mccaffrey Archives - On Starships and Dragonwings

The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey

I read a lot of Anne McCaffrey when I was younger, and some of her stuff is definitely for young adults, but I think she has some really interesting lesser known stories and this is one of them. This book is actually a collection of all the short stories about Helva (the ship who sang) named after the first short story. They flow fairly nicely if I remember correctly though, and I consider them basically a series.

Title: The Ship Who Sang
Author: Anne McCaffrey
Pages: 248 all told (paperback)
Setting: Far future in the same universe as other McCaffrey series since the grouping of settled planets that Pern is part of is in this universe. Basic space travel setting really except for the brain ships
Premise: Parents of severely physically handicapped babies can choose to have their children become part of the brain ships program where they are trained from childhood to control a space ship with their brains and then travel the galaxies on jobs for the company that loans them all the training to pay off their enormous debts. Helva is one such person who is also a fan of singing through her ship and goes on lots of adventures with her “brawns” who are plain old flesh and blood humans who help her out.

Strengths:

Fun main character who just happens to be a brain in a ship
Interesting twist on classic space adventure
Short and easy to read
Even after quite a few years I still remember Helva very fondly :-)

Weaknesses:

Less memorable plot (since I certainly don’t really remember them)
The premise is honestly a little bit creepy, I mean a human brain fused with a ship…
The “brawns” (Helva’s companions) are not as well developed or memorable
The stories have been criticized for locking away disabled children in ships and making them indentured servants to a company

Summary: While this collection might not be for everyone I found them enjoyable when I was younger and therefore they should be a quick and entertaining read. The stories also raise some interesting ethical questions about whether this sort of practice is a good or a bad thing, since it does enable people who would otherwise be unlikely to live on their own to travel the universe, but it also makes them indentured servants for the beginning of their lives unless they are quite lucky. Also because it is a collection of short stories that aren’t that strongly connected, it would be easy to set down and pick up again as you wished.

-A

Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey

All right, it’s going to be a throwback this week since I haven’t had time to read anything new after my sprint at the end of last week :-). I read a lot of Anne McCaffrey when I was younger (who didn’t, really?), including all of the Dragonrider books (yes, every single last one of them, including all the short stories), but this is not a Dragonrider shoutout; this is a shoutout to a different little world in the Federated Sentient Planets universe! I will be the first to admit that I don’t know enough about music and physics to know if this plot is possible, but it seems cool from a layman’s perspective! And it’s got a strong (not perfect) female character, what else do you need? HA!

Title: Crystal Singer
Author: Anne McCaffrey
Pages: 311 (paperback)
Setting: A planet in the Federated Sentient Planets that has valuable and very sensitive crystals on it, as well as a nasty little parasite. The planet, Ballybran, has these crystals that are vital to space travel, but can only be mined by people with perfect pitch. Ballybran is generally a scary place (hurricane-force storms, parasite/symbiont that infects everyone) with great riches for those who are lucky enough to survive! Oh, and they have to have perfect pitch, doh.
Premise: Killashandra Ree does have perfect pitch, yey! And she’s been working her butt off to become a crazy awesome singer person, but she’s not quite perfect enough. Instead of spending her life in choirs (ie not in the spotlight), she decides to go to this mysterious planet that offers riches beyond imagining and for some reason requires the recruits to have perfect pitch. She doesn’t know much beyond that and that not many people ever come back from the planet… awesome!

Strengths:

Unique premise! I’ve personally never heard this story premise before, and the little bits I know about physics and music didn’t cringe when I read the book, so I think that McCaffrey pulls off this interesting premise fairly well
Strong female character, good role model for adolescent girls! And fun to read for everyone else
Good world-building. If there is something that McCaffrey is good at, it’s coming up with interesting places to put her characters and fleshing the world out
Easy read :-) It’s obviously written for teens, which might turn away some high-brow readers, but it makes it a nice ride for the rest!
I seem to recall an entertaining mentor figure, who doesn’t love a good mentor, huh?

Weaknesses:

There is a distinct possibility that this strong female character is a little bit more whiny than your average…. I mean she didn’t want to sing in the background and decided to go risk her life instead….
It is McCaffrey teen reading so the plot isn’t all that twisty turny, in fact I recall it being quite straightforward
The downside to easy reading is that you are definitely not going to grow intellectually when you read this, double promise.
To people more edu-ma-cated in physics and music, there could be soul cringing details that ruin the story for you, I just don’t know.

Summary: If you are able to take this book for what it is (a mildly entertaining teen sci-fi/fantasy), and aren’t too sensitive to slightly spoiled characters, then it is great fun to read! I would highly recommend it as a during-the-term book just to take a break from all that learning that you are doing. And it is fun to deviate from standard sci-fi/fantasy themes with a little music related sci-fi :D.

Happy reading!
-A