Portrait of a Woman: Anne McCaffrey Reading Challenge 2011!

Anne McCaffrey Reading Challenge 2011!

Hi all!

As I hinted a few weeks back, I will be hosting in 2011 the Anne McCaffrey Reading Challenge.

I am organising this challenge for readers to discover (and re-discover) the wonderful talent of Anne McCaffrey. She has written more than a 100 books and novellas in both science fiction and fantasy genres. She is the first woman to have won the Hugo Award (in 1968) and in 2006 she was inducted in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Anne McCaffrey is absolutely amazing and she has written fantastic novels on various subjects (Dragons? check. Unicorn girl? check. People with extrasensory powers? check. Dinosaurs? check. Pirates? check. Aliens? check. And plenty more!).

The Challenge:

The Challenge won't be anything too complicated: you set yourself a goal at the beginning of the year (may it be 2 or 25) and you achieve it whenever you want during 2011. You can obviously change your goal during the year, so if you set yourself 3 books and realise you can't survive another day without reading a fourth Anne McCaffrey book, just amend your initial goal!

If you have no idea who Anne McCaffrey is and don't know where to start, you can trust my fantastic taste *beams* and follow my lead in my schedule below!

Update: I had a few emails about it and I confirm: you can set yourself a goal of one book and complete your challenge during the year, that is entirely fine!

Everyone can participate in the challenge, so if you don't have a blog you can publish your opinion of the book on websites like Goodreads or Amazon and send me the link!

As any challenge, this challenge will have prizes and cool events (says me - and I might be prejudiced in the matter) so stay tuned!

I have focused on Anne McCaffrey Young Adult-y books but you can read her adult novels as part of the challenge!

MY PROGRAMME:

(all links to Goodreads)

I am aiming to read the following books - you can join me for a quarter or the entire year but it's definitely not mandatory!

First Quarter: Harper Hall Trilogy

The Harper Hall trilogy has been listed as one of the best young adult fantasy novels of all time (link here) and centres around harpers (traditional singers) and people bonding with their personal dragons in the fantasy planet of Pern. (Fantasy series)

January: Dragonsong (read my review here)

February: Dragonsinger (read my review here)

March: Dragondrums (read my review here)

Bonus read: Dragonharper (written with Todd McCaffrey)

Second Quarter: The Tower and Hive series

The Tower and Hive series, written with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, is set in the Pegasus universe, a technologically advanced society in which telepathy, psychokynesis and other psychic Talents are used. It is a love story through space! (Science Fiction series)

April: The Rowan

May: Damia

June: Damia's Children

Bonus Read: Lyon's Pride

Third Quarter: The Dragonriders of Pern (the original trilogy)

Those three following books represent the original trilogy of the Dragonriders of Pern. If you wonder why I put this trilogy after the Harper Hall trilogy, it is simply because The White Dragon needs to be read after Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums. You may read the books in the order you prefer! (Fantasy series)

July: Dragonflight

August: Dragonquest

September: The White Dragon

Bonus Read: Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Fourth Quarter: Your choice!

I still haven't decided which book to read for the fourth quarter (I may be reading Anne McCaffrey's stand alone novels like Restoree instead of a series) and you will have read at this point enough books to know what you will prefer! I'll post my choices in September if you still don't know what to choose!

You don't need to decide now either, I'd rather you decide in October if you prefer reading her science fiction novels or more of her Dragon books or if you would like to try her Acorna the Unicorn Girl series!

Visit Anne McCaffrey's wikipedia page for a complete bibliography (link here)!

To participate:

Post an article on your blog about the Challenge, linking to this article setting your goal and maybe the books you would like to read.
You may add my pretty logo to your blog
Send me a link (email here) or comment on this post giving me a link to your article, I will add the link to my Challenge page.
As you review the books, update your sign up post with links to your reviews. (If you are a non blogger, send me an email or comment on this post and I shall add you).
I have added a linky post for you to put the link of your reviews
And most importantly enjoy the books!!

If you have any questions or doubts, don't hesitate to contact me, I will be happy to answer any question or/and help you with anything I can! I really hope you will enjoy discovering the worlds created by Anne McCaffrey!

You can visit Anne McCaffrey's blog (link here) for more info and news about her!

For my logo I used an artwork from The Pern Museum and Archive (link here), don't hesitate to take a look at their gorgeous website!

Participants: