I picked this book out on Tuesday from my Books to Be Read bookcases (I have two such bookcases, both in the bathroom), as a book that I could read in about three days; and it admirably fit that requirement. It is also a pretty good fantasy book, as the fifth book in the series of books by Anne McCaffrey regarding brainships and their brawns, wandering about the galaxy and getting into various kinds of trouble. (It’s not hard science fiction, not by a long shot, but I enjoyed the book.)In the future time of Central Worlds, children who are hopelessly physically compromised at birth, but who have minds that are above the average, are placed in shells and learn to live life as shell-people; while some of them run cities and space-stations, others are placed into what are known as “brain ships”; connected to all the processes of the ship, the shell person effectively becomes the ship. Each brain ship is partnered with a “brawn”, a highly trained non-shell person who does what the brain ship cannot (like walk around on a new planet).Carialle and her brawn Keff are on a quest around the galaxy to make First Contact – to find a world that has a sentient population that can be welcomed into Central Worlds as an equal world. The ship and her brawn have been doing this for the last fourteen years, and sentient populations are hard to come by. To while away the time while traveling through space, Carialle and her brawn play Myths and Legends, a game using wizards and derring-do that is facilitated by Carialle using a holograph program, which gives her brawn a good mental and physical workout.The pair land on a world which seems to consist only of fuzzy-faced four-finger humaniods, who are farming in a subsistence economy on a dry, arid world. These Noble Primitives seem to fit the bill as sentient creatures; but Keff and his brain ship Carialle soon find out that what they have stumbled into is a world where the Noble Primitives are slaves for Mages, who use magic to support their positions, and who want to use the ship and Keff for their own purposes.Anyone in search of hard science in any given Anne McCaffrey book is doomed to disappointment; but the author is great at taking an established science situation and creating a fantasy world within it. So I very much recommend this book, especially to those who have read any of her other works.
As with "The Ship Who Searched", I had read this in my teens and been enthralled by it. I just listened to Audible.com's version, which is (unfortunately) abridged. I think taking out all the "superfluous" character development (who decides that, anyway?) took some of resonance away from it and left is a light summer "listen".Listening to it as a middle-aged adult, rather than an impressionable teenager, might also contribute. When I first read it, "Dungeons and Dragons" was a popular game, and the whole "Fair Lady" and "Kind Sir" thing was not outside the realm of how people might talk (in gaming). Now... it's a little dated. But still, the story is interesting, the outcome is not predictable, and it has a strong female (brainship) heroine, which was not common in the day.I recommend this to anyone who want's a good old fashioned hard SciFi story.Now I'm off to (relisten) to Partnership, and The City Who Fought. And I *wish* I could find the first in the series, The Ship Who Sang, but that's rarer than hen's teeth.
What do You think about The Ship Who Won (1995)?
A new entry in McCaffrey's Brain/Brawn series begun with The Ship Who Sang (1969) and continued by McCaffrey with various collaborators. The Brain here is Carialle, a bodiless human wired into spaceship SSS-900; the Brawn is supplied by Carialle's human partner, Keff. Explorers Carialle and Keff hope to achieve alien contact. Unfortunately, they also need to make discoveries that generate money and kudos: Cencom might not renew their contract, since a prior unpleasant experience has left Carialle psychologically vulnerable to bureaucratic shutdown. On the chilly planet Ozran they discover a population of furry humanoids ruled by irascible and arrogant wizards'' wielding what apparently are magic powers. The wizards take Keff captive but do not immediately learn of Carialle's existence. Keff is aided by Plennafrey, a young, beautiful, and rebellious wizard, and the more powerful Chaumel, who is at least willing to listen. Carialle, you see, has discovered that the source of the wizards' power is a projector called the core of Ozran, set up ages ago by one of two long- vanished, advanced alien races. The Core was designed to function as a weather control device, and in using it to power their magic, the wizards have doomed the planet to a slow, cold extinction. Only after Carialle reveals that the ubiquitous globe-frogs are actually the previous masters of Ozran, and that they are willing to help once the wizards cease their bickering, are the wizards persuaded to mend their ways.
—Al
