The Ship Who Sang
Encyclopedia
The Ship Who Sang is a science fiction
novel by Anne McCaffrey
, a fix-up
of five stories published 1961 to 1969. Alternatively, "The Ship Who Sang" is the earliest of the stories, a novelette
, which became the first chapter of the book. Finally, the entire "Brain & Brawn Ship series" (or Brainship or Ship series), written by McCaffrey and others, is sometimes called the "Ship Who Sang series" by bibliographers, merchants, or fans.
The protagonist
of the 1969 novel and all the early stories is a cyborg
, Helva, a human being and a spaceship, or "brainship
". The five older stories are revised under their original titles as the first five chapters of the book and the sixth chapter is entirely new.
McCaffrey dedicated the book "to the memory of the Colonel, my father, George Herbert McCaffrey, citizen soldier patriot for whom the first ship sang." In 1994 she named it as the book she is most proud of. Recently she
named the first story her best story and her personal favorite work.
During the 1990s McCaffrey made The Ship Who Sang the first book of a series by writing four novels in collaboration with four co-authors, two of whom each later completed another novel in the series alone. By 1997 there were seven novels, one old and six recent. They share a fictional premise but feature different cyborg characters.
After medication and surgery, general education, and special training, shell children come of age with heavy debts which they must work off in order to become free agents. They are employed as the "brains" of spacecraft ("brainship
s"), hospitals, industrial plants, mining planets, and so on, even cities – in the books, primarily spaceships and cities.
A brainship is able to operate independently but is usually employed in partnership with one "normal" person called a "brawn" who travels inside the ship much as a pilot would. A brawn is specially trained to be a companion and helper, the mobile half of such a partnership. The nickname is relative: the training is long and intense and the brawns must be brainy people in fact. Commonly the brain and brawn are paired at will and, for a fee, a brainship may terminate an assigned partnership.
McCaffrey explained the origin of the brainship premise to SFFworld in a 2004 interview. "I remember reading a story about a woman searching for her son's brain, it had been used for an autopilot on an ore ship and she wanted to find it and give it surcease. And I thought what if severely disabled people were given a chance to become starships? So that's how The Ship Who Sang was born."
Anne McCaffrey had published two stories when she attended her first Milford Writer's Workshop
in 1959. Afterward she worked on "The Ship Who Sang", which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Apr 1961) and included by editor Judith Merril
in the anthology, 7th Annual of the Year's Best S-F (1962).
Helva scored well on encephalographic tests and her parents chose the shell option. She would be a brainship, an elite of her kind.
"Brainships were, of course, long past the experimental stages" in her time. Supposedly, "the well-oriented brain would not have changed places with the most perfect body in the universe."
The story closes with brainship Helva singing "Taps
" at the funeral service for her brawn Jennan. Decades later, son Todd McCaffrey called it "almost an elegy to her father". About that time, she called it her own favorite story, "possibly because I put much of myself into it: myself and the troubles I had in accepting my father's death [1954] and a troubled marriage." She has also called it "the best story I ever wrote", one that still makes her cry. She chose it to read aloud as Guest of Honor at the annual science fiction convention Eurocon
2007.
In a 2010 essay, "The Future Imperfect", published in Redstone Science Fiction
, disability rights advocate
Sarah Einstein criticizes the Brain & Brawn Ship series, representing science fiction in general, for its use of disability. Regarding one novel in the series, The Ship Who Searched
(1992) by McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey
, Einstein observes that in fact we have
All but the novella "Dramatic Mission" are novelettes, short fiction in 7500 to 17,500 words. They were incorporated in The Ship Who Sang novel (1969) as the first five chapters with a new closing chapter or short story, "The Partnered Ship".
McCaffrey wrote two more Helva novelettes:
. More than twenty years after the first book, McCaffrey returned to the premise in her first collaboration with Margaret Ball. She soon wrote ship novels with three other co-authors, two of whom later wrote one alone.
Co-authored by Anne McCaffrey:
Separately authored:
These six novels were also issued in omnibus editions of two each.
and the annual Nebula Award
in the Best Novella category. The Hugos are voted by paying participants in the World Science Fiction Convention and the Nebulas by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Both awards define the novella
by word count
17,500 to 40,000.
The American Library Association
in 1999 cited The Ship Who Sang and the two early Pern trilogies (Dragonriders
and Harper Hall
), when McCaffrey received the annual Margaret A. Edwards Award for her "lifetime contribution in writing for teens".
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey
Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American-born Irish writer, best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. Over the course of her 46 year career she won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award...
, a fix-up
Fix-up
A fix-up is a novel created from short stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material—such as a frame story—is written for the new novel. The term was coined by the science fiction...
of five stories published 1961 to 1969. Alternatively, "The Ship Who Sang" is the earliest of the stories, a novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...
, which became the first chapter of the book. Finally, the entire "Brain & Brawn Ship series" (or Brainship or Ship series), written by McCaffrey and others, is sometimes called the "Ship Who Sang series" by bibliographers, merchants, or fans.
The protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
of the 1969 novel and all the early stories is a cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
, Helva, a human being and a spaceship, or "brainship
Brainship
A brainship is a fictional concept of an interstellar starship. A brainship is made by inserting the disembodied brain and nervous system of a human being into a life-support system, and connecting it surgically to a series of computers via delicate synaptic connections The brain "feels" the ship ...
". The five older stories are revised under their original titles as the first five chapters of the book and the sixth chapter is entirely new.
McCaffrey dedicated the book "to the memory of the Colonel, my father, George Herbert McCaffrey, citizen soldier patriot for whom the first ship sang." In 1994 she named it as the book she is most proud of. Recently she
named the first story her best story and her personal favorite work.
During the 1990s McCaffrey made The Ship Who Sang the first book of a series by writing four novels in collaboration with four co-authors, two of whom each later completed another novel in the series alone. By 1997 there were seven novels, one old and six recent. They share a fictional premise but feature different cyborg characters.
Fictional premise
The Brain & Brawn Ship series is set in the future of our universe and in McCaffrey's Federated Sentient Planets. The parents of babies with severe physical disabilities but fully developed and exceptionally talented brains may allow them to become "shell people" rather than to be euthanised. Taking that option, physical growth is stunted, the body is encapsulated in a titanium life-support shell with capacity for computer connections, and the person is raised for "one of a number of curious professions. As such, their offspring would suffer no pain, live a comfortable existence in a metal shell for several centuries, performing unusual service for Central Worlds."After medication and surgery, general education, and special training, shell children come of age with heavy debts which they must work off in order to become free agents. They are employed as the "brains" of spacecraft ("brainship
Brainship
A brainship is a fictional concept of an interstellar starship. A brainship is made by inserting the disembodied brain and nervous system of a human being into a life-support system, and connecting it surgically to a series of computers via delicate synaptic connections The brain "feels" the ship ...
s"), hospitals, industrial plants, mining planets, and so on, even cities – in the books, primarily spaceships and cities.
A brainship is able to operate independently but is usually employed in partnership with one "normal" person called a "brawn" who travels inside the ship much as a pilot would. A brawn is specially trained to be a companion and helper, the mobile half of such a partnership. The nickname is relative: the training is long and intense and the brawns must be brainy people in fact. Commonly the brain and brawn are paired at will and, for a fee, a brainship may terminate an assigned partnership.
McCaffrey explained the origin of the brainship premise to SFFworld in a 2004 interview. "I remember reading a story about a woman searching for her son's brain, it had been used for an autopilot on an ore ship and she wanted to find it and give it surcease. And I thought what if severely disabled people were given a chance to become starships? So that's how The Ship Who Sang was born."
The short story
Anne McCaffrey had published two stories when she attended her first Milford Writer's Workshop
Milford Writer's Workshop
The Milford Writer's Workshop or more properly Milford Writers' Conference is an influential science fiction writer's event founded by Damon Knight among others in the mid-1950s in Milford, Pennsylvania...
in 1959. Afterward she worked on "The Ship Who Sang", which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Apr 1961) and included by editor Judith Merril
Judith Merril
Judith Josephine Grossman , who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist....
in the anthology, 7th Annual of the Year's Best S-F (1962).
Helva scored well on encephalographic tests and her parents chose the shell option. She would be a brainship, an elite of her kind.
"Brainships were, of course, long past the experimental stages" in her time. Supposedly, "the well-oriented brain would not have changed places with the most perfect body in the universe."
The story closes with brainship Helva singing "Taps
Taps
"Taps" is a musical piece sounded by the U.S. military nightly to indicate that it is "lights out". The tune is also sometimes known as "Butterfields Lullaby", or by the lyrics of its second verse, "Day is Done". It is also played during flag ceremonies and funerals, generally on bugle or trumpet...
" at the funeral service for her brawn Jennan. Decades later, son Todd McCaffrey called it "almost an elegy to her father". About that time, she called it her own favorite story, "possibly because I put much of myself into it: myself and the troubles I had in accepting my father's death [1954] and a troubled marriage." She has also called it "the best story I ever wrote", one that still makes her cry. She chose it to read aloud as Guest of Honor at the annual science fiction convention Eurocon
Eurocon
Eurocon is an annual science fiction convention held in Europe. The organising committee of each Eurocon is selected by vote of the participants of the previous event. The procedure is coordinated by the European Science Fiction Society. The first Eurocon was held in Trieste, Italy, in 1972. Unlike...
2007.
Criticism
In a 2010 essay, "The Future Imperfect", published in Redstone Science Fiction
Redstone Science Fiction
Redstone Science Fiction is an online science fiction magazine. The first issue was published June 1, 2010 and it has maintained a regular monthly schedule since, publishing fiction by authors such as Cory Doctorow, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken MacLeod, Cat Rambo, Hannu Rajaniemi, Vylar Kaftan, Lavie...
, disability rights advocate
Disability rights movement
The disability rights movement is the movement to secure equal opportunities and equal rights for people with disabilities. The specific goals and demands of the movement are: accessibility and safety in transportation, architecture, and the physical environment, equal opportunities in independent...
Sarah Einstein criticizes the Brain & Brawn Ship series, representing science fiction in general, for its use of disability. Regarding one novel in the series, The Ship Who Searched
The Ship Who Searched
The Ship Who Searched is a science fiction novel by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey. It is the third of seven books in the "Ship Who Sang series" by McCaffrey and four other authors, and the only one by Lackey...
(1992) by McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes "Misty" Lackey is a best-selling American author of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar...
, Einstein observes that in fact we have
- "many more technological wonders than McCaffrey had imagined. The protagonists in the story would have been much helped, for instance, by a secure communications channel and a GPS system, both of which I have in my battered old car. But most of all, the heroine of this book would have been helped by a future shaped by the actions of today’s disability activists. Because, at its heart, this series of books tells the story of the enslavement of extremely promising children who have the bad luck to be born—or in this one case alone, become—disabled."
The early stories: Helva
The 1960s stories feature one shell person, Helva, who becomes brainship XH-834.- "The Ship Who Sang", The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Apr 1961
- "The Ship Who Mourned", AnalogAnalog Science Fiction and FactAnalog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
, Mar 1966 - "The Ship Who Killed", Galaxy Magazine, Oct 1966
- "Dramatic Mission", Analog, Jun 1969
- "The Ship Who Dissembled" (chapter title), published as "The Ship Who Disappeared", IfIf (magazine)If was an American science fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn. Quinn hired Paul W. Fairman to be the first editor, but early circulation figures were disappointing, and Quinn fired Fairman after only three issues. Quinn then took over the...
, Mar 1969
All but the novella "Dramatic Mission" are novelettes, short fiction in 7500 to 17,500 words. They were incorporated in The Ship Who Sang novel (1969) as the first five chapters with a new closing chapter or short story, "The Partnered Ship".
McCaffrey wrote two more Helva novelettes:
- "Honeymoon", original to her collection Get Off the UnicornGet Off the UnicornGet Off the Unicorn is a 1977 collection of short science fiction by Anne McCaffrey. Twelve of the fourteen stories were previously published in various magazines and anthologies....
(1977) - "The Ship That Returned", original to Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction, ed. Robert Silverberg (1999)
Brain & Brawn Ship series
The Ship series comprises the Helva stories and six novels published in the 1990s by Baen BooksBaen Books
Baen Books is an American publishing company established in 1983 by long time science fiction publisher and editor Jim Baen. It is a science fiction and fantasy publishing house that emphasizes space opera, hard science fiction, military science fiction, and fantasy...
. More than twenty years after the first book, McCaffrey returned to the premise in her first collaboration with Margaret Ball. She soon wrote ship novels with three other co-authors, two of whom later wrote one alone.
Co-authored by Anne McCaffrey:
- PartnerShip (1992) with Margaret BallMargaret Ball (writer)Margaret Ball is a science fiction and fantasy author who lives in Austin, Texas. Married and with two kids, she spends time writing, making quilts, embeadery, and taking care of kids at her home. She has a B.A. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Texas...
. ISBN 0-671-72109-7 - The Ship Who SearchedThe Ship Who SearchedThe Ship Who Searched is a science fiction novel by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey. It is the third of seven books in the "Ship Who Sang series" by McCaffrey and four other authors, and the only one by Lackey...
(1992) with Mercedes LackeyMercedes LackeyMercedes "Misty" Lackey is a best-selling American author of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar...
. ISBN 0-671-72129-1 - The City Who Fought (1993) with S.M. Stirling. ISBN 0-671-87599-X
- The Ship Who Won (1994) with Jody Lynn NyeJody Lynn NyeJody Lynn Nye is an American science fiction writer. She has frequently collaborated as a co-author or the author of a sequel....
. ISBN 0-671-87657-0
Separately authored:
- The Ship Errant (1996) by Jody Lynn Nye. ISBN 0-671-87854-9
- The Ship Avenged (1997) by S.M. Stirling. ISBN 0-671-87861-1
These six novels were also issued in omnibus editions of two each.
Awards
The fourth and longest story, "Dramatic Mission" (Analog, Jun 1969), was one of five nominees for both the annual Hugo AwardHugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and the annual Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
in the Best Novella category. The Hugos are voted by paying participants in the World Science Fiction Convention and the Nebulas by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Both awards define the novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
by word count
Word count
The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. Word count is commonly used by...
17,500 to 40,000.
The American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
in 1999 cited The Ship Who Sang and the two early Pern trilogies (Dragonriders
Dragonriders of Pern
Dragonriders of Pern is a science fiction series written primarily by the late American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey, who initiated it in 1967. Beginning 2003, her middle child Todd McCaffrey has written Pern novels, both solo and jointly with Anne. The series comprises 22 novels and several short...
and Harper Hall
The Harper Hall Trilogy
The Harper Hall trilogy comprises three fantasy or science fiction novels by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey.They are part of the Dragonriders of Pern series as it is known today, 24 books by Anne or her son Todd McCaffrey as of summer 2011....
), when McCaffrey received the annual Margaret A. Edwards Award for her "lifetime contribution in writing for teens".
Further reading
- Haraway, DonnaDonna HarawayDonna J. Haraway is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States...
. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991: 149-181. - Hayles, N. KatherineN. Katherine HaylesN. Katherine Hayles is a postmodern literary critic, most notable for her contribution to the fields of literature and science, electronic literature, and American literature. She is professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Program in Literature at Duke University. -Background:Hayles was...
. "The Life Cycle of Cyborgs: Writing the Posthuman." In Cybersexualities: A Reader on Feminist Theory, Cyborgs and Cyberspace, edited by Jenny Wolmark, 157-173. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.