Editing Anne McCaffrey (section)

=== Federated Sentient Planets universe ===
Several of McCaffrey's series (and more than half her books) are set in a universe governed by the "Federated Sentient Planets" ("Federation" or "FSP"). Although Pern's history is connected to the Federation, McCaffrey only used it as a backdrop for storytelling and did not consider her different "worlds" to be part of the same universe.

==== Dragonriders of Pern series ====
{{main|Dragonriders of Pern}}
{{Hatnote|See lists in [[Anne McCaffrey bibliography#Dragonriders of Pern series|publication order]] and [[List of Pern books|Pern chronological order]]}}
McCaffrey's best-known works are the ''[[Dragonriders of Pern]]'' series.  When colonists from Earth and other planets make a decades-long space journey to Pern (an acronym designating "Parallels Earth, Resources Negligible" stamped on the original exploration team report) to escape interstellar wars, their fledgling society is threatened by ''Thread'', a mindless organism that falls like a "hungry rain" to consume all organic material. The survivors of the original expedition create genetically engineered "dragons" from a native species of small fire-breathing, winged reptiles as self-propagating weapons to destroy the encroaching organism in the sky. The majority of the [[Dragonriders of Pern]] books take place approximately 2500 years after the planet's colonization, when new challenges face the now low-tech, agrarian society that depends on the telepathically linked dragons and riders for protection from their ancient menace, and their long-forgotten origins are ultimately rediscovered.

==== The Brain & Brawn Ship series ====
{{main|The Ship Who Sang}}
{{Hatnote|See [[Anne McCaffrey bibliography#The Brain & Brawn Ship series|list of books]]}}
The Brain & Brawn Ship series comprises seven novels, only the first of which (a [[fix-up]] of five previously published stories) was written by McCaffrey alone.<ref name="series">[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?3081 The Ship Who Sang (series)]. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database.</ref> The stories in this series deal with the adventures of "shell-people" or "Brains", who as infants (due to illness or birth defects) have had to be hard-wired into a life-support system. With sensory input and motor nerves tied into a computer they serve as [[brainship|starship pilots]] (or colony administrators), seeing and feeling the colony or ship as an extension of their own body. They perform this job to pay off their debt for education and hardware, and continue as free agents once the debt is paid. To compensate for the Brains' inability to move within human habitats they are paired with partners known as "Brawns", who are trained in a wide array of skills (including the protection of their Brain counterparts). It was considered impossible for a person to adjust to being a shell after the age of two or three. An exception, in ''[[The Ship Who Searched]]'', was a shell-person who was seven when she became quadriplegic.

The Ship books are set in the same universe as the Crystal Singer books; Brainship-Brawn pairings were also characters in the second and third volumes of that series.

==== The Crystal series ====
{{Hatnote|See [[Anne McCaffrey bibliography#The Crystal series|list of books]]}}
The first book (and first of the trilogy), ''The Crystal Singer'' (1982) is a fix-up of four stories published in 1974–1975.<ref>[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?12063 The Crystal Universe (series)]. ISFDB.</ref><!--Roger Elwood had solicited stories for children or young adults and McCaffrey's Dragon writing had stalled.-->

The Crystal Singer series revolves around the planet Ballybran. Under a permanent biohazard travel restriction due to a potentially-fatal symbiotic organism on the planet's surface, Ballybran is the source of valuable crystals that are vital to a number of industries, and home to one of the FSP's wealthiest (and most reclusive) organisations: the Heptite Guild. The Heptite Guild is known to require absolute, perfect pitch in hearing and voice for all applicants (especially those seeking to mine crystal by song).  Because Ballybran's weather is unpredictable and dangerous (Ballybran's windstorms will cause exposed crystal to 'scream' in a discordant, deafening cacophony), the Heptite Guild is prohibited from actively recruiting members.

==== The Coelura series====

'The Coelura' explores the theme of environmental abuse, as a precious animal is hunted to near extinction for the thread it spins for its net. The Lady Caissa must choose between protecting the Coelura or meeting her obligations to her father and mother.

'Nimisha's Ship' takes place in the same universe, as a woman in the First Families becomes a ship designer and on a test run her ship is captured by a wormhole. On exploring a nearby planet, she finds and befriends the remaining crew of a stranded ship who suffered the same fate years before, plus a new sapient species.

==== Ireta ====
{{Hatnote|See [[Anne McCaffrey bibliography#Ireta|list of books]]}}
The Ireta series (as catalogued by the [[Internet Speculative Fiction Database]]) comprises five novels published 1978 to 1991, the first two by McCaffrey as subseries "Dinosaur Planet" and three as "Planet Pirates" by McCaffrey and co-writers.<ref>[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?3075 Ireta (series)]. ISFDB.</ref>

They share a fictional premise, and some characters and events overlap. ''[[Dinosaur Planet (novel)|Dinosaur Planet]]'' and its sequel follow the Exploration and Evaluation Corps team on the planet Ireta, which did not expect to find dinosaurs. In "Planet Pirates", all is not well in the FSP: pirates attack the spacelanes. Survivors on Ireta join forces with the survivors of space pirate attacks.