The Ship Who Searched

In McCaffrey's Brainships universe, children who are born with an immobilizing or other severe disability are raised and educated to be the 'brains' that steer Starships. They are also assigned a "Brawn" to be their companion and assist with activities that can only be done by a person with a functional body.
Our protagonist, Hypatia, is older than most children assigned to this program when a virus causes her to become immobile (not a spoiler, per se, as it happens in the first couple chapters and if you've read any previous book in the series, you could tell this was going to happen). She and her caregivers have to fight to get her in the program, but she takes to it like a natural. Having actually had a functional body for the first few years of her life, she has a different experience than her other fellow Brainships, which makes it difficult to match her with a Brawn.
Hypatia ("Tia") is a great character, and it's fascinating to follow her as she adjusts to her new world and attempts to carry on her parents' archaeological work in discovering other alien species. This is probably my favorite in the Brainships series and Mercedes Lackey does a great job of building on McCaffrey's world.

I first discovered McCaffrey by reading The Ship who Sang and this book which is sort of a sequel was pretty decent but did not resonate as much as the original. (I heard McCaffrey read from The Ship who Sang when she came to the Winnipeg SF Convention years ago and I still remember how she choked up as did a lot of us audience members.) ( )

This was a lot of fun to reread. Like all of Ms McCaffrey's books it was well worth reading more than one time. I am working my way through this series again and remembering why I adore her BB books. ( )

Though sometimes outdated by modern tech, it was published in 1992. Written by two of my favourite writers, this is one of my favourites of the Ship Who sequence.

Hypathia Cade is a young precious kid who lives with her family on a small archaeological dig. The worst possible thing happens when she contracts a virus that causes her to become paralysed from the neck down. At seven she really isn't a candidate for the Brain project, where young children with incurable conditions are offered a chance to become enclosed brains who are living computers who run ships and other large complex spaces. She adapts well and finds herself finding a lot of freedom among the stars. She's only missing one freedom.

I read it when it first came out and re-reading wasn't an unpleasant experience. I also loved the names of the Investment firm: Friesner, Sherman, Stirling and Huff... I got a smile while thinking where they got those names from!

Enjoyable, if a little dated. ( )

I enjoyed the first few books in this series. Even though the concept of a pair - ship+pilot is too similiar to the dragon+rider concept in her other novels, its still an interesting one and she makes an interesting story out of it. ( )