Customer Reviews

Monsters and Medics

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

"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 send it into its star within a few decades, but in the process they're being subtly "re-educated" and molded to make them easier for Earth culture to absorb. To his credit, the protagonist questions the wisdom of this, and married one of the last Kallec holdouts who refused physical modification, but he persists in trying to persuade her to change.

--

"Nuisance Value" is set on a future Earth resembling that of THE DREAM MILLENIUM, in which violence and lawlessness escalated to the point that citizens could be attacked openly, with the exception of certain "sheep" professions among the wolves, such as medics. In this variation civilization collapsed completely some decades ago, taking with it space travel, and humanity is just now recovering. But Barclay hasn't forgotten space; his spacefaring father disappeared before the collapse, and Barclay has never given up harassing the powers-that-be to give him the real story. Finally Barclay will have a chance to see whether being a nuisance can pay off, when he's the only person who kept copies of certain records...

--

"Second Ending", taking up just under half the book, made the short list of contenders for the 1963 Hugo, losing to Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. This story began with two of White's friends, when one asserted that the upbeat White couldn't produce a Last Man on Earth story. (The other is the friend to whom the book is dedicated.) Naturally, White rose to the challenge. For one thing, how can an author convey exposition using so few characters?

So we have Ross, a young medical student who was placed in suspended animation to await a cure after being diagnosed with a rare condition - because in a world in which nuclear war has left few of the survivors capable of having children, human life is rare and precious. Upon awakening, Ross isn't greeted by helpful physiotherapists, though. Even the Ward Sister seems to be too busy to keep him company...