Subject: PartnerShip (Spoilers)

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: 16 Jul 92 04:28:38 GMT

"PartnerShip", by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey, is a good self-
indulgent read that offers no surprises.  McCaffrey's name on the cover
tells us that it's going to be a romance novel, whatever the setting.
Lackey's name tells us that plot logic is not going to be allowed to
get in the way of the serious business of pulling on our heart strings.
And the title tells us that the book is going to be set in Helva's
universe.  So we know that we're going to get a romance between a ship
and her brawn, and we do.

McCaffrey's grasp of celestial mechanics is a shaky as it ever was
(a highly eccentric orbit that gives a planet ninety years of Earth-normal
weather and ten years of -50 degrees winter would seem to defy Kepler's
laws), and her grasp of physics in general is no better.  (She seems to
be under the impression that "less than a microsecond" and "a few
nanoseconds" mean "fast reaction time".  Well, maybe.)  

The book's picture of the business world is also fuzzy.  (Sure, things
may have changed by then, but we're given no reason to believe that
they have in these respects.)  The authors seem to think that "preferred
stock" means the stock that controls a company (though the opposite is
often the case), and that a company's "board of directors" is its top
management.

I tend to attribute the plot inconsistencies to Lackey.  For example,
Alex comes in and finds most of the ship's functions shut down -- because
most of the Ship's attention is elsewhere -- and just *knows* that she's
gone.  This despite the fact that we're told that she has three hours of
deep sleep a day, during which one presumes that *all* her attention is
unavailable.

The miracle that allows the limits of current technology to be combined
in a working model within two weeks?  That actually might work.  I can
see it now:

	Researcher 1:   It's impossible.  How are we to develop an
			android body in that amount of time?

	Researcher 2:   Don't be naive; you know what she wants.
			Just take a sex-droid, replace the AI with
			communications gear, and add tranceivers
			along the skin.

	Researcher 1:   Will it... Will she... um...

	Researcher 2:   No, of course not.  She'll feel the pressure
			on her 'skin' but it won't translate to sexual
			pleasure unless it's routed to her brain illegally.
			"Addictive use of electronics", you know.  I don't
			think we need to actually tell her that.

Why am I being this picky?  Mostly to reinforce what I said at the start.
If you buy this book, you're buying a romance, with some science-fiction-
oreinted stage dressing.  If that's what you expect, you won't be
disappointed.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked]

   If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down.  It's going to be the
   best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills
   you! -- Dorothy Parker

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From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: 16 Jul 92 18:15:48 GMT

Oops, did I say "PartnerShip"?  I meant "The Ship Who Searched."  The
former is the earlier product of McCaffrey's collaboration with Margaret
Ball.  My thanks to those who pointed out my mistake.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked]

   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser