This book is good science fiction, in the sense that it explores something which we are not ready to address as a society -- in this case, would profoundly disabled people prefer that we could replace their disabled bodies? What if the replacement wasn't humanoid? The book is pretty old though, and that shows in some of the elements of the story. I don't feel it detracts though. The book is also composed of a series of independantish by related short stories, which was a common publishing technique for science fiction in the 1960s.

One story -- "Dramatic Mission" -- did throw me a little. Its just too out there conceptually, and actually kind of dull until about the last three pages, where the controller poses some interesting questions of Helva. I feel that perhaps the lead up could have been better though.

http://www.stillhq.com/book/Anne_McCa... ( )

I think I read this before I read her Pern series, at least about the same time in the early 1970's. I was really impressed by her take on a cyborg. It was different than anything I'd read before. She looked at it with a lot of humanity. A perennial favorite of mine. ( )

A very interesting book full of plot twists and thrills ( )

In this setting, severely physically handicapped children are trained to be the 'brains' of spaceships, and are partnered with more physically able people who become the ship pilots.

This follows one such person or ship in particular, who likes the whole music thing. She must also deal with the loss of a pilot and the introduction of another.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/02... ( )

The "Ship" series (along with Stephen Donaldson) is remarkable for being speculative fiction which considers disability.
It was written fifty years back, yet McCaffery, by picking up on various themes and threads that are (of course) still alive today, including (although not expressed as such, has minimised the "ouch" factor.
Overall, the series is not her best, but far from her worst. ( )