Her dreams shattered by her one mentor, she dwells upon a life of unfulfilled dreams and pathetic careers when compared to her idealized ambition of becoming a top-rank concert singer. It was then that she decided she too must try and become a Crystal Singer.”Ī promising student of vocal talent for 10 years, the culmination of Killashandra’s study ends with damning praise from Maestro Valdi: “You have the gift of perfect pitch, your musicality is faultless … But there is that burr in your voice which becomes intolerable in the higher register” (p 10). All she could discover was that they were special people, shrouded in mystery, and danger, and beauty – and something altogether incomprehensible. He said he was a Crystal Singer – one of the unique ones of the Galaxy-and when Killashandra tried to find out what a Crystal Singer was the answers were vague, obtuse. And then she met the stranger from off-world. “Killashandra thought her world had ended when she was told she would never become a concert singer. Regardless, after two years of sitting on my shelf, the book found its way into my hands in December’s to-read stack. When taking the rest of McCaffrey’s bibliography into scope, words like “dragon”, “unicorn” and “Pegasus” are notable, all of which instantly turn me off… but her popular Dragons of Pern series, often recommended by others, is a testament to her talent, so I assumed. The synopsis is obviously science fiction but the word “crystal” carries many fantasy connotations with it, a cousin of the science fiction genre which I scorn. With her passing, I took advice from a number of posts on Amazon’s Science Fiction forum and bought one of the author’s novels: The Crystal Singer.

Prior to Anne McCaffrey’s death in November 2011, I had heard only good things about the author’s work – her ability to snare the reader with wonder and enrapture the reader in adventure.

The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffrey (1982)

Anne mccaffrey crystal singer series