Flight into Fame and Fortune

Killashandra Rhee has worked all of her life to become a top rank singer. When her instructor informs her that despite her perfect pitch, the best she will ever be is a second rank singer because of a flaw in her voice, she quits. As she is pouting and wondering around to think about what she will do now, she encounters a famous Crystal Singer from the far off world of Ballybran. For reasons that are kept very quiet by the Heptite Guild, entrance onto this world is highly restricted and once anyone has remained on the planet beyond a certain amount of time, the either remain forever or become one of the miners of the crystal that is used throughout the universe for communications and a multitude of other devices.

Anne McCaffrey starts an all new series with this first of three novel about a singer who wants to forget her past. This first book was developed from a set of four short stories that appeared in Roger Elwood's Continuum series. They were largely rewritten to include the technological details, but the basic tale remained the same.

Rhee joins the Heptite Guild and this first book tells the story of why she did it and what she had to go through in order to be successful at her new found job. her new found career is very dangerous and unless the planet itself accepts her as a resident she could wind up being deformed, crippled or even dead during the process of rejection.

Even if she is one of the lucky few to be accepted and become one of the crystal harvesters, there are other dangers. Massive storms range the plains of the planet and there is always the possibility that her claim could be destroyed by them, not to mention what would happen to her if she ever got caught out in the open by one of them. There are other, less obvious dangers to worry about as well. A misplaced foot while working on a claim site could send her sliding over the raw, exposed crystal, cutting her to ribbons to bleed to death before her healing factor kicks in to save her.

Oh yeah, the planet gives some bonuses to its dwellers, too. Everyone who lives there has their livespan extended to a great degree. In fact, some singers have been known to have lived for over a thousand years, barring accidental death. Then there is the healing factor that the residents gain. They become immune to almost every known illness or poison, and they heal at a phenomenal rate. However, Rhee isn't interested in any of these things. She is wanting a different side effect, memory loss. It seems that direct exposure to the raw crystals for an extended amount of time will make the person start to forget things, both long and short term memory is affected. This is what Rhee wants.

McCaffrey creates a very interesting story with new places and well developed characters, but there are a few minor flaws in this book. The writing is a bit shallow, even though the detail on the settings is great, the characters themselves need much more work. About the only character that gets more than the bare glossing over is Rhee herself. After reading six of McCaffrey's Pern novels with the high character development, this was a bit of a disappointment to me. Still, this story line has the potential to become a series as long or longer than the Pern series and perhaps it was best to leave this development for later novels.

It's still an excellent book that I think every space adventures fan will enjoy.