Book description
Killashandra was the most gifted Crystal Singer on Ballybran. With
her partner, Lars Dahl, she held the record for cutting the terrible,
fascinating, and infinitely rare black crystals - crystals that could
destroy the brain of a Singer if they were not properly controlled.
Killashandra and Lars Dahl together were an invincible pair.
So when, on the distant planet of Opal, a new, beautiful,
unfathomable manifestation was discovered, Lars and Killashandra were
the team asked to explore the 'Jewel Junk'.All those who had
previously encountered it had died. Only the Crystal Singers, with the
immune system of Ballybran in their blood, were thought to stand a
chance of survival. The 'Jewel Junk' was brilliant and mysterious, and
became even more so when fed with some of Ballybran's precious
crystals. But it was to be twenty-five years before the planet Opal
released one of its secrets - a secret that was to prove the salvation
of Ballybran and the Crystal Singers.
Anne McCaffrey was one of the world's leading science-fiction
writers, and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as the Margaret
A. Edwards' Lifetime Achievement Literary Award. Born and raised in the
US, although of Irish extraction, she spent the last years of her life
in Ireland, in the heart of the Wicklow Mountains. She died in 2011 at
the age of eighty-five. She is the creator of the Dragons of Pern
series. Her website is
www. annemccaffrey. net