Month: August 2012

Letter from Darlene

Letter from Darlene

Every year for many, my birthday book was the latest Dragonbook, always in hardcover, one of the rare few authors not relegated to paperback, ebook, or simply a borrow. Holding Sky Dragons in my hand as my gift today, spurred me to the WWW to double check that my collection was complete, but mostly to connect again with your Mom in some small way. My heart was broken last November when Anne McCaffrey left our world. We will never see her like again. But it’s a comfort to know that her legacy of Pern and the strength of her love lives on in her son’s capable hands. I regret I never had the opportunity to thank her in person for the decades of joy all her books brought to me, but I cherish the short note she wrote me in response to my own, and my personally autographed ‘Skys of Pern’ will hold pride of place on my bookshelf when all the other books have turned to dust or digits. That future generations will know her and share her stories grants her truly eternal life. Best regards. I had wanted to post this on your website, but couldn’t figure out how.


Hi Darlene,

Thanks for the kind words.

Yup, Mum was a special lady and she will be missed. Hopefully, she’ll be remembered for a long, long time.

As for contacting me on the website, the best thing to do is go:

Home->Todd McCaffrey->Contact

which will let you send me an email which I may (or may not) answer.

Cheers,
Todd

Comment from Alex

Comment from Alex

I have really enjoyed all the Pern books, reading some of them several times over.

Indeed I read Sky Dragons in under 2 days.

However I must say how disappointed I was that you decided to make the ships move, it almost made me stop reading the book altogether.

>From what I’ve understood in the previous books the ships were stuck directly above Landing and that was why AIVAS could not be moved. It had to stay in the same location to be able to link with the Yokohama, and also why they managed to find Landing again in “White Dragon” (they noticed the DawnSisters never moved)

Actually this got me thinking so much I decided to go back through “All The Weyrs Of Pern” and found this extract just by flicking through (Lucky stop of my fingers)…

“Does the view stay the same?” Mirrim asked. “I can’t see Benden from here.”
“Or Ruatha, ” Sharra added.
“I can barely make out Eastern Weyr,” S’len put in, “and I thought it was pretty big!”
“That’s what a geosynchronous orbit means, my friends, the ship stays in the same position relative to the surface of the planet,” Jaxom said.

So really its there in black and white that the ships didn’t move.

I do want to end by saying that I DO like your books, and I’m impressed how well you handle the time within time loops, it just doesn’t feel right when things seem to have been changed to fit.

I do hope you continue writing the books as I would hate to see them stop.


Hi Alex,

I’m sorry you got confused by the Dawn Sisters. I’ve already answered this same issue with Lancer4 you can read it here.

Fundamentally, the orbit of the Dawn Sisters has to move with the dawn (hence the name) and so has to be sun-synchronous (moving with the sun) rather than geosynchronous orbit. This makes more sense in the bigger picture, too, as an Earth geosynchronous orbit is at around 22,000 kilometers (about 13,750 miles) while Low-Earth Orbit is only about 200 kilometers — those numbers would be similar for Pern.

All this was pointed out to Mum when we worked on the book and she agreed with it.

Are You A Werewolf? Deluxe Edition

Are You A Werewolf? Deluxe Edition

Those of you who come to Dragon*con or many of the other conventions I’ve attended, will have had a chance to play Are You A Werewolf? with me. If you haven’t, you should know that it’s a fun game “of mob rule and paranoia” for 7-15 people which lasts anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour.

The version I play comes from Looney Labs and they’ve set up a Kickstarter project to raise enough money to fund a Deluxe version of the game.

In their first day, they’ve raised over a quarter of their goal.

Check it out here and see if you want to contribute — depending upon your contribution level you can get anything from a FLUXX PROMO CARD through to having the game’s inventor fly out and host a games party with you and your friends.

I went for the Convention special which is 3 copies of the Deluxe game.

Letter from Bill

Letter from Bill

Please accept my apologies for not sending Condolences regarding your mother’s death. Are belated ones acceptable?

I’m pleased that you are continuing with the Pern books. So much more logical than many sci-fi/fantasy series that have to develop daft themes to continue.

Incidentally: was there a reply to the ‘Tubberman Launch?’ or are FSP otherwise engaged or unable to understand his message? Could be a sequel/series in there.


Bill,

Thank you for your condolences. Belated ones are always acceptable.

Thanks for your thoughts regarding the ‘Tubberman Launch’. Did you read Rescue Run? I think that dealt with that.

Cheers,
Todd