I am a huge fan of Anne McCaffrey, having started her books when I was in junior high. I have read and re-read them all, until the spines of the paperbacks break and pages start to fall out. I cry every time I finish Moreta (yeah, every time, what of it?) and I am currently in the middle of the massive series again. I know, I’ve read it, millions of books out there, but I own them (cheap!), I love them, and I feel a certain comfort in re-reading them. It’s been about 5 years since i read them, and I have forgotten many details, so I am able to read them with a sort of “Oh yeah…” feeling.

You may wonder, that I have logged many many hours on the web, that I have never looked up Anne McCaffrey’s webpage. I know, I can’t believe it either. But I did today, and my my my. I thought I was a fan.

I don’t even think I could call myself a fan after reading this site, seriously. I always wanted a fire-lizard (or dare I say…a gold dragon?), and when in junior high I did fantasize about my dragon, and I think I even sketched pictures of it (I know, but jeez, it was junior high). I know my best friend and I stayed up overnight once to make a paper-mache dragon and paint it and glue rhinestone eyes on it. Junior high, acceptable behavior entirely.

But these people who call themselves fans must take the word fan from its root in “fanatic” because, Lord. If you’ve never delved into the online world of Fandom, there are acronyms and “games” and Weyrs you can join and groups that decide when and what kind of dragon you Impress, and it all felt very exclusionary and very cliquish.

People were posting about their fire-lizards, and I thought, Cool, I will go see what kind of fire-lizards they have. I actually wanted to maybe (I don’t know) join one of their fan groups on a lark and get a fire lizard and name it and…I don’t know. Play. Part of me inside is still in junior high.

So I looked and looked for a place to “get” a fire lizard, and in between the horribly designed sites and the acronyms and rules and jargon, I was completely lost. They seem to revel in their society, and tho part of me is semi-interested in exploring “their world”, most of me is not in junior high. I don’t want 50 fire-lizards and 5 dragons and all of these other “bonded” creatures these people orgaz about. I want one. What’s a damn bond-pair for if it is shared with 200 different animals on different worlds?!?!?

I think I am taking this too literally. Or something. It just seemed disturbing in a way, these collections of animals that don’t exist, and could never be collected in that way even if they did exist. I am a traditionalist. I was excited about the possibility of sharing my love for the series with other fans, but I don’t do fan-fiction AT ALL, and I am leery of the scribbledy drawings and malformed acrylic paintings of “themselves” with “their dragons”. It all reeks of underbelly of society to me. Are these people really adults?

It just…eeeesh. Dragons should never be pink with purple swirls.

And as the author, you’d think that she’d be revolted by all of this (at least I would be/am). But I guess as a bestselling author, you have to pick your battles.

I don’t think I am going back to that website.