The Ship Who Sang Review

Well hey hello there.

The month is barely begun and I've already finished one of the books on my list. It was a quick read, what can I say?

So I have not gotten to even half of my backlog of Anne McCaffrey. I collected a bunch of second hand paperback Pern novels in ye olden days (freshman year of college) and then stacked them on my shelf, gave them a little pat and said 'Later.' 

This is tragically not later, but I'll get to them eventually! From what I did read of the first one it sounded interesting. A fantasy concept but a sci fi setting, you say? Dragons and ray guns? Heck yeah!

Anyway, this book is pure, character driven sci fi. 

We follow the life of Helva, a brain ship. In this book kids who have no chance of surviving physically but can still function mentally are put into a program that trains them to one day be set into a space ship that will then function as their bodies. They are also partnered with a mobile human, a 'brawn' to compliment their ship 'brains', and they run missions for the multi-planet government. This relationship is at the core of the story and is what Helva wants.

The story follows Helva through her life from birth to her paying off her debt and getting a permanent brawn. There are bumps and tragedies along the way, we get a little look at how the many colonies function and are threatened by, there is death, sadness, Shakespeare, and sensory deprivation on one notable occasion.

My sci fi has been mostly read in short story form this year so it was kind of nice to read a whole novel. The concept of a human intelligence integrated into a ship was pretty neat and our protagonist, Helva, was fun to hang out with. That's the most important element in a character driven story: do we want to spend time with our main? Do we care what happens to them? My answer was yes. I wanted Helva to be happy and I'm glad she got her happy ending, even if it took some work and time to get there. At its core this is a story about dealing with grief and loss and just how hard people will struggle to find joy or at least peace. 

The only real issues I had with the book were three: one character related, one thematic, and one small and word choice-y. 

Firstly, I feel like I missed the root of the conflict between Helva and Niall. Like, Niall is her supervisor and they have this playful hate to love relationship in the book, but why did they start out in hate? Was it just because he was her supervisor? Did I miss something, am I the idiot? If I missed like, a whole page of explanation please let me know; I am very tired and reading comprehension is hard.

Next is more of a disappointment with how Niall and Helva's relationship is described. It's very heterosexual and like, one of them is a ship and the other is a dude. The possibilities are endless. Jennan's relationship with Helva felt very natural for the setting. It didn't feel like just a man and woman doing a literary het romance. And like, if that's your cup of tea? Enjoy, but I'll be over here at my own gay little tea party wondering where are the queerness is. I didn't expect any, it's a sci fi book from a well known author in the 60s. My point is, I liked their dynamic right up until the very end when it got weirdly sexual? They don't actually have sex, one of them is a little meat woman in a ship, but there was a vibe, you know?

You know that vibe you get reading literary fiction where the couple is just painfully het and the only reason they're together is the author wanted them to be? Where you just don't connect to the people so you don't really get why there hanging out together? That was how I felt during the last five pages. Which is a bit of a low note to go out on, but it didn't ruin the whole book.

Last point was the three slurs I found, yaaay. Well, two slurs, but one of them occurred twice. Is this a small point? Yeah. am I still gonna bring it up? Also yeah. The slurs were the g-slur and the r-slur. The first one happens near the beginning and the other two at the end like a terrible little surprise. I didn't DNF the book because of them, but I just wanted to let y'all know. Just so you're prepared if you ever decide to pick up the book.

Overall I liked the book. 3/5 pumpkins from me.

I have another post that's a wrap up of my September reads in the works. I just gotta organize my thoughts. Then write them all down. Then make sure the words are readable. 

 Until next time🎃