Final Diagnosis: A Sector General Novel

Let me just say that I've never read a James White novel before, so I've never been introduced to the Sector General series before I picked this book up at a 2nd hand book store. The synopsis sounded interesting enough, that being a giant ambulance spaceship capable of handling a HUGE spectrum of different aliens (from oxygen breathers, to chlorine breathers to hard radiation absorbers). Upon reading the book I was struck by how wild White's imagination can be when he describes (sometimes in detail and sometimes leaving it up to the reading to fathom) the sights, sounds, stenches, diets and thoughts of each alien being. Seeing the interaction between these aliens and the human characters is a refreshing bit of SF compared to the usual warring species presented in much of today's SF. This may be my first Sector General book, but it certainly won't be my last!

I have not read the rest of James White's Sector General series but I now eagerly anticipate reading them. The humor and mystery of the book were only equalled by White's talent for describing enthralling alien characters. He paints a picture of the future with a different slant than any I have read thus far, an uplifting look at human/life ironies told from a sympathetic point of view, like a Norman Rockwell doctor who routinely treats nitrogen-breathing slime creatures from a planet with five times our gravity!

*Final Diagnosis* refers back to *Star Surgeon*, which pleased me because that the first Sector General book I ever read [in 1967 or 1968, when paperbacks were only 50 cents]. If you've read that earlier book you'll enjoy reading how things turned out, and you should enjoy the book even if you haven't. Although, as another reviewer mentioned, it's easy to figure out most of what's going on (once Hewlitt remembers his kitten's accident, the incident with Morredeth is inevitable, etc.), that doesn't matter much. Never mind the "mystery", the book is worth reading for the characters alone. I only wish, for new readers' sake, that series remained in print as long now as they did when I was a girl. The internet makes it easier to find out-of-print books than it used to be, but that's no substitute for being able to order all the earlier books from the publisher. Ann E. Nichols

As a long time reader of White's Sector General novels i was definitly not disappointed with his newest. I really enjoyed Patient Hewlett's attempts to get over his xenophobia. No one writes aliens like White. You really want to meet these creatures by the end of his books. His plots are always wonderfully off kilter. It is good old fashioned science fiction in the best sense of the word. You can read them out of order but to get the full effect try to find the earlier books as well.

A different look at both medicine and culture, and how the two interact, with both interesting charaters and believable situations involing both medicine, patient's rights and how de-humanizing medicine can be "for our own good", and madding when doctors try to make our decisions for us, Petient Hewlitt must fight those who view him as a mential case looking for attention. This is a field seldom looked into in Science Fiction, where it is assumed the future will hold no illness, and everthing can be cured.