{"id":430,"date":"2006-06-17T16:03:24","date_gmt":"2006-06-17T20:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=430"},"modified":"2024-03-24T21:45:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T01:45:59","slug":"white_james_071","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2006\/06\/white_james_071\/","title":{"rendered":"White, James: (07-12) Code Blue\u2014Emergency<\/cite> through Double Contact<\/cite>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was home sick Thursday, without sufficient brain power to read anything new or difficult, but wanting something I could dive into to take my mind off being sick. I started with the seventh and eighth of James White’s Sector General novels, Code Blue—Emergency<\/cite> and The Genocidal Healer<\/cite> (in the omnibus General Practice<\/cite>), and ended up plowing my way through all the rest of them: The Galactic Gourmet<\/cite>, Final Diagnosis<\/cite>, Mind Changer<\/cite>, and Double Contact<\/cite>.<\/p>\n

They are, as you can see, very fast re-reads for me.<\/p>\n

One thing I noticed on this re-read is the voice. Though the trappings of tight-third POV are there, such as a non-Earth-human noticing that an Earth-human’s face “deepened in color” instead of “reddened with anger,” the tone of the narration seems basically constant to me. This isn’t a criticism, just something that contributes to the speed of my re-reading.<\/p>\n

I’m inclined to call Code Blue—Emergency<\/cite> and The Genocidal Healer<\/cite> the series’ high point. Previously, the principal POV character was Peter Conway, an Earth-human doctor; and while I like Conway fine, the two POV characters here are much more interesting (as I’ve discussed previously<\/a>). After these two books, the series starts getting a trifle repetitive. The Galactic Gourmet<\/cite> is fun, told from the POV of a famous chef who decides to make Sector General’s hospital food good<\/cite>; but its ending section feels a bit overlong. The last three all revisit or repeat prior books; unfortunately, it would be spoilery to say how except for the middle one, Mind Changer<\/cite>, which is O’Mara reflecting on his career as Chief Psychologist of Sector General.<\/p>\n

Even with the repetition of exposition as well as plot (and the uncomfortable sexist bits), they’re still great comfort reads, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have blown through six of them in a day. I didn’t even think about the curing-the-sick aspect when I picked them up; it’s how the characters make the universe better through determination, intelligence, and empathy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was home sick Thursday, without sufficient brain power to read anything new or difficult, but wanting something I could dive into to take my mind off being sick. I started with the seventh and eighth of James White’s Sector General novels, Code Blue—Emergency and The Genocidal Healer (in the omnibus General Practice), and ended … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “White, James: (07-12) Code Blue\u2014Emergency<\/cite> through Double Contact<\/cite>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,116,15],"tags":[435],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-sector-general","category-sf-and-fantasy","tag-white-james"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2894,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/2894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}