As you may have heard, legendary fantasy writer Anne McCaffrey died this week at age 85. I remember her work fondly; not only did it expand my imagination in junior high school, it provoked the opening paragraph to an article I wrote about Coolio fifteen years ago. To wit:

Coolio raps for a living, but he’d rather ride dragons. When he’s not onstage or in the studio, he reads and rereads Anne McCaffrey’s series of Pern fantasy novels. “I think it’s her compassion,” he says. “Plus I like the idea of speaking to dragons telepathically.” So today in London, Coolio has canceled a smorgasbord of phone interviews with Scandinavian journalists so he can restock his Pern library. Once he’s completed his collection, he plans to line them up in order and read them all again. Coolio strides into a large Dillon’s bookstore, locates the science-fiction section, and starts snatching McCaffrey’s novels off the shelves. He quickly considers each one before shoving it back or tossing it in the pile of keeps at his feet: Dragonflight, Dragsonsdawn, All the Ways of Pern, Firstfall, and Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern. But he scowls: There’s a glitch. “Where the fuck’s The White Dragon?”

(Excerpt from “The Rebirth of Coolio,” the cover story of Details, March 1996.)

posted 23 November 2011 in Tasty Bits and tagged Anne McCaffrey, Coolio. 1 comment