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A review by timinbc
The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey
4.0
For a set of stories starting in 1961, this is good stuff. Same year as Stranger in a Strange Land.
Were these this the first mindship stories, and did they lead to Ann Leckie's Breq?
McCaffrey doesn't get in the way of the story at all, except in a few places, and does a nifty job of leaving out a lot of details while making us not notice that she did.
It's all about Helva, and the relationships she can form in her limited state. We somehow get right away that those people who can bond with her may be capable of a very special bond. This is perhaps a card that is played too quickly, although conversations with other ships indicate that Helva was very much first-time-lucky.
Her first partner is well portrayed, and the end of that relationship is deftly handled. After some placeholder partners, McCaffrey leads us unsubtly to the next, and I can just picture her laughing as we yell at the book, "Dammit, Helva, open your eyes, Niall in The One!" and of course, as we knew all along, she finally gets it.
There are a few cringey moments, but as someone who was THERE in 1961, the man-woman relationships drawn here were not out of place then. 1961 is when the Berlin Wall was BUILT, and the year Yuri Gagarin did the first orbit. Similarly, given the state of disability rights then, it was OK in its time.
Given that, this book stands up very well, and deserves a place among the classics.
Were these this the first mindship stories, and did they lead to Ann Leckie's Breq?
McCaffrey doesn't get in the way of the story at all, except in a few places, and does a nifty job of leaving out a lot of details while making us not notice that she did.
It's all about Helva, and the relationships she can form in her limited state. We somehow get right away that those people who can bond with her may be capable of a very special bond. This is perhaps a card that is played too quickly, although conversations with other ships indicate that Helva was very much first-time-lucky.
Her first partner is well portrayed, and the end of that relationship is deftly handled. After some placeholder partners, McCaffrey leads us unsubtly to the next, and I can just picture her laughing as we yell at the book, "Dammit, Helva, open your eyes, Niall in The One!" and of course, as we knew all along, she finally gets it.
There are a few cringey moments, but as someone who was THERE in 1961, the man-woman relationships drawn here were not out of place then. 1961 is when the Berlin Wall was BUILT, and the year Yuri Gagarin did the first orbit. Similarly, given the state of disability rights then, it was OK in its time.
Given that, this book stands up very well, and deserves a place among the classics.