 First edition cover | |
| Author | Anne McCaffrey |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jack Gaughan (first) |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Walker & Co. |
Publication date | 1969 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 248 |
| OCLC | 1663679 |
The Ship Who Sang (1969) is a science fiction novel by American writer Anne McCaffrey, a fix-up of five stories published 1961 to 1969. It is also the title of the 1961 novelette which is the first of these stories.[1][2] The series started by the book, the "Brain & Brawn Ship series", is sometimes called the "Ship Who Sang series".[3][4][5]
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.[1]
McCaffrey dedicated the book "to the memory of the Colonel, my father, George Herbert McCaffrey, citizen soldier patriot for whom the first ship sang".[6] In 1994 she named it as the book she is most proud of.[7] Subsequently, she named the first story her best story and her personal favorite work.[8][9][10]
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 more recent.[3] They share a fictional premise but feature different cyborg characters.
- ^ a b "The Ship Who Sang (book"). The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB).
- ^ "The Ship Who Sang" (story). ISFDB.
- ^ a b The Ship Who Sang (series). ISFDB.
- ^ Anne McCaffrey. ISFDB.
- ^ Footer to "Dragonsong/Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey" (for discussion 2005-03-23). Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club. Confirmed 2011-07-27.
- ^ Anne McCaffrey, The Ship Who Sang (1969), New York: Ballantine, paperback edition, 25th printing, Dec 1993. Front endpapers.
- ^ "An Interview with Anne McCaffrey" (1994-05). By Richard Karsmakers. Gouda, NL: karsmakers.net. Retrieved 2011-07-21.
- ^ "Interview with Anne McCaffrey" (2000-05-08). Science Fiction and Fantasy World (SFFWorld.com). Confirmed 2011-07-12.
- ^ "An Interview With Anne McCaffrey" (2004). By Lynne Jamneck. Writing-World.com. Retrieved 2011-07-21.
- ^ "Anne McCaffrey: Heirs to Pern" (2004-11). Locus Online excerpts from an interview published in Locus: The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, Nov 2004. Confirmed 2011-07-27.