Hospital Station

by James White

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345296133
• ISBN13: 9780345296139
• Release Date: March 1981
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Brotherhood of Many Races

In 1957, Murray Leinster's "Med Service" appeared in _Astounding_, launching his popular series about Dr. Calhoun and his Tormal sidekick, Murgatroyd. That same year, James White's story "Sector General" appeared in the British science fiction magazine _New Worlds_, launching another science fictional medical series. I have always enjoyed Leinster's stories, but the stories by James White are far superior. One reason is the richness of the setting in the Sector General stories. Leinster's stories all take place on scattered planets. Med Service headquarters is in a kind of shadowy background. It is true that one story, Ribbon in the Sky," has a brief scene at headquarters; but it is done so quickly that we never have a chance to visualize the setting. White takes the opposite tack. He starts by imagining the headquarters in detail. Let us suppose that we have a galaxy teeming with different life forms. Let us also suppose that we even have contact with some extra-galactic races. How will they be treated for medical problems? The answer is Sector General, a mega-sized space station shaped "like a misshapen Christmas tree." White must have had a grand time working out the details of how different races will be classified, how the corridors will be marked, what the plumbing and atmosphere pipes will be like, how the different sections for different planetary environments will be designed, how communications problems will be handled, how medical problems will be diagnosed (not always easy to do!), and what kind of treatments will be given. White has also carefully worked out the roles of different staff members at the hospital. What do the doctors and nurses of a mutitude of races do? What role does the Monitor corps (something like a military police force) play? What about the psychologist? The administrators? The chaplain? And why are diagnosticians accorded such a high status and yet at the same time looked upon as more than a little bit crazy? _Hospital Station_ (1962) is the first novel of the Sector General series and consists of the first five stories in the series, all from _New Worlds_. They are: "Medic" (originally "O'Mara's Orphan," 1960), "Sector General" (1957), "Trouble with Emily" (1958), "Visitor at Large" (1959), and "Out-Patient" (1960). The stories chronicle a span of time from when the hot-tempered construction worker O'Mara is saddled with a giant alien baby when the hospital is first being built until the time that young Dr. Conway tries a controversial treatment on a patient that causes everyone on the staff to despise him. (O'Mara, incidently goes on to become the acid-tongued head of Sector General.) In Murray Leinster's stories, the medical problem is always linked with some kind of planetary skulduggery. Not so with White's tales. Conflicts in the Sector General stories usually involve misunderstandings rather than villainies. White is depicting a background where there is a real brotherhood of races and cultures.

1st volume of the series: 5 short stories

The earlier volumes of the series were collections of stories written for magazines, but as the publishing world altered over time, the emphasis changed to full-length novels. A new reader can begin at any point, since White is careful to fill in the background, often via an explanation delivered to a new trainee, visitor, or Monitor Corps pilot. This book is part of the omnibus edition _Beginning Operations_."Medic" - One of the earliest entries in the series in terms of internal chronology; *the* earliest is the first story in the collection _Sector General_, describing how the hospital came to be founded, while this story relates how O'Mara, a member of the hospital's original construction crew, wound up looking after the hospital's first patient. In later years, O'Mara sealed the file on this story, but couldn't completely hush it up no matter how hard he tried. :) If you're curious about how O'Mara evolved into the gruff personality we know best, read _Mind Changer_."Sector General" - Not to be confused with the short story collection of the same name, which is in the omnibus edition _Alien Emergencies_. Conway makes his first appearance as the viewpoint character, a position he occupied until the conclusion of _Star Healer_. He's only been at Sector General for 2 months, and as an ardent pacifist deeply resents the Monitor Corps, when in an emergency he gets his first dose of an Educator tape, and the resulting problems land him his first real meeting with Chief Psychologist O'Mara. Then his first ship rescue assignment confronts him with a fear-maddened entity, who (having killed Carmody, the gentle Padre of the psychology department) brings Conway face-to-face with a kill-or-be-killed situation. (See _The Genocidal Healer_ for further discussion of Carmody's role in the psychology department.)"Trouble with Emily" - Dr. Arratepec, distinguished member of a newly discovered telepathic species, has convinced its people and the Galactic Federation government to give all assistance to a classified project involving a brontosaur-like creature that its human handlers have nicknamed Emily. (Yes, it's a very bad pun.) Emily's species is facing extinction on a planet without intelligent life, although Emily itself is healthy. What is Arratepec up to, and how can Conway assist when Arratepec won't confide in him? (Incidentally, the I-have-no-time-for-women attitude disappeared rapidly when Conway met nurse, later Pathologist, Murchison.)"Visitor at Large" - Marks the first appearance of Prilicla as Conway's brand-new assistant. The visitor in question is a giant amoeba, who (as the youngest offspring of Sector General's most troublesome patient) is being allowed a deathbed visit. The patient has nothing organically wrong with it, but is quietly dissolving into water, apparently due to some psychological problem that the doctors simply can't treat. Then the hospital rapidly acquires a second problem, as the young visitor panics at the sight of all th

A Classic SF Series

A must-read series for all science fiction fans, the Sector General novels have been described as a cross between Star Trek and ER. I began reading these books as a kid and I still love reading them today. They are great examples of what multiculturalism and interracial tolerance are supposed to be! One of my favorite characters is Prilicla the tiny insectoid empath, always having to dodge the huge aliens around her, both physically and emotionally. There are over a dozen books in the series, many of them out of print, but they are worth your time if you can find them all.

First Book Of A Fine Series

The 'Hospital Station' of the title is Sector Twelve General Hospital, a multi-species, multi-enviroment hive that hangs "like a misshappen christmas tree" far out on the Galactic Rim. Originally a series of short stories the first, Medic, is a sort of prologue set during the Hospital Station's construction. In it a surly construction worker named O'Mara finds himself treating the Hospital's very first patient. 'Sector General' introduces Dr. Conway, a young, idealistic and rather naive junior physician who has a lot to learn about how the Galactic Federation and the Hospital really function. In 'The Trouble With Emily' Conway is assigned to assist a visiting VIP, Dr. Arretapec, a "levitating ball of goo" with advanced psi powers who refuses to tell Conway exactly what he is trying to accomplish with their 'patient' a perfectly healthy brontosaurian being - nicknamed Emily. In 'Visitor At Large' Conway is in charge of a pediatrics ward and has an assistant of his own; a frail, spiderlike, empathic sensitive called Prilicla. In another ward an exotic being, capable of changing form at will, is dying of an undiagnosed, untreatable condition. The usual rule against visitors is relaxed to allow the entity's child to make a farewell visit to its parent. Unfortunately the welcoming committee of strange looking aliens, including Conway and Prilicla, frightens the youngster into headlong flight. A terrified, immature being, capable of assuming any shape, lost in the multiple levels of Sector General, unable to communicate and worst of all - getting hungry... In 'Out Patient' Conway is promoted to Senior Physician and presented with a new patient; a being of unknown race that is apparently being eaten alive by some kind of cancerous growth.

must have for hard scifi readers

Just imagine how a first class space hospital must be, hundreds of different ambiental conditions, aliens and sickness. The doctors must be creative, intelligent and corageous, to treat unknow species in conditions were nothing is what it seems, tear your patient into pieces to safe its life, try to run trough corridors of chlorine, high gravity , water, to safe a life, or try to convince your simbiotic assistant that your are doing the best treatment, when he can easily crush you. Be prepared for the most inmersive sci fi novel you have read.