of McCaffrey's work).

Petaybee universe

Main article: Petaybee Series

See list of books

The Petaybee universe comprises two trilogies (Powers and The Twins of Petaybee) by McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.^[53]

The Freedom series

Main article: Catteni Series

See list of books

The Freedom series (or the "Catteni Sequence") comprises one 1970 short story and four Freedom novels written between 1995 and 2002.^[54]

Acorna universe

Main article: Acorna

See list of books

The "Acorna Universe series" comprises ten novels published between 1997 and 2007: seven sometimes known as Acorna and three sometimes known as Acorna's Children. The first two were written by McCaffrey and Margaret Ball, and the rest by McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.^[55]

Other works

This section requires expansion. (November 2011)

McCaffrey also published two short-story collections, several romances and young-adult fantasies. Her nonfiction work includes two cookbooks and a book about dragons. McCaffrey collaborated closely with musicians Tania Opland and Mike Freeman on two CDs ("The Masterharper of Pern" and "Sunset's Gold"), based on her lyrics and the music described in her Pern novels.


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