Senior Physician Conway is giving a bunch of trainees a tour of Sector General, a vast hospital in space, when he encounters his friend, the empathic and physically delicate Doctor Prilicla. Prilicla is acting oddly and encourages Conway to seek out Chief Psychologist O'Mara, who tells him the big news: Prilicla has been promoted to take over Conway's position as head of the ambulance ship Rhabwar, while Conway is being given the opportunity to try for Diagnostician. First, though, Conway is being sent away to the planet Goglesk to rest, think about his options, and observe the situation on Goglesk.

The Gogleskans are friendly but deeply afraid of physical contact, to the point where even doctors must avoid touching patients. Conway tries to figure out what's going on and what he might be able to do to help, but eventually has to go back to Sector General, where he is assigned many more cases, some of which look hopeless, than he's used to dealing with at once. He's sent to work in the Hudlar geriatric ward, and put in charge of a pregnant Protector (a mindlessly violent creature that must constantly be beaten in order to remain healthy, whose fetus is sentient and telepathic until the moment of its birth). He's also put in charge of several Hudlar patients injured in a horrific accident.

I had meant to read a new-to-me Sector General book but realized after a few pages that this was in the Alien Emergencies omnibus I read (and reviewed) several years ago. Still, I couldn't remember the details very well, so I decided to continue on.

As I said in my first review of this book, I liked that readers got to see Conway doing more than just working. Although, granted, even his rest periods tended to count as work - it's not uncommon for Sector General folks to talk shop during meals. At this point in the series, Conway and Murchison were married, so one of the things that frequently came up was the effect all those Educator tapes had on Conway's ability to interact with (and be attracted to, and have sex with) Murchison. I had forgotten how often sexual attraction was brought up in this book - I understood Conway's concern, and it made sense that his fellow Diagnosticians would want to give him advice and a sympathetic ear, but I still found the Diagnostician discussions about hot female Sector General employees to be irksome.

As much as I enjoy this series overall, its handling of female characters is terrible and very dated. Readers are told that Murchison is the second most knowledgeable pathologist at Sector General, and yet because she's a woman, she isn't allowed to take any Educator tapes, one of the most vital and helpful tools at Sector General. The argument (paraphrased) is that female minds would not be able to withstand sharing space with Educator tapes from donors that didn't share their same sexual interests. Never mind that Conway found himself attracted to a Hudlar female many times his own size and managed to adjust to that. And never mind that several of the aliens in the Sector General series don't have binary genders and therefore wouldn't be contributing Educator tapes based on male donors. Also, why not just have some of the Educator tape donors be female?

Anyway, back to the story. One of the other things I forgot about this book was that the Gogleskans would not be the primary focus. Just as I was getting involved in their story and wondering how White was going to resolve it, Conway was sent back to Sector General. He never returned to Goglesk, although there were indications that Khone, the Gogleskan doctor he encountered there, might eventually come to visit him at Sector General (and might be female? in which case, the reasoning for not allowing women to take Educator tapes becomes even weaker considering the effects of Conway and Khone's telepathic contact).

A bit of quick googling indicates that, if I continue reading the Sector General series, I should eventually encounter Khone again. I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time I'm hoping White doesn't mess it up. The way I saw it, the Gogleskan "problem" was a form of species-wide crippling anxiety, and I've found White's handling of psychological issues to be pretty terrible.

The Hudlar geriatric ward, Protector maternity case, and the aftermath of that accident were all fascinating to read about, although, again, I could see some of White's biases on display in the way he wrote about male vs. female Hudlar reactions after surgery. Also, I found it interesting that, in the Diagnostician discussion about the Hudlar geriatric ward, surgical intervention that might lead to a longer but miserable life was viewed as "doing something" and therefore better, whereas forgoing surgery and making the patient comfortable in its last days was viewed as "doing nothing."

Despite my complaints, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. I love the premise of this series, and the various medical problems in this volume were interesting, despite my issues with some of White's biases.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I don't know if I realized this the first time I read this book, but the Gogleskans are basically a group of aliens that are all affected by their own version of crippling anxiety. They have defense mechanisms that evolved to protect them from predators that probably died out generations ago. Unfortunately, those defense mechanisms are still very much active, highly sensitive, and actively bad for Gogleskan daily life.*

I can't remember how White resolved this portion of the book. Although I usually enjoy the medical aspects of his Sector General books, I recall his treatment of psychological issues generally being awful.

* Side note: I don't know that White thought this through very well. Yes, in their terror Gogleskans regularly smash to pieces anything they manage to build or create and then are forced to start all over. They can't touch each other or get too close to each other without risking activating their defense mechanisms. But if that's all the case, you'd think they'd rely heavily on written communication and documentation. I could imagine Gogleskans who are good at building houses writing tips for Gogleskans who aren't and leaving them in an area where they could be found and used, for example. Cooperation should still be possible, even if physical contact isn't.

I decided that I needed something familiar, but not necessarily a comfort read. I decided that a Sector General novel would be perfect. It turns out that I've actually read this particular one before - it was part of an omnibus volume - but whatever, I'll keep going. I don't remember a lot from my first reading.

The primary force behind the organizational formation of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination himself came from a denomination that resisted organization, but today’s Seventh-day Adventist church has his fingerprints even today.  James White: Innovator and Overcomer by Gerald Wheeler, examines the life and times of one of the three main founders of the church whose drive was both a blessing and a curse.

Beginning and ending this biography at the funeral of James White, Wheeler highlights an important theme throughout White’s life, his seemingly paradoxical personality that drove him to everything he could for the church he helped to found but that could also cause friction with others from coworkers, friends, and family.  Wheeler then shifts to White’s early life in Maine, a tough place that made tough people who endured the harsh climate of the area.  Though encouraged to just become a farmer though he yearned for education, White became convinced the message of William Miller and soon felt the call to preacher the 1844 message while becoming accredited with the Christian Connection, whose views would influence him for years and decades to come.  After the Great Disappointment, White was among those who believed something occurred on October 22 but shied away from the fanaticism of others through he was drawn to the encouraging visions of Ellen Harmon and began escorting her to various groups of Millerites before social conventions led the two to wed.  The couple along with others, most notably Joseph Bates and Hiram Edson, began development the theological underpinnings of the future Seventh-day Adventist church and Ellen’s encouragement lead to White beginning ‘Review and Herald’ which would eventually place White at the forefront of the movement and eventually the main proponent of organization for almost a decade before it became a reality.  Once organized, White wanted others to lead the church with him—famously refusing to become the denomination’s first president—but given his drive for its creation and want of its success he wasn’t the easiest to work with and would butt heads with many in the final 20 years of his life that grew worse as his many strokes would magnify his personality’s positive and negative traits.  Throughout his endeavors with the church, Wheeler described White’s personally frugal nature that would make him squeeze out all he could with his money for himself and his family while at the same time being generous to less fortunate believes and church institutions.  Though busy running two to three periodicals and a newly formed church, White was a business man and real estate investor so as to provide himself and family economic security but this led to accusations that he enriched himself with church funds that dogged him even after his passing.

In almost 250 pages of text and references, Wheeler provided an eye-opening look into the life of James White through the use of White’s own autobiography but also letters written by himself and others as well as other sources from individuals who knew him throughout his life.  Wheeler fleshes out James White into a real person that like us today had strengths and flaws that he used and dealt with his entire life while getting closer and closer to Christ, something every Adventist—or any Christian—should identify with today.  Though information and use of primary sources is excellent, the structure Wheeler used in the book was sometimes questionable.  While the not so strictly chronological layout of the chapters was fine, some of the content of the chapters resulted in several short chapters that could have been merged into other chapters to make the book flow better to the reader.

James White: Innovator and Overcomer is a very good book for those Adventists looking to learn about one of the three founders of the church.  Gerald Wheeler helps take White from being a picture on the wall, or book cover, and make him flesh-and-bone man who struggled just like us today with strengths and flaws.  I highly recommend this for those interested in SDA church history.

This one has a few card possibilities, and I've read enough of James White's books that I figured this would be at least an okay read. But so far I've only read his Sector General books, which only include one named definitely-female recurring character, and even in those books it was clear that White has issues with writing women.

This is my first non-Sector General book by him, and four pages in there have been two women. One's a mother who is shapely and pretty (the main character is entranced), and one's wearing an outfit with a description that confuses me but that definitely boils down to "she's wearing practically nothing."

I'm not sure I'm in the mood to tackle this right now, so I might switch to something else. And I need to remember to read the first few pages of whatever replacement options I look at, even if they're by authors I've read before...