Dragonholder (2 page)

Aunt Gladdie was a “hoot.” She was an outgoing, kind person and we all loved her very much. Anne only found out on their European trip that Gladdie had suffered all her life from a spinal condition that caused her a great deal of pain. Gladdie dulled the pain by liberal application of alcohol, normally in the form of scotch on the rocks — whiskey would be used in a pinch.

Gladdie stayed with us one Christmas at Sea Cliff. I recall that shortly after New Year's,
all the adults in the house — except my mother — were very “fragile” in the
morning. Apparently they'd stayed up all night with Aunt Gladdie — trying to match her
drink for drink. They failed. Gladdie cheerfully arrived for breakfast and nearly got
throttled when, taking in their condition, said sympathetically, “You know, I don't think
I'd drink so much if I ever got a hangover!”

When Anne was younger, Gladdie would invite her up to her home in Winthrop, Massachusetts, for holidays — she felt that Anne didn't get as much attention as she needed. This was because Anne's younger brother was hospitalized with osteomyelitis — a fatal disease in those days before penicillin, and her mother acted as private nurse. Among other treats, when Anne was sent to Stuart Hall (named after the first principal, J.E.B. Stuart's widow), Aunt Gladdie sprang for the piano lessons Anne had begged for.

“She was the first person who had faith in me for myself alone,” Anne says of her.

A
fter I left the front room (a number of years before Aunt Gladdie
took Anne to Ireland and at least a whole summer before Gladdie drank everyone under
the table), and Anne had decided on dragons, she set about figuring out what sort of
planet they were on. She'd had two stories published in John W. Campbell's magazine,
Analog
, and had had a number of meetings with him. Under John's vision,
Analog had become the premiere science fiction magazine of the 1950's and 1960's
specializing in character-driven hard science fiction stories. So Anne was concerned
not only with the story but also with the science and the background of the
story.

She settled on a technologically regressed planet — a survival planet, existing in near
medieval times. Because at that time, America was so divided over the Vietnam War, Anne
wanted a world unified against a common, undeniable enemy. So she came up with Thread
— mindless, voracious, space-borne. The dragons became the biologically renewable air
force, and their riders “the few” who, like the RAF pilots in WWII, fought against
incredible odds day in, day out — and won.

Anne finished thinking and took herself back to her back room and the typewriter. Hours later, after writing all of
Weyr Search
up to the fight scene, she took a break to finish the prom dress for Linda Isbell — the daughter of our housemates. At Sea Cliff the magical and the mundane were mixed — a scraped knee might interrupt Lessa's impressing Ramoth. Somehow Anne found the time to cook, to sew — and to let dragons fly.

When she had done what she could with the story (long after the prom), Anne took the
unfinished Weyr Search and two other stories with her up to the writers' conference at
Milford Pennsylvania. She gave
Weyr Search
and another story to her agent, Virginia
Kidd, and submitted the third to the judgment of the writers' group.

Harlan Ellison, now famous for so many things — Star Trek's
City on the Edge of Forever
, The Outer Limit's
Demon with the Glass Hand
, and the incredible story
I have no mouth but I must scream
— but then science fiction's reigning bad boy, tore Anne's submission apart. Anne was used to Harlan's ways and re-wrote the story. It was later published as
A Womanly Talent
— the second story in
To Ride Pegasus
.

Virginia read the incomplete Weyr Search and handed it back, saying, “Oh, Annie, do please finish it.” When she did, Virginia submitted
Weyr Search
to John Campbell at
Analog
. John bought it. He wanted more.

Virginia? Anne will tell you that she first met Virginia in the local supermarket at Milford. At the time she was Virginia Kidd Blish, married to the science fiction writer James Blish who was best known then for his
Cities in Flight
series but may be known more now for his
Star Trek
novelizations.

Anne? Virginia will tell you that she was “given” Anne by Judy Merril. Judy Merril was so
impressed with Anne's second-ever story,
The Lady in the Tower
that she invited
Anne up to her first Milford writer's conference. Judy was at the time married to Fred Pohl,
another science fiction writer, who was editor of
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction
(everyone just says “F&SF”). He published
The Lady in the Tower
after Algys “AJ” Budrys pulled it out of the slushpile.

In science fiction and fantasy in the 1940's, 1950's, and even the late 1960's, everyone knew everyone else. There was and still is a strong sense of community in the profession. And there's a strong sense of camaraderie and a willingness to help new writers starting out.

Most of the magazine editors in the old days started life as writers. Many did a stint of editing and returned to writing. While they were editing, they looked out for ways to help new writers, too — the way Sam Moskowitz helped Anne with her first story,
Freedom of Race
.

Anne's first story was bought by Sam Moskowitz for Science Fiction Plus. Sam did Anne a big favor by cutting the story from 1300 words to 1000 words. Why was that a favor, you might ask? In those days Science Fiction Plus paid the glorious amount of three cents per word. The longer the story, the more the author got paid.

But at that time there was a story competition for the best 1000-word story, and
that
paid one hundred dollars. By cutting the story by three hundred words, Sam made Anne's story jump in value from $39 to $100.

Judy Merril had noticed Anne's second story,
The Lady in the Tower
, and bought it
for her “year's best” anthology. From her contact with Anne, Judy knew that she was looking
for an agent — she also knew that Virginia had decided to start agenting, so she
introduced them. They hit it off and they've been together ever since.

Just as important as Judy's introduction of Anne to Virginia was Judy's invitation to Anne to
attend her first Milford writers' conference in 1959. They were called “Milford” because
they were held in Milford, Pennsylvania. The Milfords were the creation of science fiction
writer, editor, and critic Damon Knight. His idea was to gather the brightest writers in the
field together for a number of weeklong intense rounds of criticism. Every writer brought a
story for the conference, all the writers read all the stories, and all participated in the
critiquing of the stories. Anne says she learned more about the craft of writing at Milford
— she would come back to the conference many times — than anywhere else.

She couldn't stay long at her first Milford because she was pregnant with her third child — who would be named Nicholas if a boy or Georgeanne if a girl — in those days the doctors couldn't tell.

And she almost didn't get there because her second child — me — almost scared her into an early labor. This was back in Wilmington, Delaware where we had a really great split-level bungalow house. One of the few problems it had was that the house was at a major intersection in the housing development. Another problem was that it fronted onto a hill. It wasn't much of a hill, unless you were a three-year-old, in which case it was a mountain.

And the hill wouldn't have been a problem for me except that my mother — our Anne — had this vision of her children growing up and having children of their own (she succeeded). Fortunately for her, we had some really smart dogs — German shepherds. The first — Wizard — was the father of the second, Merlin.

Now Wiz was so smart that after Anne walked him around the property line he knew what was his
and where his child was allowed to go. And where he wasn't — like down the hill and
onto the busy main road. So every time I tried to go down, he'd get in front of me. I'd go
around, he'd get in front. And because a three-year-old just can't walk around an
eighty-pound dog, I'd always go back up the hill (towards the house) when I tried to get
around. My brother thought it was hilarious, my mother thought it was great but I thought it
was too much.

Okay, I was only three and didn't know better. But even back then I had stubborn all worked out. I knew that I couldn't get down to the road unless I was in a car. Hmm …

So one day I climbed into the car, got behind the wheel and
“vroom! Vroom!”
'd a bit
until I noticed the parking brake. My mother noticed that it was too quiet just a bit too
late and rushes out of the house in time to see me in the car rolling backwards down onto
the main street. At the same time our neighbor across the street saw Anne, huge with child,
and yelled, “Anne! Don't run!”

And Sir Isaac Newton once again was proved correct as the car rolled down our hill, across the main road, into the neighbor's driveway, through their garage door and into their garage. Where our kindly neighbor managed to grab the parking brake. A kid's got to try, right? And you wonder where Anne McCaffrey ever got the idea to write
Decision at Doona
?

But that was the only time I ever got around Wiz. He was a very smart dog. He was a big German shepherd and quite intimidating. Once a workman came up to Anne, “Lady, you've got to do something about your dog.”

The workman was running a bulldozer a few doors down — digging a ditch or something.
Anne looked out her back window and saw that Wiz was sitting in front of the bulldozer. “He
won't move,” the workman said. Anne went outside, and saw that I was playing in the back
yard. Then she looked again, smiled, moved me back towards the house a few feet, and called
out, “Wiz! It's okay.”

Wizard took one look and gave up his ‘dogged' vigil — his charge had been moved out of
direct line with the bulldozer, so the bulldozer was no threat. Wizard's son Merlin would
later be remember in Anne's gothic,
The Mark of Merlin
and Wizard was given place
of honor in the short story,
The Great Canine Chorus
.

Neither of those stories had been written back in 1958 when Anne went to her first Milford. While art may not imitate life, life was a major influence in Anne's art. Her first story, about women impregnated by aliens was written when she was pregnant with her first child. Her second story,
The Lady in the Tower
was written when she had two children under six and a sixteen year-old refugee from the aftermath of the Hungarian revolution living with her.