Ordinary Day

The SF/F genre has taken a heavy blow today. Just a few scant days after her post to Facebook that she was doing battle with cancer, Ann Crispin, who wrote under the name A.C. Crispin, has passed away. I’m seeing the news going all over Twitter, and Making Light has a post up here.

For me, her impact was heaviest with her amazing Han Solo trilogy in the Star Wars universe: The Paradise Snare, The Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn. I adored the HELL out of those novels, and found them critical reference material for when I played Han on Star Wars MUSH. She did such a fabulous job as well utilizing what was established in the previous Han novels by Brian Daley as well.

I even wrote to her about those novels, way back when, and I remember having had a lovely conversation with her by email about them.

Dara has a copy of her excellent Trek novel Yesterday’s Son as well, and while it’s been a while since I’ve read that, I quite respected that book too.

Many, many condolences to her loved ones and fans.

ETA: Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware calls upon Ann’s fans to honor her memory by reading her work, and by continuing to spread the good word to writers about how to watch out for themselves. Strauss says Writer Beware WILL continue operations.

Tor.com has posted an obituary.

ETA #2: The Mary Sue has a post up now about Crispin over here.

ETA #3: SFWA’s obit for her is here.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

There’s a fun meme going around Twitter today with the hash tag #10yearsago. For the benefit of those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here are my contributions! It’s fun to write these down, especially given that this year was before I was regularly doing anything like blogging.

Y’all will notice there’s a whole lot of fandom and geekery here. This would be because, well, I was indulging in a lot of fandom and geekery that year! Which has certainly not changed at all in the ten years since.

• #10yearsago Mylee Ejercito drew me a Shenner picture! http://www.annathepiper.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/shenner3.jpg
• #10yearsago I was still totally fangirling on Strongbow from Elfquest, enough that I had a web page dedicated to him!
• #10yearsago X-Files was starting to wear out its welcome at the Murk, but ZOMG Season 3 of Buffy. Big, big fun. Mayor FTW. <3
• #10yearsago Had big fun seeing The Matrix, Sixth Sense, Toy Story 2, and The Mummy, and OK fine ogled Ewan MacGregor in Phantom Menance. ;)
• HA I was wrong. My Presario laptop was NOT running XP. It was running Windows 98 and I upgraded to SE that year. #10yearsago
• #10yearsago Phantom Menace came out! Mimi and I were in line for a late show with a kid with blue hair. We played Egyptian Rat Screw!
• #10yearsago We didn’t go to Worldcon in Australia but DID go to NASFiC in Anaheim and had a 3-day marathon Disneyland run! Indy ride FTW!
• #10yearsago I’d quit PernMUSH, BUT! I was still writing in Pern fandom offline in Telgar Weyr, as brownrider Tember and bronzerider J’marr.
• #10yearsago I was still using a Compaq Presario as my laptop, and it was running XP, and I was FINE with that. Poor deluded 1999 me! ;)
• #10yearsago Wayfound was born at the Willowholt on Two Moons MUSH, and I destroyed the Willowholt in floods at the end of the year.
• #10yearsago Tance Vokrim was my surviving character on CrystalMUSH, and he got his beloved Kesya back halfway through that year.
• #10yearsago I was playing Shenner and Han Solo on Star Wars MUSH and making people’s jaws drop that a girl was playing Solo.
• #10yearsago in addition to not knowing Great Big Sea yet, my dad was still alive, I worked at Attachmate, and I’d just joined AetherMUSH!
• In 1999 I was still living at MurkSouth and had not yet discovered either Russell Crowe or Great Big Sea. Had no idea what I was missing!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.