Brain Ships

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Baen Books, Nov 4, 2003 - Fiction - 528 pages
The two novels continue the empowerment theme begun in The Ship Who Sang: through technological advances, children born with severe physical handicaps can be placed in mechanical shells, educated, and eventually implanted into the body of interstellar spaceships. Like Helva in the McCaffrey classic, these disabled humans can in essence become the ships. In The Ship Who Searched, young Hypatia Cade is a child prodigy. The seven-year-old daughter of exo-archaeologist parents, Tia is afflicted by a mysterious neurological disorder while helping her parents on a dig. In just a few weeks, Tia is almost entirely paralyzed. After neurological specialists examine her, the prognosis is not good. There is no cure. "A fairy trapped in a fist of metal," Tia gets a second chance at life -- and love -- when she becomes a brain ship. PartnerShip deals with Nancia, a naive brain ship who, after transporting five highly unethical businesspeople to a remote part of space, must figure out a way to honorably bring them to justice.
 

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About the author (2003)

Anne McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 1, 1926. She received a degree in Slavonic languages from Radcliffe College. She worked in advertising for Helena Rubenstein from 1947 to 1952. Her first publication was a short story in Science Fiction Magazine, and her first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967. She is a well-known author of over 100 books, mostly science fiction, including the Dragonriders of Pern series, the Crystal Singer series, Acorna's Children series, The Twins of Petaybee series, and Barque Cats series. She won numerous awards including the Hugo Award for Best Novella for the short story Weyr Search in 1968 and the Nebula Award for Best Novella for Dragonrider in 1969. In 2006, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. She has also written books under the pseudonym Jody Lynn. She died of a stroke on November 21, 2011 at the age of 85.