smkingsland's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
truekatya's review against another edition
adventurous
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
cathepsut's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Medical science fiction. A massive hospital in space, catering to a multitude of aliens with different needs.
“Each section has a different atmosphere and habitat to cater for the many different species... how to design a spacesuit for a surgeon with eight legs?“
A bit very dated and conservative in terms of gender roles. Human characters are male, all aliens are „it“. Eventually a female nurse is mentioned and pursued by the MC in the off. Bizarrely she is not really considered a person nor a member of the staff. Very odd. It made me wonder about the personal life of the author, it feels very immature. Or just very, very old-fashioned, even for the early sixties. If you can get past that, this is an entertaining enough read.
Conway, the MC of all but the first story, is a doctor on the station. He generally does not show a lot of respect or trust for his fellow humans and alien colleagues, does not communicate well with others and is pretty worried about his own career and sense of importance. Not a very likable fellow.
The lack of communication and withholding of information feels like a gadget to increase suspense. Something seen a lot in contemporary romcoms, where I also don‘t like it. There is also quite a bit of information sharing happening in the off, leaving the reader in the dark. Not very satisfying.
I read somewhere that the author was a pretty influential figure in SF in his time, although he did not win any major awards, as far as I can tell. There is definitely a Hard SF vibe going on. It shows in the different habitats he describes in his hospital. The whole thing is a little dry though. I had hoped for more emotions and drama, more ER and House, M.D. in Space… there is plenty of action with all kinds of odd aliens, but it all remains a little one-dimensional.
Read as part of the omnibus Beginning Operations. The individual parts seem to be collections of novellas and shorter works, that were bundled into books eventually. I am pretty sure that I will continue with the omnibus, as I am interested to see how the author and his style will develop.
“Each section has a different atmosphere and habitat to cater for the many different species... how to design a spacesuit for a surgeon with eight legs?“
A bit very dated and conservative in terms of gender roles. Human characters are male, all aliens are „it“. Eventually a female nurse is mentioned and pursued by the MC in the off. Bizarrely she is not really considered a person nor a member of the staff. Very odd. It made me wonder about the personal life of the author, it feels very immature. Or just very, very old-fashioned, even for the early sixties. If you can get past that, this is an entertaining enough read.
Conway, the MC of all but the first story, is a doctor on the station. He generally does not show a lot of respect or trust for his fellow humans and alien colleagues, does not communicate well with others and is pretty worried about his own career and sense of importance. Not a very likable fellow.
The lack of communication and withholding of information feels like a gadget to increase suspense. Something seen a lot in contemporary romcoms, where I also don‘t like it. There is also quite a bit of information sharing happening in the off, leaving the reader in the dark. Not very satisfying.
I read somewhere that the author was a pretty influential figure in SF in his time, although he did not win any major awards, as far as I can tell. There is definitely a Hard SF vibe going on. It shows in the different habitats he describes in his hospital. The whole thing is a little dry though. I had hoped for more emotions and drama, more ER and House, M.D. in Space… there is plenty of action with all kinds of odd aliens, but it all remains a little one-dimensional.
Read as part of the omnibus Beginning Operations. The individual parts seem to be collections of novellas and shorter works, that were bundled into books eventually. I am pretty sure that I will continue with the omnibus, as I am interested to see how the author and his style will develop.
gerd_d's review
4.0
I enjoyed reading Hospital Station a lot, even though it's a very classic (as in dated) approach to SF and quite some of the tech involved is iffy to say the least, but thanks to the fact that it is never explained in overly much detail this doesn't harm the stories much. What did hurt them for me, is the fact that women play practically no role at all in White’s setting and only appear mentioned as nurses in the stories, which seems even for the time when it was written (in '63) unusual conservative. Here White's writing reminds me of reading Bertram A. Chandler's Grimes series or of watching old Star Trek episodes, although White feels at times more modern in his approach than the mentioned.
Still, in spite of these short-comings the short stories included did make for a fast and highly entertaining read.
Still, in spite of these short-comings the short stories included did make for a fast and highly entertaining read.
smcleish's review
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in April 2002.
This is the earliest of White's long running Sector General series about a hospital in space and, though billed by Del Rey as a Sector General novel, it is in reality a collection of closely linked novelettes with a more distantly related prologue. This is set during the construction of the hospital, designed to serve as the principal medical research centre in galactic Sector Twelve, home to many alien races each with their own peculiarities, psychological as well as physiological. It is a particularly unlikely story, even by the standards of the series, as a massively intelligent member of the construction crew has to take care of a juvenile alien with no training and virtually no information - surely a big building site would have a better set of medical procedures.
More general problems are caused by the vast disparity between the alien races depicted by White. This surely makes it prohibitively difficult to train doctors to treat across species, and also makes the research benefit low, which means that the massively expensive hospital has little rationale. The different environments needed by the patients are not very sensibly constructed, which makes dramatic leakages of (say) chlorine into oxygen breather's wards a staple of the series, but would never get past even a cursory health and safety inspection. The hospital is in outer space - why not make the different environments self contained modules with no physical connection at all?
The rest of the stories feature Dr Conway, who would remain the central character of the whole series. He is really a latter day Dr Kildare, given to flashes of brilliance which he is hardly ever able to share with others, afraid that his revolutionary ideas which end up saving the day would be misunderstood by other, more senior medics. He is less interesting than O'Mara, who is the main character in the first story but is likeable enough.
The whole series is a light hospital drama set in space, and any fans of (say) ER who like science fiction should find much to enjoy in any of White's books. To general science fiction fans, the main interest is likely to be the details of the alien beings portrayed in the stories, which are more detailed and varied than would usually be the case. This particular edition of Hospital Station suffers from poor proof reading, a common but still annoying problem in genre fiction.
This is the earliest of White's long running Sector General series about a hospital in space and, though billed by Del Rey as a Sector General novel, it is in reality a collection of closely linked novelettes with a more distantly related prologue. This is set during the construction of the hospital, designed to serve as the principal medical research centre in galactic Sector Twelve, home to many alien races each with their own peculiarities, psychological as well as physiological. It is a particularly unlikely story, even by the standards of the series, as a massively intelligent member of the construction crew has to take care of a juvenile alien with no training and virtually no information - surely a big building site would have a better set of medical procedures.
More general problems are caused by the vast disparity between the alien races depicted by White. This surely makes it prohibitively difficult to train doctors to treat across species, and also makes the research benefit low, which means that the massively expensive hospital has little rationale. The different environments needed by the patients are not very sensibly constructed, which makes dramatic leakages of (say) chlorine into oxygen breather's wards a staple of the series, but would never get past even a cursory health and safety inspection. The hospital is in outer space - why not make the different environments self contained modules with no physical connection at all?
The rest of the stories feature Dr Conway, who would remain the central character of the whole series. He is really a latter day Dr Kildare, given to flashes of brilliance which he is hardly ever able to share with others, afraid that his revolutionary ideas which end up saving the day would be misunderstood by other, more senior medics. He is less interesting than O'Mara, who is the main character in the first story but is likeable enough.
The whole series is a light hospital drama set in space, and any fans of (say) ER who like science fiction should find much to enjoy in any of White's books. To general science fiction fans, the main interest is likely to be the details of the alien beings portrayed in the stories, which are more detailed and varied than would usually be the case. This particular edition of Hospital Station suffers from poor proof reading, a common but still annoying problem in genre fiction.
mr_d8a's review
challenging
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Great read. Nice to have a story that doesn't have a bad guy, but a mysterious twist.
expendablemudge's review
4.0
This book's 1960s roots are showing. Since those roots are also my roots, I am thoroughly in sync with the ideology on display; the read itself probably only merits three stars because less a novel than a fix-up seldom rates high on my personal literary scale. So the remaining star is awarded for nostalgia and wistful pleasure.
I'm not going to encourage modern readers to shed their addiction to billion-page nonillionologies like that stupid one just finished up on TV to grab this modestly sized midlist marvy from a half-century ago. I'll merely comment that, should y'all come up for air and need something less grimdark and cynical, this could cleanse y'all's mental palates.
I'm not going to encourage modern readers to shed their addiction to billion-page nonillionologies like that stupid one just finished up on TV to grab this modestly sized midlist marvy from a half-century ago. I'll merely comment that, should y'all come up for air and need something less grimdark and cynical, this could cleanse y'all's mental palates.
kamreadsandrecs's review
4.0
I have not been into medical fiction - not in a long, long, long time, at any rate. The first time I attempted to read medical fiction, I'd grabbed the first Robin Cook novel I laid eyes on, and after three chapters I gave up on it. It could simply have been that I picked the wrong book, or that I picked the wrong author, but it kind of turned me off of medical-related fiction for a good long while. To be fair, it might have just been because I was twelve or thirteen at the time, and hence really not all that appreciative of medical fiction in the first place - despite a (slowly-fading) desire to be a doctor at the time.
Recently, though, I discovered James White's Sector General series, mostly because I stumbled on the short story collection Hospital Station. I'd just gotten back into old-school sci-fi thanks to reading Ender's Game, so I was already on the lookout for relatively similar material, and also the idea behind the series intrigued me: a giant space hospital staffed by a wide (and I do mean wide) variety of doctors and other medical staff, who service an equally wide variety of patients.
Hospital Station isn't precisely a novel: in fact, it's a collection of five short stories set in the Sector General world, which White published in New Worlds magazine. It might seem odd to start a series with a collection of short stories, but I think there could be no better way to do it - or at least in the case of the Sector General series, White uses the short story form to great advantage to introduce his world to the reader without dumping too much information on the reader's head. There is so much to learn, after all, about how the world of Sector General works, that a novel that explains the whole thing might get bogged down in too many explanations. A handful of short stories offering insight into the inner workings of this new world seems a lot more comfortable to the reader than one whole novel.
And a fine, intriguing introduction it is. The sheer variety of doctors, patients, and corresponding habits and habitats is so wide and interesting that the reader just wants to keep on going, if only to find out what sort of "strange beastie" (to quote Major O'Mara, a crucial character in the series) will come through the hospital's space locks next, and how the doctors of Sector General will respond. Although the hospital's population of both doctors and patients covers a wide range of species, entirely new species will often come through the locks looking for medical help, and then the doctors have to go in blind, trying to figure out how to help a species they know nothing about.
Another hallmark of this book (and of the rest of the series, apparently) is the deep dedication to pacifism that many of the characters adhere to. Many real-life doctors are opposed to the idea of war on principle, but it's how Sector General seems willing to open its locks to absolutely anyone that really fascinates me. As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter to the doctors of Sector General what species the patient is; what matters more to them is saving the patient's life.
The main character for most of the stories except for "Medic" (which is headlined by O'Mara) is Dr. Conway, who is interesting for his ability to think quickly in many tight situations. My main problem with him, though, is that I think his leaps of logic are simply too large, and there are no proper explanations made for why he makes the conclusions that he arrives at. This could be a problem of the copy I'm reading, or it could be my lack of medical knowledge - though the latter really shouldn't be a problem, since most good sci-fi will explain things enough that the whole thing is comprehensible enough for someone who has even a basic understanding of the concept being used.
At this stage, my favorite character, hands-down, has to be O'Mara. He reminds me so much of Bones from Star Trek it makes me giggle sometimes. He's Chief Psychologist at Sector General, and is known for his blunt, abrasive, and supremely sarcastic manner when dealing with the people under his charge (meaning, the hospital's entire staff). He claims his primary job is "to shrink heads, not expand them," and the rest of the staff liken him to "a modern-day Torquemada" (or at least those races that have an equivalent for Torquemada do so), but I think that's hardly complimentary, given who Torquemada was and what his role was in the creation and implementation of the Inquisition. Then again, those likening him to Torquemada probably weren't being complimentary.
All in all, this is an incredibly promising intro to a new series. I'm about to start on the second book (and first novel), Star Surgeon, and already I'm looking forward to how Dr. Conway, Major O'Mara and the rest of the people at Sector General handle the cases headed their way. Hopefully the experience will be just as much fun as this first one.
Recently, though, I discovered James White's Sector General series, mostly because I stumbled on the short story collection Hospital Station. I'd just gotten back into old-school sci-fi thanks to reading Ender's Game, so I was already on the lookout for relatively similar material, and also the idea behind the series intrigued me: a giant space hospital staffed by a wide (and I do mean wide) variety of doctors and other medical staff, who service an equally wide variety of patients.
Hospital Station isn't precisely a novel: in fact, it's a collection of five short stories set in the Sector General world, which White published in New Worlds magazine. It might seem odd to start a series with a collection of short stories, but I think there could be no better way to do it - or at least in the case of the Sector General series, White uses the short story form to great advantage to introduce his world to the reader without dumping too much information on the reader's head. There is so much to learn, after all, about how the world of Sector General works, that a novel that explains the whole thing might get bogged down in too many explanations. A handful of short stories offering insight into the inner workings of this new world seems a lot more comfortable to the reader than one whole novel.
And a fine, intriguing introduction it is. The sheer variety of doctors, patients, and corresponding habits and habitats is so wide and interesting that the reader just wants to keep on going, if only to find out what sort of "strange beastie" (to quote Major O'Mara, a crucial character in the series) will come through the hospital's space locks next, and how the doctors of Sector General will respond. Although the hospital's population of both doctors and patients covers a wide range of species, entirely new species will often come through the locks looking for medical help, and then the doctors have to go in blind, trying to figure out how to help a species they know nothing about.
Another hallmark of this book (and of the rest of the series, apparently) is the deep dedication to pacifism that many of the characters adhere to. Many real-life doctors are opposed to the idea of war on principle, but it's how Sector General seems willing to open its locks to absolutely anyone that really fascinates me. As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter to the doctors of Sector General what species the patient is; what matters more to them is saving the patient's life.
The main character for most of the stories except for "Medic" (which is headlined by O'Mara) is Dr. Conway, who is interesting for his ability to think quickly in many tight situations. My main problem with him, though, is that I think his leaps of logic are simply too large, and there are no proper explanations made for why he makes the conclusions that he arrives at. This could be a problem of the copy I'm reading, or it could be my lack of medical knowledge - though the latter really shouldn't be a problem, since most good sci-fi will explain things enough that the whole thing is comprehensible enough for someone who has even a basic understanding of the concept being used.
At this stage, my favorite character, hands-down, has to be O'Mara. He reminds me so much of Bones from Star Trek it makes me giggle sometimes. He's Chief Psychologist at Sector General, and is known for his blunt, abrasive, and supremely sarcastic manner when dealing with the people under his charge (meaning, the hospital's entire staff). He claims his primary job is "to shrink heads, not expand them," and the rest of the staff liken him to "a modern-day Torquemada" (or at least those races that have an equivalent for Torquemada do so), but I think that's hardly complimentary, given who Torquemada was and what his role was in the creation and implementation of the Inquisition. Then again, those likening him to Torquemada probably weren't being complimentary.
All in all, this is an incredibly promising intro to a new series. I'm about to start on the second book (and first novel), Star Surgeon, and already I'm looking forward to how Dr. Conway, Major O'Mara and the rest of the people at Sector General handle the cases headed their way. Hopefully the experience will be just as much fun as this first one.
lordofthemoon's review
4.0
This is the first in White's Sector General series about a giant multi-species hospital in space following Dr Conway from his first entry into the hospital as an intern to his rise to become a Senior Physician. While some of the medical ideas may be outdated and somewhat quaint to our eyes, the idea of a medical mystery story (or rather, stories, since this is a collection of linked stories set in the SG universe) appeals to me and works quite well.
The first story in the book is somewhat of a prequel, showing the past of the hospital's chief psychologist, Major O'Mara and his role in its construction, while the last is probably the weakest, with Conway acting in ways that seem awfully bizarre and irrational from the outside -- even once you understand what he's doing, it still doesn't make sense.
Overall, it's an enjoyable space opera set in a distinctly unusual environment (which was, I understand, the intention: to be an antidote to the warmongering SF that was prevalent at the time and in that it has succeeded.
The first story in the book is somewhat of a prequel, showing the past of the hospital's chief psychologist, Major O'Mara and his role in its construction, while the last is probably the weakest, with Conway acting in ways that seem awfully bizarre and irrational from the outside -- even once you understand what he's doing, it still doesn't make sense.
Overall, it's an enjoyable space opera set in a distinctly unusual environment (which was, I understand, the intention: to be an antidote to the warmongering SF that was prevalent at the time and in that it has succeeded.
myxomycetes's review
3.0
Interesting collection of short stories about doctors onboard a galactic hospital and how they deal with various medical emergencies. Different than a lot of other SF from the 1950s in that White is a dedicated pacifist, but not so different enough that includes any character with a non-Anglo name or a woman who he doesn't then go on to describe as "curvy".
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