#sector general

[humanoidhistory]

Cover art by Dean Ellis, 1971.

[greencheekconure27]

You know what I want?

I want a Project Hail Mary/ Sector General (James White) crossover.

[unidentifiedprimate]

I am BEGGING sci-fi and star trek fans to read James White's Sector General series.

It's about a hospital space station dedicated to treating any and all species in the universe.

The hospital has 384 levels. Each level devoted to medicine has a different environment for the patients - one level would be for oxygen breathers, another for water breathing aquatic species, another for chlorine breathers, and so on.

Doctors travel to all levels regardless of species. Chlorine-breathers use special protective equipment so they don't die in oxygen-rich areas, and vice versa.

Learning so much varying medical science about different species is hard, so when the need help, doctors can download "tapes" of a species' most prominent doctor. The tapes have all the doctor's knowledge, but they also come with all their memories and their personality. When a doctor has a tape onboard, they might feel the urge to eat things they can't, or move limbs they don't have. It can also affect their.... romantic activities.

Some of the plots include:

A chef trying to improve species-specific meals at the hospital. One aquatic species gets as much enjoyment from chasing and catching their food as they do from eating it. He has to deal with a species that is literally DYING because they refuse to eat vegetables. There is an incident with too much nutmeg. It's great.

A doctor makes a mistake that ends up nearly wiping out the entire species he was trying to save. How do you come back from that? How can he trust his judgement ever again?

An ambulance ship runs into a spacecraft that is spinning out of control. When they try to stabilize it, all the lifesigns on the ship go crazy. It turns out that the species NEEDS to spin in order to survive. The ship was their first attempt to travel through space.

There's a planet that's alive. But it's sick and dying. The doctors have to figure out how to save it, but the non-sentient creatures on the planet that work as its immune system keep attacking them. How do you communicate with a planet?

I'm not doing the plots justice with my descriptions. But the books are amazing! All the various species are so interesting. The medical mysteries are fascinating. The cultural clashes are alternately hilarious and tragic.

Please read the Sector General books! (and then talk to me about them!)

look at that beautifully ugly space hospital ❤️

[skiingcows]

Every time the Sector General series describes Kelgians as being "caterpillar-like" I just immediately picture a Wiggler for some fucking reason

Imagine waking up in a space hospital and your nurse is this fucking guy

[tigirl-and-co]

Oh! Your blog might have been where I first heard of the Sector General books. I just now read the first collection and enjoyed it immensely. I was not expecting to tear up reading the hovering dinosaur story.

omg yaayayayayayayayyyyy!!! I'm glad you're enjoying it, honestlyyyy they just keep getting better.

i love Conway bc he thinks he's the most normal guy ever and everybody has to be like

"sorry man you're actually our favourite freak"

[jmtorres]

cursing the fact that james white's sector general series (interspecies hospital in space) has not to my knowledge been recorded in audiobook form because i'm listening to elizabeth bear's white space books and the second, Machine, is about an ambulance crew for Core General, an interspecies hospital in space, and then one of the side characters was named OMara and I was like "okay this HAS to be intentional"

and I would love to do a side by side comparison bc to my recollection, in Sector General the humans are terribly unreconstructed but as long as they keep their bigotry to their own species it's whatever, whereas a significant worldbuilding point of Bear's white space universe is "rightminding," wherein human citizens of the Synarche neurochemically tune and bump away their atavistic and antisocial urges, and this was necessary to be part of interstellar society

[that-dinopunk-guy]

I got two more Barlowe covers.

I didn't even realize he'd done the cover on Major Operation, I'd just gotten it because it was part of a batch of James White novels that included Hospital Station, and I've also been collecting sci-fi paperbacks featured in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. (The picture of the set wasn't detailed enough for me to recognize his style.)

With these along with several other titles in that set I now have five of the Sector General books. I am now bound by Collector Law to track down the remaining seven.

Preferably with Barlowe covers if possible.

[theflyingpimphat]

Dr. Prilicla when someone is having negative emotions nearby: