Crystal Singer Omnibus

[goodreads]

Title: Crystal Singer Omnibus
Author: Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Sci-fi
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 1069
Date read: December 2006, August 2010

Her name was Killashandra Ree. And after ten grueling years of musical training, she was still without prospects. Until she heard of the mysterious Heptite Guild who could provide careers, security, and wealth beyond imagining. The problem was, few people who landed on Ballybran ever left. But to Killashandra the risks were acceptable...

This omnibus has the entire Crystal Singer trilogy ("The Crystal Singer", "Killashandra" and "The Crystal Line") in one book.

Over all, a 4.5-star trilogy, even though the first book is definitely the best. I guess I'd rate them 5, 4.5 and 4 respectively. I loved reading about how Killashandra learned how to cut crystal in the first one, and her relationship with Lars in the second.

I had this book recommended to me because I mentioned liking McCaffrey's Harper's Hall trilogy, so I assumed Crystal Singer would be similar to this trilogy in its atmosphere and descriptions of music. Not so at all! It took me awhile to shake my pre-conceived notions of the book. Not that I was disappointed, it was just disconcerting to expect to read about dragons and thread fall and instead read about spaceships and crystal cutters.

That said, I loved the book, as the rating indicates, and would recommend it to anybody who enjoys a good fantasy/sci-fi novel. Crystal singers have a long life-span but cutting also results in severe memory loss, which makes for some very interesting situations. It also made me think - if I knew I was likely to forget everything about my past and everybody I knew... how much effort would I go to to make recordings of my life? What would I willingly forget, and what would I want to remember?