Brains and Brawns

We all know I am an Anne McCaffrey freak and have yet to find a book of hers I do not like.  I had been stuck on her Pern and Talents and have reread every entry in these series several times over. Lately though I have been expanding into her other works.  I was trying to figure out which one I should read next...should I go for an oldie but goodie that I had read 1000 times but knew would give me what I wanted...or should I be brave and hunt down a new book.  Enter the new used book store by our house (heh heh new used) and lo and behold, sitting front and center for $2.14 was a paperback version (with the old school cover no less) of The Ship Who Sang.  Who was I to mess with the book gods, so into my basket and to the top of the reading pile it went.  I had read a couple short stories concerning these brain ships before, so I had a bit of an idea of what to expect, and it was awesome. As always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Helva was born with sever physical deformities, but a highly functional brain and in this future universe parents are given to options.  To euthanize the child as a kindness or allow her to become a shell person.  A shell person is one who's body will be stunted and ecapsulated in a titanium life support shell that is capable of being wired into a computer.  The child will then be raised to become the "brain" of a star ship, city, or any other number of things.  Since this conditioning takes place at birth, these shell children know no other life and are taught to enjoy and value the benefits of having a ship or city as a body.  Helva learns quickly, loving life in her shell and is eventually installed in a star ship.  The down side to all of this is that it is very very very expensive to raise a shell child to adulthood and the shell person must pay of their debts to the Federation. It is the goal of every brainship to clear their debt as quickly as possible and become their own master.  Once a brainship is deemed to be sufficiently trained and education they then pick a brawn.  A brawn is the "normal" human half of the team, sometimes called the mobile partner.  These brawn's are specially trained to work 

with brainships, to respect them as humans, and to work with them as equal partners.  Helva's first brawn Jennan is a bright, intelligent man who has no trouble treating Helva like a human. Jennan and Helva soar across the universe together, performing tasks for the Federation and racking up credit to erase Helva's debt.  Helva falls in love with Jennan in an oddly appropriate way...not really sure how to describe this relationship, but it works.  The two pass time and express emotion through song, making Helva the Ship Who Sings. This is used by Helva through out the book to deal with various situations. Sadly Helva's happiness is cut short when a mission goes bad and Jennan is killed in the airlock of the ship.  Helva buries her brawn and mourns him deeply.  She is then boarded by Theoda a Physiotherapist who is sent to a plague ridden planet to try and find a way to help people who have become vegetables recover.  Helva, using her heightened senses realizes that the people are not brain dead (yet) but are trapped in their own bodies, eventually leading to madness and death. Theoda surmises that with intense physical therapy the victims may recover use of there bodies.  Helva and Theoda try this on the young son of one of the hospital administrators, proving to the plague ridden world that there is hope. The planet begins recovery efforts and Helva learns that Theoda lost her family to a similar plague on a different world years ago.  They grieve and start to heal together.    Helva is given a temporary brawn by the name of Kira and it is their mission to deliver thousands and thousands of human embryos to a planet that has been left sterile by a radiation flare.  Along the way Helva learns that Kira is suicidal, wanting to die after her husband was killed.  The Federation gives Helva strict orders to stay away from certain planets where suicide is considered legal.  As they go about there mission they end up on a planet that seems to have a strange death cult.  Turns out an old brain ship who has gone mad over the death of her brawn years ago tried to fly into a volcano but got stuck out side of it.  The people of the area built a cult around the ship and have been controlled by a breathable narcotic.  Helva recognizes the ship for who it is and with Kira's assistance delivers a mercy killing to the ship.  Helva and Kira discuss the loss of Thorn (Kira's husband) and Jennan (Helva's former brawn) and the desire to no longer live with out them.  They again help each other grieve and heal and finish there mission.  After the three year mission is finished Helva she is given the task of ferrying a troop of actors to the newly discovered Beta Corvi to perform and teach Romeo and Juliet to a new form of life. One the way there is much strife as the lead actor/director is suffering from a fatal illness and the lead actress is pretty much as shrewish as they come. During rehearsals the director discovers Helva has 

an impressive acting range and casts her as the nurse in the performance. The people of Beta Corvi are essentially bags of gas that float around in an almost aquatic environment. The actors (including Helva) have their brain essentially downloaded into an empty Beta Corvi body to perform the play.  The response of the new life forms is devastating and wonderful all at the same time, with the actors brains becoming more and more Corvi like the longer they stay in these "bodies"  Eventually the director, his lover and the lead actress end up staying in there borrowed bodies on Beta Corvi, essentially allowing the actor to continue living even with his fatal disease.  Helva is tempted to stay, having finally experienced what having a real body is like, but then decides to return to her ship where she is happy.  She demands her own pick of brawns and ends up with an insufferable little prick of a man who treat Helva like she is nothing more then a sophisticated computer. After rumors of brainships dissapering with their brawns her pilot becomes paranoid that she is going to turn on him and double checks everything she does.  They are called to transport highly needed yet highly dangerous medications to various planets.  Along the way they are tricked and taken captive.  Helva is removed from her ship and deprived of her senses which starts to drive her mad.  She is given limited senses back as long as she does as she is told.  She eventually tricks her captors into giving her more power and fries them.  She and the other captured ships are rescued and she immediately dumps her crappy brawn.  She then has enough money to pay her debt and becomes a contract ship.  The Federation immediately bribes/contracts her back for a new drive and she demands that Niall, the sweet-talking supervisor (and protector of Helva throughout the book) becomes her new brawn.  He confesses that he is in love with her and is not sure if that would be good for a brawn/brain pairing.  She eventually convinces him and they sail off into the stars ready for more adventures.

The format of this book was kinda quirky in that all but the last chapter was actually a collection of short stories.  Each chapter while part of a whole timeline was its own complete story.  This made for a bit of a choppy read, but overall it was amazing as is all Ms. McCaffrey's books.  This book is unique because it is her one of her first work to be published and remained one of her favorites.  It is interesting to see the development of this amazing woman's skills from the beginning to her death.  As far as content goes, it is still amazing to me how advanced Ms. McCaffrey's thinking was, some of her ideas far outpaced what was the norm for the 60's and 70's when these stories were published.  During those times it was not uncommon for children with any sort of perceived defect, whether it be physical or mental to be institutionalized and forgotten. It was also assumed a lot of the time if you had a physical deformity then you were also slow in the brain, something we now know is not always true.  The idea to give these kids not just a life, but a life of near immortality with freedoms and respect is pretty cool.  I have read several criticisms of the premise of these stories, how the children never had a choice and that they were essentially sold into indentured servitude, which in some ways is not entirely incorrect, but I think there is more to it then that.  First of all just about any time a parent makes a decision for their children, especially health related, they are essentially altering that child's future, whether it be to pierce their ears, circumcise them, institutionalize them, heck even name them, that is what happens when you are a parent, you try and make choices that are best for your kid, and in 

these stories a life of living in the stars was a much better alternative to pretty much anything else this era had to offer.  As far as paying off their debts go, well this is probably the most plausible way for something on this scale to actually happen.  It would cost a lot of time, effort and resources on an unsure outcome...so yeah it's gonna cost somebody and the shell person arguably is the one getting the biggest bargain in the deal.  I like that the author made a point of having Helva be a person, no a brain hooked up to a computer, not a ship that was super smart, but a real flesh and blood (albeit one stunted and encased in titanium) human with emotions, wants, needs, and preferences.  I love that she is not a cold, calculating android, but a women with emotions and a need to express them through song (Anne McCaffrey's ever pervasive love of music appears in all of her books).  The conditioning that the shell people go through to accept their lot in life, the training the brawns go through to see the ship as an equal partner, not a machine to be driven, the emphasis on treating the brains as humans all points to how we need treat our own special needs friends here in the real world.  This book is among other things a call to see all humans, regardless of their form, color, shape, size, or disability as first and foremost a human.  I very much enjoyed getting into this authors earlier works and am now going to go read my whole shelf full (which is now spilling onto a second and third shelf) of her works and also I am going to go hunt down the few I don't own yet.  I give this book 8 out of 10 singing ships.

Would you choose to be encapsulated if you were born with sever deformities?  Do you think it is ok to take the choice away from a newborn infant if it is the only hope you have?  What would you sing if you could soar through the stars?