![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Margaret Mahy dies
Jul. 25th, 2012 10:17 amMargaret Mahy died on Monday, 23 July 2012, aged 76. Reports here and here.
I first came across her books when I was thirteen, starting with Catalogue of the Universe, which I liked but it wasn't until I read The Changeover that I became a fan. Just the fact that she was a fantasy writer not published in USA or UK or Europe made me believe that it was ok to write fantasy even if you didn't live in those places. The fact that her books always have great female characters was definitely another draw, the magic was, well, real in a way that many urban fantasies don't manage to be, and the way that she always acknowledged the messiness of the real world made her books even more powerful. Off to re-read The Changeover.
I first came across her books when I was thirteen, starting with Catalogue of the Universe, which I liked but it wasn't until I read The Changeover that I became a fan. Just the fact that she was a fantasy writer not published in USA or UK or Europe made me believe that it was ok to write fantasy even if you didn't live in those places. The fact that her books always have great female characters was definitely another draw, the magic was, well, real in a way that many urban fantasies don't manage to be, and the way that she always acknowledged the messiness of the real world made her books even more powerful. Off to re-read The Changeover.