book review: Crystal Singer (Anne McCaffrey)

Crystal Singer (Crystal Singer, #1) by Anne McCaffreyCrystal Singer is workpunk: a portrait of a capitalist extractive industry which protagonist Killashandra enthusiastically joins after falling off the up or out track in another highly competitive industry (vocal music). In this world, singing skills are transferable to mining.

Occupational health risks are acknowledged. It is no secret that crystal mining by voice is a job that makes people sick and Killashandra signs on anyway, lured by perks like luxury hotels make this a glamour job for her.

Killashandra has not one but two squicky relationships with mentor figures, and no strong relationships with peers. A classmate who rebels against the system dies early in the book, cheating us of the opportunity to see her becoming a friend or a trade unionist.  The protagonist herself is sufficiently successful that she has no reason to rebel on her own account. This is competence porn, of an extreme and boring sort because Killashandra is so relentlessly superior to her environment.

Mental health risks to self and others are also acknowledged. People in the crystal singing industry are known to become unpleasant: hypercompetitive, unempathic, narcissistic. They are not penalized for it by the society or by the implied author. This refreshing in a way, because it happens in many industries in fact, but rarely makes it into fiction.

Scrapping with others for gigs is licensed in this society, as is gluttony. There is a bit of sympathy with people who have fallen off the track and are doing jobs where they can be happy and that is refreshing too. But overall, this is a book for its time – the 1980s, when the world was post-scarcity but nobody realized it yet. Greed was good.

Posted on by Diana ben-Aaron
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