This was such typical Anne McCaffrey, that it made me smile. The ship who sang is about a BB ship, or a brain-brawn ship. Helva is severly misformed when she's born. Therefore, her growth is inhibited and placed in a so-called shell, sort of a machine that she can control with her mind. Eventually, her brain is connected to a spaceship. She carries out missions together with her human partner, the brawn.
The setup of this book is slightly strange: it consists of 6 chapters that feel like short stories, although they are not self-reliant enough to actually be short stories. Each story is mostly about Helva's relationship with her brawn (when she has one) or other people aboard, against the background of strange and fantastical worlds.
I rather like McCaffrey's writing stile, and although the stories are not brilliant, they are entertaining. Perhaps most importantly, Helva is a dear. I'm definitely going to search for the nect installments... ( )

Well, I'm going to have to bail on this one. I don't remember it being this boring when I read it decades ago. That's the fault of a lax plot. I certainly don't remember the dialog being so antique-feeling. I got to the 55% mark, farther than I should have read. ( )

This was my first Anne McCaffrey. I liked the plot and world building such as it was, but the writing wasn't all that good. I hoped as the stories progressed (so, further into her career), it would improve, but if anything it got worse. Each story became more and more about the main character and her hackneyed interactions and drams with other characters and very little about any interesting sci fi plots. Finally gave up. ( )

One of my all-time favorite series. The brain and brawn teams running humanitarian missions is just an excellent concept and makes for exciting adventures and great characters. ( )

3.5 stars. I was pleasantly gripped by the unique premise and dramatic plots in this episodic story. The only unfortunate bit of this book is how poorly it has aged with its language around the disabled humans who become brainships and the relationship Helva has with men. It's clearly a product of its generation of the free-love 60s and today serves as a good lesson in how far the underlying mindsets of the feminist movement have advanced. It's also hard to miss the differences in the style of the popular genre, which relies on a lot more dialogue than you see nowadays in best-selling sci-fi. I've only ever tried to read Pern by McCaffrey, and it didn't do it for me. Had no idea she wrote sci-fi as well and was very surprised by how much I enjoyed this. It's so good, I feel it deserves to be rewritten/retold with an updated take on Helva in which she isn't primarily obsessed with finding the right dude to ride inside her. This would make a great miniseries. ( )