Diagnosis: Terminal [Mass Market Paperback]

F. Paul Wilson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 1997

From alternative medicine to murder, F.Paul Wilson's Diagnosis: Terminal reveals terrors surgical, psychological, and institutional. In stark, operating-room light these fourteen writers take scalpel and pen to the body and soul of humanity as it lies stretched out on the stainless-steel page. Rendered in laser-sharp detail, these incisive narrative reveal our needs, our hurts, our desires, and our fears.

This unsettling anthology submerges us in the near-witchcraft methods of a nineteenth abortionist and awes us with a post-apocalypse future where autistic mutants telepathically remove pain. But more than anything, it gives us frightening real glimpses of ourselves and a nightmarish medical future that may be here in five minutes--if it's not already.

Featuring stories by F. Paul Wilson, Bill Pronzini, Chet Williamson, Matthew Costello, Billie Sue Mosiman, Steve Spruill, Richard Lee Byers, Thomas F. Monteleone, Tina L.Jens, Ridley Pearson, Jack Nimersheim, Brunch H. Rogers, Ed Gorman, and Karl Edward Wagner.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only two of the 14 authors tapped for this entertaining anthology of medical horror stories are celebrated in that subgenre: Stephen Spruill (Painkiller) and editor Wilson (Implant). The others are newer writers, those renowned in other regions of horror (Chet Williamson; Thomas F. Monteleone; Ed Gorman) or visitors from altogether different genres (Bill Pronzini; Ridley Pearson). So if there's less experimental writing here than in many contemporary horror anthologies, there's plenty of spark, with each author adapting his or her own specialty to medical horror, and only a whiff or two of the patterns established by the king of stethoscope shock, Robin Cook. Pronzini kicks off the collection with a moody evocation of a moralistic madwoman in the last century ("Angel of Mercy"). Williamson contributes a sardonic yarn ("Dr. Joe") about a venal physician who gets involved in an insurance scam, while Pearson digs into his bag of crime-novelist tricks to create a gripping thriller novella about medical vengeance ("All Over But the Dying"). In the clever "Petit Mal," high-tech SF writer Jack Nimersheim imagines programmable biological devices attacking their creator. Elsewhere, Bruce Holland Rogers's "Wind Over Heaven" tells the pleasantly macabre story of a restaurant owner who gets caught up in the world of alternative medicine. With all due respect to the diagnostic abilities of Wilson, who is a physician, the title of this book should be: Diagnosis: Robust.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA. This collection of short stories deals with fictionalized medical terror. The anthology spans many time periods?from Civil War days to the future where mutated creatures are used to absorb human pain?and locations from hospitals to cruise ships. Each story is brief, intense, and written by a prominent author. Though this book will appeal to a limited audience, that audience will love it to death.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (December 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812550889
• ISBN-13: 978-0812550887
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #941,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born toward the end of the Jurassic Period and raised in New Jersey where I misspent my youth playing with matches, poring over Uncle Scrooge and E.C. comics, reading Lovecraft, Matheson, Bradbury, and Heinlein, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed, and watching Soupy Sales and horror movies. I sold my first story in the Cretaceous Period and have been writing ever since. (Even that dinosaur-killer asteroid couldn't stop me.)

I've written in just about every genre - science fiction, fantasy, horror, a children's Christmas book (with a monster, of course), medical thrillers, political thrillers, even a religious thriller (long before that DaVinci thing). So far I've got about 33 books and 100 or so short stories under my name in 24 languages.

THE KEEP, THE TOMB, HARBINGERS, and BY THE SWORD all appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers List. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS won the first Prometheus Award in 1979; THE TOMB received the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. My novelette "Aftershock" received the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction. DYDEETOWN WORLD was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others (God knows why). I received the prestigious Inkpot Award from San Diego ComiCon and the Pioneer Award from the RT Booklovers Convention. I'm listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America. (That plus $3 will buy you a girly coffee at Starbuck's.)

My novel THE KEEP was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie (screenplay and direction by Michael Mann) from Paramount in 1983. My original teleplay "Glim-Glim" first aired on Monsters. An adaptation of my short story "Menage a Trois" was part of the pilot for The Hunger series that debuted on Showtime in July 1997.

And then there's the epic saga of the Repairman Jack film. After 14 years in development hell with half a dozen writers and at least a dozen scripts, THE TOMB is finally moving toward production as "Repairman Jack" from Beacon Films and Touchstone. The plan is to make Jack a franchise character. (Gotta tell you: all the years of this has worn me out.)

I've done a few collaborations too. One with Steve Spruill on NIGHTKILL, and a bunch with Matthew J. Costello. Matt and I did world design, characters, and story arcs for Sci-Fi Channel's FTL NewsFeed, a daily newscast set 150 years in the future. An FTL NewsFeed was the first program broadcast by the new channel when it launched in September 1992. We took over scripting the Newsfeeds (the equivalent of a 4-1/2 hour movie per year) in 1994 and continued until its cancellation in December 1996.

We did script and design for MATHQUEST WITH ALADDIN (Disney Interactive - 1997) with voices by Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters, and the same for The Interactive DARK HALF for Orion Pictures, based on the Stephen King novel, but this project was orphaned when MGM bought Orion. (It's officially vaporware now.) We even wrote a stageplay, "Syzygy," which opened in St. Augustine, Florida, in March, 2000.

I'm tired of talking about myself, so I'll close by saying that I live and work at the Jersey Shore where I'm usually pounding away on a new Repairman Jack novel and haunting eBay for strange clocks and Daddy Warbucks memorabilia. (No, we don't have a cat.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful, January 22, 2012

By 

Bette B. Prater "retired & loven it" (okc,ok,usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Diagnosis: Terminal an Anthology of Medical Terror (Hardcover)

14 stories.

14 writers.

PRONZINI
WILLIAMSON
COSTELLO
MOSIMAN
SPRUILL
BYERS
MONTELEONE
JENS
PEARSON
NIMERSHIEM
ROGERS
WILSON
GORMAN
WAGNER

The year 1996.

Each and every
story is great.

No slackers in
this book.

A must read.
***** 5 stars.

I could not pick
a favorite if I
had too....
well--maybe
SURVIVAL by
ED GORMAN.

bbp okc 62