Search Worlds Without End

In such books as Hospital Station and Star Surgeon, James White has built an enviable reputation as a writer of science fiction about the future of medical science and what it may be like to treat and care for a staggering variety of alien life-forms. He has an extraordinary talent for creating believable but utterly alien extra-terrestrials.

In ALL JUDGEMENT FLED, he considers the critically important 'first contact' between humans and others - and of how political expediency could make this a bloodbath for mankind.

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Stellar #2 (1976), edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey. The story can also be found in the anthologies Republic and Empire (1987) edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr and The Road to Science Fiction 5: The British Way (1998), edited by James Gunn. It is included in the collections Futures Past (1982) and The White Papers (1996).

JAMES WHITE has produced a long series of remarkable science fiction story over the years--notably the running of a fantastic space hospital geared for all kinds of extra-terrestrial beings.

In DEADLY LITTER, he turns his hand to the peculiar problems of man in space. Four ingenious tales explore some of the wild--and not so wild--possibilities; the pressures, dangers, boredom man will have to suffer, and the courage it will take to get homo sapiens to live in a totally hostile element.

Excitement, suspense and the thread of realistic humor hold together these four fast moving tales of the future.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Grapeliner - (1959) - novelette
• 47 - The Ideal Captain - (1958) - novella
• 97 - The Lights Outside the Windows - (1957) - novelette
• 129 - Deadly Litter - (1959) - novella

A CASE FOR SECTOR GENERAL

The big birdlike creature, found floating in the vastness of space by the Scoutship Torrance, was obviously sick.

A strand--and perhaps deadly--rash that covered its body may well have caused the creature's companions to abandon their helpless friend.

But the crew couldn't leave the beast to die. First they would have to find a way to tow it... and then the doctors and nurses at Sector General could find a cure!

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PLUS TEN MORE SUPER SCIENCE-FICTION STORIES
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Table of Contents:

• 1 - Spacebird - [Sector General] - (1973) - novelette
• 23 - Commuter - (1972) - short story
• 40 - Assisted Passage - [Allen - 1] - (1953) - novelette
• 59 - Curtain Call - (1954) - short story
• 68 - Boarding Party - (1955) - novelette
• 94 - Patrol - (1957) - novelette
• 120 - Fast Trip - (1963) - novelette
• 160 - Question of Cruelty - (1956) - novelette
• 173 - False Alarm - [Allen - 2] - (1957) - novelette
• 193 - Dynasty of One - (1955) - short story
• 199 - Outrider - [Allen] - (1955) - novelette

DISASTER!

The passengers were the usual varied lot, some nervous, some boisterous, some smart-aleck, some quiet.

The ship's Medical Officer was brand new and didn't anticipate having to do much more than take care of a few queasy stomachs and bruises among his charges--from learning how to handle weightlessness.

It was a routine trip.

And so was the safety drill.

Until the disaster call went out...

SECOND ENDING

A Complete Short Novel

Awakening from a deep sleep can be hell for anyone. Bur for a medical student who had been in suspended animation for more than two centuries, it was a particularly terrifying hell. For Ross suddenly was alive, aware and imprisoned five miles underground in a world he didn't know... and he was being prepared for a fate beyond his wildest dreams!

-- Plus --

COUNTER SECURITY

A locked-store thriller in which the only way to solve impossible crimes is with impossible solutions.

NUISANCE VALUE

A curious family affair where one man's obsession is another man's top secret.

DOGFIGHT

An inter-galactic war story in which man's worst enemies are the last to know the truth about their friends...

-- And lots more --

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: Reality in Science Fiction - (1977) - essay
• 9 - Second Ending - (1962) - novel
• 118 - Counter Security - (1963) - novelette
• 143 - Dogfight - (1959) - novelette
• 171 - Nuisance Value - (1975) - short story
• 195 - In Loving Memory - (1956) - short story
• 209 - The Apprentice - (1960) - novelette
• 245 - Answer Came There None - (1974) - short story

Five miles beneath the surface, Ross was awakened from the deep sleep of suspended animation to find himself in an empty world. There was no noise, no people, and no motion save for the steady activity of the hospital robots. What had happened to life? Was Ross the last human being in existence?

ON EARTH OR ON SECTOR GENERAL... THE ALIENS ARE HERE

*Star Surgeon Conway had to share his brain with an alien medic--and the alien was taking over.

*The Orligs were cute, cuddly teddy bears--and they wanted to to batter all humans to death.

*Colonel Dermod had to fight a war--but his troops were cowards, handpicked by the enemy.

*Humans hardly stood a chance in a telepathic cat-and-mouse game of sorts.

From Sector General, the incredible space hospital where strange and wonderful doctors and patients are drawn from all species, to the barren storm-tossed hills of Donegal--the aliens are coming!

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Countercharm - [Sector General] - (1960) - novelette
• 22 - To Kill or Cure - (1957) - novelette
• 52 - Red Alert - (1956) - novelette
• 82 - Tableau - [Sector General] - (1958) - novelette
• 109 - The Conspirators - (1954) - novelette
• 136 - The Scavengers - (1953) - novelette
• 160 - Occupation: Warrior - [Sector General] - (1959) - novella

Earth was a polluted, dying planet. Violence was rampant and civilizaton was doomed. If Man was to survive, John Devlin had to find him a new home somewhere in the galaxy. He had 1,000 years to look - and 1,000 years to dream. But all his dreams were nightmares...

A captured human officer leads his fellows in an escape from an alien-dominated prison planet.

WHEN IRISH SPIES AR SMILING

The kingdom of Hibernia had risen from its sleepy emerald isle to befriend the native Redmen of the West, and, with technology brought out of ancient Egyptian lands, had forged a mighty industrial empire. And after generations of development under the Pax Hibernia, the Empire was poised for human-kind's greatest adventure--settling a new world under a distant star.

Healer Nolan was a lone male in the traditionally female healing prfession and an unbeliever in the religion of the priest-kings of Hibernia. He had to be careful to avoid any trouble that could jeopardize his place among the crew of the starship Aisling Gheal. But the lowly Healer was unaware of hi part in a subtle struggle for control of the future colony... until he discovered evidence of a plot against the projectL a secret plan for the new world that did not include heretics like Nolan.

And as betrayal and deceit followed Nolan into the silent depths of space and on to the surface of a raw, untamed planet, he was challenged to become the one thing he had never even dreamed of--a hero.

In The Watch Below, two narrative lines dovetail cleverly. In one a World War Two merchant vessel sinks, leaving three men and two women to survive in a large air pocket, work out life-maintenance systems and eventually breed there Under the Sea while 100 years pass. In the other, water-dwelling Aliens, who have long been seeking a wet world like Earth to inhabit peacefully, land their Generation Starship in the sea in time to save the descendants of the five twentieth-century survivors.

Table of Contents:

• The White Papers - interior artwork by ATom
• The White Papers - interior artwork by Steve Stiles
• 13 - Introduction (The White Papers) - (1996) - essay by Mike Resnick
• 17 - James White - (1996) - essay by Walt Willis
• 23 - Custom Fitting - (1976) - novelette
• 43 - Commuter - (1972) - short story
• 59 - House Sitter - (1996) - novelette
• 79 - Sanctuary - (1988) - novelette
• 105 - Christmas Treason - (1962) - novelette
• 125 - The Secret History of Sector General - (1979) - essay
• 135 - Accident - [Sector General] - (1983) - novelette
• 161 - Medic - [Sector General] - (1960) - novelette (variant of O'Mara's Orphan)
• 191 - Countercharm - [Sector General] - (1960) - novelette
• 209 - Visitor at Large - [Sector General] - (1959) - novelette
• 243 - An Introduction to Real Virtuality - (1996) - essay by Bruce Pelz
• 247 - The Last Time I Saw Harris - (1996) - essay
• 251 - The Beacon - (1996) - essay
• 275 - The Not-So-Hot Gospeller - (1996) - essay
• 281 - The Long Afternoon of Harrogate - (1996) - essay
• 293 - The History of IF #3 - (1996) - essay
• 299 - The Qunize-y Report - (1996) - essay
• 323 - Fester on the Fringe - (1996) - essay
• 345 - The Exorcists of IF - (1976) - short story
• 353 - The Unreal George Affair - (1996) - essay
• 361 - Sector General Timeline - (1996) - essay by Gary Louie
• 365 - Notes on the Classification System - (1996) - essay
• 367 - The Classification System - (1996) - essay by Gary Louie

SECURITY RISK

Jim Carson was Security Chief at the Hart-Ewing plant--and he was very good at his job. That is, he accomplished what he had to unobtrusively. The nature of the job made Carson caution and meticulously thorough. What he brought to his profession was a most thoughtful sensitivity,

So when Carson became uneasy, he knew something was really wrong. And methodically, as usual, he started going over the multitude of details and impressions he had been picking up day-by-day for weeks.

He came up with a most astonishing result!

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, February 1996. There are no other known publications available at this time.

It began in a hospital -- the incredible trail of clues which lead to the discovery of the invasion of Earth...

UNDERKILL

Normally the socio-political problems of the outside world did not concern Dr. Malcoml and his wife, safely cocooned in their hospital work. But it was their misfortune to be on duty the night the three patients were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit... a small boy, a beautifyl girl, and an old man -- all clost to death, all victims of a diseased society.

UNDERKILL

Malcolm's investigations revealed a further link between the three -- one which involved the medics with an all-powerful police force and took them to the sub-surface city of Plessat... the centre of an extra-terrestrial conspiracy of super-elite beings dedicated to curing the terminal illness of the planet Earth...

Master of Life and Death

Global overcrowding, a new immortality serum and an unfriendly alien ambassador are only a few of the problems confronting Roy Walton, government's new Master of Life and Death in Robert Silverberg's early and accomplished novel. Praised by a distinguished critic, Anthony Boucher, for "its complete clarity and narrative drive" the novel retains its power today.

The Secret Visitors

When the World Security Organization asked Doctor Lockhart to treat their mysterious prisoner, they hadn't known that the dying old man would reply to their questions in a totally unknown language. They had expected the stranger to reveal something about the world war which seemed imminent. But they had been thinking in terms of foreign spies - not alien beings!

Now suddenly they found themselves confronted with a Gargantuan task. They had to find a way to another world, a means of communicating with creatures they could barely imagine.

They had to stop a war which was originating in the farthest stars - or else surrender the Earth unconditionally to THE SECRET VISITORS.

The Jewels of Aptor

When Argo, the White Goddess, orders it Geo, the itinerant poet, and his three disparate companions journey to the island of Aptor to seize a jewel from the dark god, Hama, and return it to Argo so that she may defeat the malign forces ranged against her and the land of Leptar

But, as the four push deep into the enigmatic heart of Aptor and the easy distinctions between good and evil start to blur, their mission no longer seems straightforward. For Argo already controls two of the precious stones and possession of the third would make her power absolute. And the four friends have learned that power tends to corrupt...

Second Ending

Five miles beneath the surface, Ross was awakened from the deep sleep of suspended animation to find himself in an empty world. There was no noise, no people, and no motion save for the steady activity of the hospital robots. What had happened to life? Was Ross the last human being in existence?

Hospital Station is a 1962 science fiction book by author James White and is the first volume in the Sector General series. The book collects together a series of five short stories previously published in New Worlds magazine between 1957 and 1960.

Contents:

• 7 - Medic - [Sector General] - (1960) - novelette (variant of O'Mara's Orphan)
• 41 - Sector General - [Sector General] - (1957) - novelette
• 85 - Trouble With Emily - [Sector General] - (1958) - novelette
• 114 - Visitor at Large - [Sector General] - (1959) - novelette
• 151 - Out-Patient - [Sector General] - (1960) - novella

This is the second installment of the Sector General series, about a huge multi-species hospital on the edges of the galaxy.

A "Fix-up" novel containing the introductory novelette Resident Physician and the novel length work, Field Hospital.

Sector General: A massive deep-space hospital station on the Galactic Rim, where human and alien medicine meet. Its 384 levels and thousands of staff members are supposedly able to meet the needs of any conceivable alien patient--though that capacity is always being strained as more (and stranger) alien races turn up to join the galactic community. Sentient viruses, interspecies romances, undreamed-of institutional catering problems--it all lands on Sector General's doorstep. And the only thing weirder than a hitherto unknown alien species is having a member of that species turn up in your Emergency Room.

Contents:

• 1 - Invader - [Sector General] - (1966) - novelette by James White
• 41 - Vertigo - [Sector General] - (1968) - novelette by James White
• 68 - Blood Brother - [Sector General] - (1969) - novelette by James White
• 103 - Meatball - [Sector General] - (1969) - novelette by James White
• 136 - Major Operation - [Sector General] - (1971) - novelette by James White

The medics were in worse danger than the victims they were trying so hard to save...

Contents:

• ix - The Secret History of Sector General - (1979) - essay by James White
• 1 - Contagion - [Sector General] - (1979) - novelette by James White
• 61 - Quarantine - [Sector General] - (1979) - novella by James White
• 121 - Recovery - [Sector General] - (1979) - novella by James White

Four tales of medical disaster and imaginative recovery.

Contents:

• 1 - Accident - [Sector General] - (1983) - novelette by James White
• 35 - Survivor - [Sector General] - (1983) - novelette by James White
• 71 - Investigation - [Sector General] - (1983) - novelette by James White
• 117 - Combined Operation - [Sector General] - (1983) - novella by James White

Conway is replaced on the ambulance ship Rhabwar by Diagnostician Prilicla. Conway visits healer Khone on the planet Goglesk, and witnesses first-hand their destructive racial mass-hysteria response to physical proximity. He inadvertently links minds with Khone and learns a great deal more. Back at Hospital Station, Conway decides to treat some Hudlar accident victims with a rear-to-front limb transplant, because stranger transplants require permanent exile. Conway also proposes staving off geriatric Hudlar problems by elective amputation. At the end, he successfully delivers a sentient telepathic Unborn (seen in the other novel of the series Ambulance Ship) from its violent non-sentient Protector.

Sector General Hospital was prepared for anything - except the alien standards of their newest trainee.

The protagonist of the story is Sommaradvan healer Cha Thrat. She bravely saved a human pilot who crashlanded on her planet, despite a complete lack of knowledge about his physiology. Contact with her species was established by the accident, so knowledge of their social customs is still virtually non-existent. However, she is invited to join the Sector General staff.

Cha Thrat innocently wreaks havoc by following her instincts and social customs. First she befriends a hypochondriac Chalder. Next, she is invited to assist at a therapeutic surgery operation to amputate the limb of a Hudlar, which will prolong its life (following events depicted in the previous novel in the series, Star Healer). When given the honour of cutting the limb, she obliges--and then deliberately cuts her own arm off as well, in accordance with the custom of her people. Next she saves the untouchable patient Khone (see Star Healer), and then finds a weird parasite species on a derelict spaceship. Due to the chaos she causes, every department in the hospital now refuses to allow her near their patients. O'Mara values her unusual approaches, and decides to add her to his staff.

In his zeal to cure the plague that has reduced the peaceful citizens of Cromsag to barbarism and war, Surgeon-Captain Lioren inadvertantly causes the death of the entire population and for punishment is banished to Sector Twelve General Hospital.

In this latest novel of the series, readers meet an alien chef named Gurronsevas who has come to Sector General to face the greatest challenge of his career--making hospital food palatable. His ensuing adventure combines interspecies administrative politics, ingenious science puzzles and a judicious admixture of action and adventure.

It's a massive hospital space station on the Galactic rim--384 levels, a staff of thousands--where human and alien medicine meet.

But Patient Hewlitt, new to Sector General, doesn't want to meet alien medicine--or alien doctors, or alien nurses, or aliens of any kind. Which is just too bad; he's an interesting case, and he'll have to get used to it.

In the meantime, it's always been an article of faith among Sector General's multispecies staff that infections can't pass from one alien race to another. But in this season of anomalies, it looks like they might have their first-ever interstellar virus on their hands, their tentacles, their cilla....

Combining intrigue, ingenious puzzles (and even more ingenious solutions), action, adventure and White's characteristic easy charm, Final Diagnosis is a science-fiction treat.

It's where human and alien medicine meet: a massive hospital space station on the Galactic Rim, with 384 levels and a multispecies staff of thousands.

In the course of practicing deep-space medicine, that staff has seen more than its share of challenges--from plagues caused by cafeteria food, to cafeteria food that resembles alien species. But now they are facing a disquieting new development: the terrifying Chief Psychologist, Dr. O'Mara, has been promoted to head of the hospital.

Worse, he's been given the job on a temporary basis, for just as long as it takes to train his own replacement. After that, he is up for mandatory retirement. Nobody at Sector General can begin to imagine what they'll do without him--assuming they last long enough to find out.

Now, in the latest adventure, the empathic Dr. Prilicla, a veteran of Sector General for years, is put in command of an expedition answering three distress beacons. What he finds is two hitherto-unknown intelligent species, one of which has nearly wiped out the other. And he also finds evidence of a botched first contact--along with a rare opportunity to set matters right.

Assuming, as always, that he can make an accurate diagnosis....