Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American writer renowned for creating the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She achieved significant recognition in the science fiction field, becoming the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction and the first to win a Nebula Award. McCaffrey's 1978 novel The White Dragon marked a major milestone in science fiction publishing, becoming one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list. This achievement demonstrated the growing mainstream appeal of her work and the Pern universe she had created.