Double Contact: A Sector General Novel

Sadly, this is the last Sector General story, published posthumously.After _Star Healer_, White never again used Conway as the viewpoint character. This story is from the viewpoint of his old friend Prilicla, the spider-like empath, who like Conway has been groomed for years (without his knowledge) for eventual Diagnostician status, if only he can overcome his empath's aversion to being assertive, with the subsequent risk of having unpleasant emotional radiation turned back on him. (In other stories Prilicla is referred to as a neuter "it", in keeping with polite cross-species standards, but from his own viewpoint he's referred to as "he".)After all these years, White still finds new things to tell us about Prilicla, especially from his point of view: the only member of his species at Sector General. For instance, we always knew that he was fragile, but did you know that he uses up so much energy that every few hours he *has* to sleep? (He'll pass out on duty otherwise, but everyone knows it so it doesn't happen.) His empathic talent is exceptionally strong even for his own people; and by his own standards, he thinks he's pretty well crazy, from a culture where cowardice is considered necessary for sanity. Mind you, he doesn't *care*; life on Cinruss was boring. :)Prilicla is still assigned to Rhabwar, having taken over when Conway was promoted, and due to the nature of interstellar travel, Rhabwar in its job of answering distress calls is the most frequent means of making first contact with newly encountered starfaring species. On the present occasion, Rhabwar will make not one, but two first contacts. The first such contact, with the Trolanni, involves a civilization from a world wherein the ecology has been damaged to the point that it no longer really supports life; the Trolanni blame another group on their planet, the druul, but that's only their side of the story. Unfortunately, to Trolanni eyes, while Prilicla isn't frightening, humans *are* - Trolanni think they look like druul.It should be said that while White's galactic civilization has a non-interference directive of sorts, it's tempered by intelligence and good sense. On several occasions, having discovered a culture that hasn't achieved starflight but is in severe distress, a planet has been declared a disaster area and relief has been sent, rather than letting people die needlessly. Granted, this has been known to go wrong, sometimes spectacularly (see _The Genocidal Healer_), but at least they err on the side of compassion.

If you are a fan of the Sector General series then you will welcome the latest addition. As usual it presents a first contact situation but this time with not one but two new races at the same time. Interestingly the story this time is told from the point of view of Dr Prilicla and offers some new insights into this character which has formerly offered support without taking the central role.

Another wonderful book from James White in his Sector General Series. Unfortunately,he passed away right after the book was written. The Sector General novels have been great fun to read, reminding me of the "old" sci-fi style of books. What made his book so interesting was the mix of aliens in his books and how they worked together in a medical setting to help other species. Some of his ideas were great! If you get a chance to read this book, I say start from the beginning of the series if you can get the books and enjoy yourself. This is his last book and I am sad to think another Sector General novel will not happen since he has passed away. Bless him!