Crystal Singer (Anne McCaffrey)

Crystal Singer
The Crystal Singer trilogy, Book 1
Anne McCaffrey
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)

DESCRIPTION: Killashandra Ree spent ten years of her life working relentlessly for a dream she could never have, as a top soloist out of the planet Fuerte. When told of a vocal flaw that no training could remedy, she walked away from everything, leading her colleagues and teachers to worry she'd end her own life. Instead, she found herself with Carrick, a member of the mysterious Heptite Guild, who mine the Ballybran crystals on which the Federation of Sentient Planets depends. Being a Crystal Singer requires perfect pitch, utter dedication, a willingness to forsake any other path and future: everything she'd already done for the singing school that left her with nothing. When Killashandra Ree sets out for the Heptite Guild, she's determined that, this time, she won't fail. She'll be a Crystal Singer or die trying. On Ballybran, though, the goals are far from mutually exclusive...

REVIEW: Crystals are neat. Crystals are interesting. Crystals are shiny. Singing is likewise. So a book whose premise involves using singing and resonant tones to mine a planet of crystal - crystals with properties that make interstellar travel and communications commonplace... one would think it, too, would be neat, interesting, and, at the very least, shiny. Sadly, Crystal Singer is anything but.
It opens on a sour note with the protagonist, Killashandra Ree, in the midst of a tantrum: she's just been told that the solo career she's trained for is not something she can ever have. This is not an auspicious way to introduce me to a character I'm supposed to follow for three hundred pages, especially when she's given no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She's immature, petty, can't handle failure, jumps in the sack with most anything that moves, and has an ego the size and brightness of your average main sequence star. And that is pretty much who she remains throughout the story, with only minimal nods given to her maybe, marginally figuring out that it's worthwhile to at least attempt friendship. Of course, the story does very little to challenge her conceits; throughout the tale success is basically a given for her - not just success, but amazing success. Even her (minimal) setbacks are ultimately beneficial and praised.
As for crystal singing itself... I know, from my reading experience, the specfic of the 1980's seemed to have a Thing about making unsubtle sexual commentary. (They were also still often glaringly white, aside from the odd "swarthy" extra, but that's another thing.) The many casual hook-ups of Killashandra demonstrate a future where monogamy is no longer dominant and sex is not some shameful or precious thing locked away until a girl finds The Right Man. Okay, nothing unusual here. But the ecstasy invoked by crystals, from the moment Killashandra handles her first point to the reaction to her first solo cut to the way she later compares a lover's touch to the way the harmonics of black crystal make her feel... talk about overkill. And just to make sure I, the reader, understood the point, McCaffrey outright calls her reaction "orgasmic" at the book's climax, bashing me over the head with the Message about a woman being ultimately empowered and fulfilled by finding a means to sexual release entirely on her own. (The cover image, with Killashandra in a rapturous swoon while holding up a large dark crystal, pretty much says it all. Once she goes black crystal...)
The plot is loaded down with infodumps and boring details about Ballybran and crystal harvesting and meteorology; it's over halfway through the book before Killashandra begins to do anything but sit through lectures, and by then the thrust of the tale and ultimate infallibility of the heroine is so telegraphed that even danger is little more than a minor distraction. As for this reader, at some point I realized I was just turning pages to get to the end. I never liked Killashandra, I was bored with the Heptite Guild, I didn't give a dang about the sudden burst of politics thrown in out of left field at the end in her first official Guild trip beyond the planet, and - for all that I'm as much a sucker for shiny objects as the next gal - I've never found crystals sexually arousing.
For all that the concept is neat and the trilogy is still considered something of a classic, chalk this up to another 1980's novel that doesn't age well.

You Might Also Enjoy:
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Jade City (Fonda Lee) - My Review
The Ship Who Sang (Anne McCaffrey) - My Review