"In what started as a short story to improve the public image of the much maligned 'dragon,' I wrote 'Weyr Search,' set on a planet orbiting the sun Rukbat which I located on the National Geographic Star Map in the lower left hand corner. One million words later, I'm not allowed to stop!"
-- Anne McCaffrey, 1988
Anne McCaffrey was among the most successful writers in the entire field of science fiction. In a career that spanned over forty years, she wrote more than thirty novels and many shorter works of fiction, worked on at least a dozen collaborative novels, became the first woman to win a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, and thoroughly earned the SFWA's accolade of "Grand Master of SF."