Dragonholder

In her brief note to the readers, Anne McCaffrey informs us that Dragonholder was written in response to countless requests to tell "how I spent my childhood, who my friends were, my pets, how I ever thought up Pern and its dragons--the whole nine unvarnished yards." Todd McCaffrey, her second son and a long-time science fiction (and McCaffrey) fan put together this album of family photographs and anecdotes, interspersed with behind-the-scenes stories about his mother's writing career.

The book includes everything from Anne's childhood pet--a Maine Coon cat named Thomas, who suffered her dressing him in doll clothes and wheeling him around in a stroller and whose best friend was the neighbor's collie--to tales of McCaffrey Second Sight (possessed by Anne's grandmother and mother, as well as herself) to how she came to write the stories that became Dragonflight, the first Pern novel. It covers her career from the early stories through her long struggle to make ends meet as a professional writer to her success in 1978, when The White Dragon became the first science fiction hardcover to reach The New York Times bestseller list. McCaffrey fans won't want to miss this--it's the next best thing to having your own visit with her. --Nona Vero