| Brainship took me by surprise. I read it as part of a collection of 12 SF volumes with a total of 36 SF books from the 50’s to the 70’s. Most of them I consider average at best with a few good exceptions by the same authors like Silverberg or Heinlein. McCaffrey joins this small club.
Mostly because her perspective is notably different from those of her male colleagues. This book is clearly written by a female author. It stands out in the field of early SF which rarely features women, even less so in the role of the hero and also in the way it relegates the nowadays often obsolete focus on future science to a backseat and concentrates on thoughts and emotions which are far less prone to obsolescence. Reading a bit more about McCaffrey, she considered this story to be the one she’s most satisfied with. For her, it allowed her to deal with personal experiences of loss and grief which is comprehensible. Luckily, Brainship isn’t a feministic book which is all for the better. And it also puts itself to discussion nowadays with its treatment of people with disabilities in a way that conflicts with the dominating political correctness of today. All of the above are reasons why I enjoyed reading Brainship. It has weaknesses like the unbelievable developing love story of the ship Helva with her pilot. But its a pleasant change of tone compared to the often one-dimensional outdated classic SF books and hints at the more relevant social SF books from the 70’s. Note: Brainship originally was published in episodes. The German translation seems to only contain the inital core episodes and is much shorter than the English versions of this entry. |
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