The Ship Who Sang 6: Serialisation and ring structure

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The current novel was formed by stitching together short stories written over almost a decade. Did they hang together sufficiently for you to see them as a whole thing? The whole lot is tied together by the last story having many echoes with the opening one - an exploding star features in both, but moving from destruction to opportunity. and Niall is a (better?) replacement for the lost Jennan. The Helva story cycle is closed, and subsequent books explore different individuals within the brainship universe. Did this work for you as a neat and tidy conclusion, or would you have rather had an ongoing plot with future potential - for example the last story might well have treated Niall as incidental, and focused instead on getting hold of the upgraded ship drive?

Comments

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    edited October 30

    I assumed it was a novel made from stitched together short stories, and was fine with that. If done well it can be very effective. It was also rather nice to end Helva's story at a logical place instead of the usual cliffhanger leading to book 2 of the series...

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    I think it's like the Sherlock Holmes stories - they hang together because they are about Sherlock Holmes, although the narrator is a sidekick rather than an abstract representation of the principal. The romance frame-stories made me think of the Bronte sisters.

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    I liked the story arc with Niall. Actually, I would have guessed we'd see more of this relationship in a sequel, but I guess not since you say the other books are about other ships. But the growing relationship between Helva and Niall felt natural and unforced. I suppose it only felt this ways because the last story was specifically written for this book and served to tie things up. So in this sense, the whole is greater than the sum of the original parts. Happy to call this a fixup novel, then.

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    The later books, many of which were co-written by Anne McCaffrey plus A N Other, often have a vague overlap, eg Helva is mentioned in one book in passing as someone you might meet. The space station brain central to a third book is in contact with the brain ship central character in a fourth one. And so on. It gives the overall impression of an ensemble of friends loosely keeping in touch with each other after graduation (some stories are better than others, but they managed to retain a shared context)
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