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A review by oblomov
The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey
5.0
Year of New Authors
Born with a severe bodily disability, Helva's parents are given two options: allow their child to become a literal ghost in the machine and integrate her body into a space vessel (with a choice of human brawn companion and a secure job performing missions to pay off the ship she would call her body); or just straight up kill her, I guess.
Having not been born to arsehole Spartans, Helva's life obviously goes the former route and we follow her epic journey across space to deal with religious fanatics, strange diseases, alien life forms and toxic masculinity (because even in the age of space travel we ain't gonna clear up that shit, it seems), and our sentient ship sings beautifully all the way.
I loved this, I adored every glorious moment of it, bury me with this book.
Our protagonist is perfect; a kind, flawed, relentless, short and soft tempered badass.
The episodic chapters are brilliant, ranging from the profound, the heartbreaking, the funny and the just down right horrific. At absolute worst they can slightly drag, but have an iron grip on your throat at their best.
The side characters are great, each a perfect balance for Helva, whether that be to force her empathy, push her boundaries or emphasise her competence by their own failures and prejudice.
The writing is superb; vivid, visceral and at times achingly painful with suspense.
Any flaws? Well, as great as it is to see a disabled female character at the helm of a story in the 1960s, there are some cringeworthy descriptions of her original body that feel very uncomfortable in the modern day, like when Helva is described as 'born a thing' to give one example. These uneasy moments are thankfully rare, and she's always presented as an actual thinking, feeling, competent person, rather than a mind in a box trying to prove to the reader they're an actual person, if you understand me.
Queasy moments aside, this is thoroughly recommended, I utterly loved it, will be reading the absolute shite out of the rest of this series and you should read this immediately.
Side note, for so great a story this book's plagued with terrible cover art. E.g:
The rather dull:
The 'artist wished he was working on Barbarella instead':
The 'Space Lada':
The bloody stupid:
And the 'Oh Christ, what was in those edibles?':
Born with a severe bodily disability, Helva's parents are given two options: allow their child to become a literal ghost in the machine and integrate her body into a space vessel (with a choice of human brawn companion and a secure job performing missions to pay off the ship she would call her body); or just straight up kill her, I guess.
Having not been born to arsehole Spartans, Helva's life obviously goes the former route and we follow her epic journey across space to deal with religious fanatics, strange diseases, alien life forms and toxic masculinity (because even in the age of space travel we ain't gonna clear up that shit, it seems), and our sentient ship sings beautifully all the way.
I loved this, I adored every glorious moment of it, bury me with this book.
Our protagonist is perfect; a kind, flawed, relentless, short and soft tempered badass.
The episodic chapters are brilliant, ranging from the profound, the heartbreaking, the funny and the just down right horrific. At absolute worst they can slightly drag, but have an iron grip on your throat at their best.
The side characters are great, each a perfect balance for Helva, whether that be to force her empathy, push her boundaries or emphasise her competence by their own failures and prejudice.
The writing is superb; vivid, visceral and at times achingly painful with suspense.
Any flaws? Well, as great as it is to see a disabled female character at the helm of a story in the 1960s, there are some cringeworthy descriptions of her original body that feel very uncomfortable in the modern day, like when Helva is described as 'born a thing' to give one example. These uneasy moments are thankfully rare, and she's always presented as an actual thinking, feeling, competent person, rather than a mind in a box trying to prove to the reader they're an actual person, if you understand me.
Queasy moments aside, this is thoroughly recommended, I utterly loved it, will be reading the absolute shite out of the rest of this series and you should read this immediately.
Side note, for so great a story this book's plagued with terrible cover art. E.g:
The rather dull:
The 'artist wished he was working on Barbarella instead':
The 'Space Lada':
The bloody stupid:
And the 'Oh Christ, what was in those edibles?':