Scan barcode
A review by kiiouex
The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey
3.0
I picked this one up thinking it must be precursor to Ancillary Justice, and that as long as we were in the wonderful world of sentient spaceships, we couldn't really go wrong.
It's... a little bit dated, but most of the it holds up well enough. I was expecting it to be very feminist, and maybe it was at the time, but reading it now I find all the female characters very tiresome - all of them are completely besides themselves over men. There are three women in this book who have tried to kill themselves, or are still trying to kill themselves, because their male partners died. There aren't any men in an equivalent situation, so we can't see if this is how all grief is expected to function, or just female grief. It's not great reading, at any rate. And that's before we get to Ansra, the deranged, contemptible spurned lover, or the way Parollan talks to Helva which certainly crosses a line for me though it seems to be his way of 'getting through to her' and it's not really... remarked on.
Well, those are the worse parts; the better parts are Helva when she's not being talked down to by Parollan, because sentient spaceships are still the shit, and the framework she lives in - working off the debt of her expenses - is quite cool and well done. I read somewhere else on goodreads that this book was originally short stories, which makes so much sense for the abruptness between chapters, how quickly her partners are picked up and put down, and how fast some Stuff happens, particularly the Thing Near The Start. Very strange pacing for a novel.
You know, I thought I liked this book, but writing this all out, maybe I didn't. Maybe I just like human brains piloting spaceships, and for that there's Ancillary Justice now. Maybe it's unfair to rate a 50 year old book against my modern sensibilities, especially comparing it to refined descendants. But my ratings are just how much I like things, so. Sorry.
It's... a little bit dated, but most of the it holds up well enough. I was expecting it to be very feminist, and maybe it was at the time, but reading it now I find all the female characters very tiresome - all of them are completely besides themselves over men. There are three women in this book who have tried to kill themselves, or are still trying to kill themselves, because their male partners died. There aren't any men in an equivalent situation, so we can't see if this is how all grief is expected to function, or just female grief. It's not great reading, at any rate. And that's before we get to Ansra, the deranged, contemptible spurned lover, or the way Parollan talks to Helva which certainly crosses a line for me though it seems to be his way of 'getting through to her' and it's not really... remarked on.
Well, those are the worse parts; the better parts are Helva when she's not being talked down to by Parollan, because sentient spaceships are still the shit, and the framework she lives in - working off the debt of her expenses - is quite cool and well done. I read somewhere else on goodreads that this book was originally short stories, which makes so much sense for the abruptness between chapters, how quickly her partners are picked up and put down, and how fast some Stuff happens, particularly the Thing Near The Start. Very strange pacing for a novel.
You know, I thought I liked this book, but writing this all out, maybe I didn't. Maybe I just like human brains piloting spaceships, and for that there's Ancillary Justice now. Maybe it's unfair to rate a 50 year old book against my modern sensibilities, especially comparing it to refined descendants. But my ratings are just how much I like things, so. Sorry.