Monsters and Medics

by James White

Book Overview

Ballantine Del Rey, paperback. Collection of stories by James White, known for his medical themes. Includes an introduction by the author, and: Second Ending (1962); Counter Security (1963); Dogfight... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345256239
• ISBN13: 9780345256232
• Release Date: February 1977
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

7 short stories + 1 essay, none dealing with SECTOR GENERAL

"Introduction: Reality in Science Fiction" A where-do-you-get-your-ideas essay, using the entries in this collection as examples. "Answer Came There None" The protagonists are human explorers seeking alien intelligent life, but all they find are ruins. Only races that give up, build beacons, and wait for others to come to them are easy to find, and they're all extinct... -- The first US edition's cover art features "The Apprentice", Harnrigg, the first ordinary person in the decade of first contact to travel from the centaurs' home planet to spend time on Earth. Harnrigg insists on paying his way, which results in problems no personnel manager has ever had for the protagonist, who works for the department store that has hired Harnrigg for the PR without considering how to fit him into a proper job, or how to sort out the resulting issues when Harnrigg is shuffled from department to department. -- "Counter Security" Very Sector General flavour to this one, even though it's set in a gigantic department store rather than a hospital, and from the viewpoint of a night watchman rather than a physician. Like the Sector General stories, this features a set of possibly linked, ominous mysteries. Someone has been getting into the supposedly secure store after hours and leaving disturbingly mutilated dolls - always the same kind of damage, with more than a suggestion of racism. Odd petty thefts have also been happening, but from containers with apparently unbroken seals. See if you can solve the mystery before the watchman does. -- As a pacifist, White made a point of creating dramatic stories without making war seem glamorous; "Dogfight" takes a new tack in illustrating the inhumanity of war without White's usual use of medics as viewpoint characters. Thanks to the complexity of coordinating high-speed large-scale fights in space, both sides depend on AIs to determine their moves. The first strategic-planning computers focused on victory conditions without counting the human cost; only the latest generation has turned the tide of battle, its algorithms now adjusted to conserve lives where possible. It even suggested unusually creative and humane plans for dealing with enemy POWs (see THE ESCAPE ORBIT for White's novel-length treatment of that theme). Here the protagonist is an alien spy charged with uncovering the secret ingredient of the brilliance of Earth's best computer. He's got personal problems, since he's had to immerse himself in his spy role to the point of nearly forgetting which side he's on, and he has to help work against his own people while questioning whether they might be better off with an Earth victory. The computer of late has begun issuing odd orders. -- "In Loving Memory" takes the same "solution" to prejudice as did McCaffrey in the backstory of her Doona novels: reduce the physical differences between people, by surgery if necessary. On one level, the people of Kallec have to be evacuated since their planet's orbit will s

A collection of James White's Short Stories

A collection of James White's short stories all with either a leaning toward the medical science fiction for which he is so well known, or "monster" stories with a twist. Absolutely brilliant - My favourite piece was the story "Second Ending" a post holocaust story based on the life of the last man on earth, who awakes from cryogenic suspension in a hospital deep beneath the earth. Reading Second Ending is worth the purchase of this book, but the other stories are also some of White's better writing.