The Ship Who Sang

Nov 12, 2025 12:33 PM

Author:Anne McCaffrey

The Ship Who Sang

The brain was perfect, the tiny, crippled body useless. So technology rescued the brain and put it in an environment that conditioned it to live in a different kind of body - a spaceship. Here the human mind, more subtle, infinitely more complex than any computer ever devised, could be linked to the massive and delicate strengths, the total recall, and the incredible speeds of space. But the brain behind the ship was entirely feminine - a complex, loving, strong, weak, gentle savage - a personality, all-woman, called Helva...

Reviews

One of the great books of our age. It is the subtlest of miniatures that contains our deepest sorrows and truths and love - all caught in a clear, simple style in perfect brushstrokes

—— Michael Ondjaate

A truly extraordinary novel... Maxwell has tapped a vein of strange, pure emotion

—— Philip Hensher , Mail on Sunday

So magically deft at being profound...possesses that daunting quality impossible to emulate: it makes greatness seem simple

—— Richard Ford

Maxwell does something all great novelists do: he conjures depths of pain and regret in words of radiant simplicity

—— Anthony Quinn , Observer

This calm, reflective and extraordinarily beautiful novel offers American fiction at its finest

—— Irish Times

Maxwell's voice is one of the wisest in American fiction; it is, as well, one of the kindest

—— John Updike

Maxwell is one of the past half-century's unmistakably great novelists

—— Village Voice

Maxwell offers us scrupulously executed, moving landscapes of America's twentieth century, and they do not fade

—— Times Literary Supplement

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