Killashandra Ree has trained at the conservatory for years. The Maestro has told her that with her natural ability of perfect pitch, all she needs is time and training to be a starring soloist. Except now, a decade of hard work and dedication later, he is telling her that there us a defect in her voice. She will only ever be a chorus member. Her life's ambition dashed in an instant. She is far to passionate to be a member of the chorus, so she packs her bags and heads to the spaceport
While trying to decide what she wants to do with the rest of her life in the spaceport bar (where else does one contemplate life's big questions?) She meets a man from Ballybran. Well, okay. He's not from there. No one is from Ballybran. He works there as a crystal singer.
They hit it off and he talks Killashandra into showing him around. They have a fun time for a few days, maybe a month, and then he announces that he needs to return to Ballybran (ooh, ominously foreboding). Back at the spaceport, an accident occurs and the man is injured, causing him to fall into a coma.
Not wanting to just leave him all alone, Killashandra decides to accompany him and watch over him on his way back to Ballybran. This is not Douglas Adams space travel, either. Killashandra and the crystal singer must go the long way: waypoint to waypoint. Finally, they reach Ballybran's moon, the closest that any non crystal singer can get to the planet.
In the span of her travel, Killashandra has been considering applying to the Heptite guild, the Crystal singer's union, of sorts. The cortex has very little information, income range of members is about it. Only when Killashandra arrives on Ballybran's moon and asks, is she able to access all of the information she needs about the Hepatite Guild. Some of the risks of this job include paranoia and memory loss, and that is if she survives the transition to Ballybran's environment.
We follow Killashandra as she takes the leap, the very permanent leap to cutting the crystals used for interplanetary travel and communication. It doesn't take long for her to start making waves, cutting the highly valuable and sought after black crystal.
The story itself makes me think of miners during the California Gold Rush of 1849, complete with claim jumping, and paranoia.
I first read this book when I was thirteen or so and was able to revisit it recently. Killashandra resonated with me even more as a late-30-something-on-her-fifth-career, than as a teenager getting cut from Children's Choir because I couldn't sight- sing. The "you're not good enough and never will be" conversation has the sting of reality in it and we feel her pain. Because of the pace of the story, she feels rather rash, but she is almost meditative. This isn't to be confused indecisive. Killashandra knows her own mind and keeps her own counsel
If you want a sci-fi story with an independent female lead who can handle herself, check out Crystal Singer
⭐⭐⭐⭐4/5
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