In the far reaches of Sector 12, a massive interspecies hospital drifts in space, home to a diverse cast of doctors and patients from every intelligent race in the galaxy. Sector 12 General Hospital was once a popular stop for thousands of science fiction readers who were drawn in by author James White’s fast-paced medical mysteries and his inventive cast of novel-yet-relatable aliens. Despite their seemingly monstrous appearances, White’s aliens are highly professional and noble healers, fearlessly treating the sick and injured while confronting a host of complications with ingenuity and insight.
In 1962, while his contemporaries were envisioning a future where cities were flooded by global warming, overrun by violent hooligans, or bombed into a radioactive crisp, James White brought readers a vision of a peaceful and cooperative future with Hospital Station, the first volume of the Sector General series. Eleven more books would follow over the next 37 years, essentially defining the genre of medical science fiction.
The series takes place in Sector 12 General Hospital, a sprawling 384-floor hospital space station built in order to cement a lasting peace after humanity’s disastrous first interstellar war. A notable departure from the militaristic space operas of the time, the story of Sector General is explicitly pacifistic, eschewing conquest and combat in favor of the struggle of doctors to understand and heal their alien patients.
The Sector General series is often commended for its depiction of extraterrestrials that are more than just humans with cosmetic differences. White’s aliens are physiologically far outside of the human experience, with asymmetrical bodies, unusual metabolisms, and strange and often monstrous appearances. Critically, they are also psychologically different. Empathic Cinrusskin aliens are aggressively agreeable peacemakers as they find negative emotional radiation physically painful. Predatory Chalder become too bored to eat when given food they don’t have to chase down and devour alive. White’s aliens are bemused by the human nudity taboo, described as unique to the species.
Designed to treat patients from all the intelligent races in the galaxy, Sector General has wards that replicate living conditions for a vast array of life forms. There are murky undersea wards for the forty-foot long, armored, crocodile-like Chalder, poisonous sections for the chlorine-breathing kelplike Illensans, sub-zero wards for the crystalline methane-breathing Vosans and superheated wards near the hospital’s reactor for radiation-eating Telfi hive-mind beetles.
With such a wide assortment of species seeking treatment, it’s critical for staff to rapidly identify patients. A key construct of Sector General is the four-letter classification system White uses to catalog his cast. Species are classified according to their appearance, metabolic system, number of limbs, and other factors. Familiar Earth humans receive the classification DBDG as warm-blooded oxygen breathers. The water-breathing Chalder are classified AUGL, the chlorine-breathing Illensans are PVSJ, and more exotic combinations appear as well, like the telepathic VUXG or the polymorphic SRTT. The shorthand not only helps readers quickly familiarize themselves with the many types of aliens on Sector General, it is also reminiscent of the barrage of initialisms real life medical professionals deal with each day.
Facing this incredible menagerie of patients, no doctor could be expected to know how to treat them all. On Sector General, physicians overcome this impossibility by using “educator tapes,” the stored experience of famous alien specialists which the doctors download directly into their brains. The genius psyche temporarily shares space with the doctor’s own persona and advises them as they aid patients. The process is described as intensely jarring, since the educator tapes contain not only the expertise, but the entire personality of its donor. Inexperienced doctors find themselves struggling to eat food that the taped personality disliked, suddenly enamored with members of the expert’s species to whom they wouldn’t normally be attracted, and in some cases they must struggle to maintain control of their own bodies in the face of a personality stronger than their own.
Most doctors hurriedly have their educator tapes “erased” when the emergency at hand has run its course, but some working closely with patients from another species will retain tapes for long periods. The highest ranked medical staff in the hospital are the lordly diagnosticians—senior physicians capable of permanently retaining as many as ten educator tapes in a sort of intentional multiple personality disorder.
In addition to addressing the challenge of treating so many different types of patients, the educator tape system frequently reinforces one of the main themes of the Sector General series: learning to understand the viewpoints of those unlike ourselves, and working together with them in the service of a greater goal. While some of the terminology White used may not have aged well since 1962, a surprising amount of the material in the series is still very relevant. The focus on diversity and nonviolence are not only refreshing for their era, they are ahead of their time, foreshadowing the tremendous drive towards inclusion and acceptance so often foregrounded in modern culture.
Over the thirty-seven-year run of the series, readers can see the evolution of White’s talent and his ideas. His primary female character, Nurse Murchinson, starts out so threadbare that she is nearly insubstantial, but in later books she becomes a real character as she is promoted and gains significant status as one of the best pathologists in Sector General. The initial books in the series are collections of related short stories told from the perspective of author stand-in Dr. Conway. Later books are more complete novels with stronger characters and narrative development, often told from the unique viewpoint of an alien specialist.
Throughout the series, White’s authorial voice is friendly and patient. Characters face challenges with humor and optimism, and interpersonal drama is largely good-natured. Doctors try to dine alongside each other without being disgusted by the seemingly bizarre eating habits of their colleagues; they also wedge themselves into uncomfortable chairs meant for different anatomies, and they gossip enthusiastically about the scandalous drama of the multi-sexed, methane-breathing Vosans. Though tragedy is all too common in the hospital, characters are frequently shown doing their best to support one another.
As a pacifist who was greatly influenced by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, White deftly manages to condemn violence without demonizing its practitioners. The antagonists of the series are largely acting out of ignorance instead of evil. Much of the series revolves around the struggle to educate newly-discovered species in the face of barbarism and superstition. Wars in the series are always met with a sense of profound disappointment by bleary doctors struggling to patch together those who could not bridge their differences peacefully.
White dreamed of being a doctor himself, and his admiration for the medical profession shines through in the Sector General books. His characters, no matter how alien, all share the most noble trait of humanity: the desire to help others even at cost to themselves. The doctors of Sector General work at a feverish pace with little regard for their own safety, remaining on the station as it is bombarded by a hostile empire, and continue to treat not only their own patients, but also the wounded of the aggressors.
For thirty-seven years and twelve books, the Sector General series brought readers a uniquely nonviolent, inclusive vision of future medicine. Sixteen years after the passing of author James White, the space docks of Sector General no longer see the busy traffic they once did, and fewer new readers are making it through the airlocks. But for the curious souls who do find their way inside, Sector General is as busy as ever. Doctors still scramble to treat an incredible variety of weird and wonderful aliens, they still grapple with difficult ethical choices, and they still overcome tremendous differences to work together for the greater good. Whether you’re a new admission or a returning patient, there’s plenty worth investigating in the 384 levels of Sector General.
The Sector General novels are available in omnibus editions from Tor Books.
Zak Zyz is a writer and Systems Administrator living in Brooklyn, New York. He co-founded the Strategically Correct board gaming society and is definitely a spy. His first novella SURVIVAL MODE is available from Gutpunch Press, and his first novel, Xan & Ink will be released on 4/20/2016.
Too often today explosions replaces drama and infighting replaces discussions in both movies and novels. White often used global disasters in his stories, but generally focused on the aftermath of such an event. Showing the results of violence rather than reveling in it made his stories very compelling to me. Now I can’t watch a Death Star explode without thinking of the guy who fixes the toilets being blown up. I am pretty sure that Darth Vader did not advertise for a “evil plumber”. The guy who took the job was just trying to feed his family. Probably did not agree with Darth’s politics, he just need the gig. Then, blam, some fighter jockey turns his wife into a widow.
Thanks for the article, it has been a while since I have read the Sector General stories.
I have never heard of these before. Thanks for bringing them to my attention. Book 1 is getting a spot on my To Read list.
These sound interesting.
These are really good, though some of the earlier stories are very Golden Age in tone. Fans looking for something similar should track down Murray Leinster’s Med Ship series and especially Sharon Webb’s The Adventures of Terra Tarkington, which very closely models White’s work.
I think I read one Sector General novel 20+ years ago – although, I have the vague impression it wasn’t written by White – and don’t recall being terribly impressed. You make the series sounds just up my alley, though. Any suggestions on where best to start given that the series shows the evolution of his work?
A deeply excellent series; I first read them when I was a small boy, starting with my father’s ancient paperbacks of the first two books. I was overjoyed when I found that there were more than those. I think I might still not have read some of the later ones.
One note; they do contain some lamentably sexist attitudes, most especially that “females” can’t use the educator tapes to learn skills due to a “deep sex-based fastidiousness”.
That said, I don’t want to give the impression that the series treats women as totally ignorable. As the article above remarks, Murchison eventually becomes quite important in the hospital hierarchy, and there are other female characters in positions of some influence and authority. It’s a little eye-rolling in places, but it’s a product of its time, and I’d beg readers to overlook this single flaw in an otherwise progressive series.
Oh, I SO love these books. I reread them every couple of years. Most of the time the really old science fiction gives me a headache from eye-rolling — DEFINITELY sexist in some respects — but manages to recover when making Murchison an actual pathologist and not just a pair of boobs and big hair.
Man, it might be time to reread these again. Thanks for reminding me of them.
@SF_Fangirl A few of people regard it as one of the worst in the series, but I actually read The Galactic Gourmet first and loved it. I found the buffoonish, well-intentioned Gurronsevas fun, and really enjoyed the in-depth sections on alien cuisine and food as medicine. White does a pretty good job of rehashing his key points in the intro of each book (it gets kind of droning if you read the whole omnibus, actually) so I don’t think you’d have a problem jumping in on any book in the series. You might consider skimming the wiki and just picking any book that sounds appealing to you. Enjoy!
Are these going to be available as ebooks in the UK? I read some of them years ago, and would love to get them all as ebooks.
These are my go-to feel good sci fi books. I find it so nice that the drama source is life and disease rather than violence or cheap drama. The earlier ones are a bit dated as regards gender roles, but the later ones are great read.
-Ed
RE: “James White brought readers a vision of a peaceful and cooperative future”
Reminds me of Stephen Tall’s books _The Stardust Voyages_ and _The Ramsgate Paradox_.
Thanks for for bringing these to my attention — I’ll have to check these out.
This series sounds absolutely brilliantly – added to my TBR.
Leinster wasn’t the only one to precede White; Dr. Alan E. Nourse (pronounced “nurse”!) wrote mostly non-medical adventure stories, but Star Surgeon (1960) shows what might be the first step toward Sector General, and his shorter works involving medicine go as far back as 1953. His later works were bleaker but resonate today with their theme of the problems of basing medical treatment on ability to pay.
Leinster wasn’t the only one to predate White; Dr Alan E. Nourse (pronounced “nurse”!) wrote mostly non-medical adventure stories, but Star Surgeon (1960) shows what might be the first step toward Sector General, and shorter works based on medicine go as far back as 1953. His later work is bleaker, but resonates now with its theme of the problems of basing medical treatment on the ability to pay.
Yeah, there are certainly sexist elements, and the fact where women can’t use educator tapes being primary among them, but towards the later books I got a strong sense that he realized it was a bad idea, but in a “I wouldn’t do that if I were starting the series today, but unfortunately I’m stuck with it because it’s a well-established key part of the universe” way… thus, he did what he can to mitigate it, elevated Murchinson’s role and IIRC even towards the end made some exceptions to the educator rule.
Still, the book has some of the coolest aliens in SF. I keep wanting to steal them for other uses.
@15: I’m glad you mentioned that. I was thinking I hadn’t even heard of these books of the Sector General, but I did remember reading something I thought was called Star Surgeon from the library when I was young. I still remember the main characters push into gaining the coveted red robes of the Surgeon class.
I’ll have to look up the Sector General books, sounds like a gap in my early SF reading history :-)
I loved The Galactic Gourmet as well. This is a great series; I have managed to collect almost all of them. White along with James H. Schmitz is one of the few golden age authors that I love to reread. And people are ahead of me in mentioning the MedShip series by Leinster and Star Surgeon by Nourse.
I chatted with James at a con a year or so before he died and he lamented that he could not get his new book even published in the UK and was doubtful about the US market.
I have tried to complete my SG collection for years but they are so hard to get hold of (outside of ebook which I do not do!).
Two tidbits about Sector General:
First, I remember hearing that White lamented at one time that any time he thought up an interesting new alien, it immediately got ill and had to go to Sector General.
Second, the wheelies from Major Operation also were referenced in a Bob Shaw book – this was intentional on both their parts. Now if I could just remember which book…
@21: The wheelies are mentioned in Shaw’s 1978 fix-up Ship of Strangers; elsewhere, White credits Shaw with inventing them:
“He had seen the Drambons on his 124th planetary survey, wheel-shaped creatures on a high-gravity world who were the opposite of humans and most other creatures in that their blood remained stationary at the bottom of the wheel while their bodies circulated.”
(I have read much more Shaw than White, enjoyed the stories I have read by both authors and want to read more of their books soon, not least since I managed to miss Sector General entirely.)
It’s been a long time since I’ve read these at least 20 years. I remember the really interesting and diverse aliens and completely forgotten about the no women educator tapes thing. I’ll have to check out the omnibus editions since it’s been so long and I can’t remember if I finished them all.
I loved these books as a kid. I so wanted to be one of the doctors at Sector General. In my imagination *I* was going to be the woman who proved that women could use educator tapes, they really could, so there! I was about 12 at the time, and that was my general response to almost anyone who told me I couldn’t do something because “girls don’t do that.”
I’ve reread the books (in their ebook versions) recently, and I still found the stories interesting, although the attitude towards women in the earlier books is antediluvian. Despite this, White writes interesting, realistically flawed characters – even Nurse Murchison grows beyond her physical attributes and into a three dimensional person in the later books.
The best part of the books is the aliens. White writes wonderful, diverse alien species. They aren’t just humans with pointy ears or fur or funny wrinkled faces.
I’ve been a huge James White fan since I was a kid in the 70s and my dad said, “I think you’ll like this,” and handed me a copy of All Judgement Fled (similar theme to Rendezvous With Rama, but I liked it better and have reread it multiple times in the decades since that first time). I’ve always thought he never received the recognition he deserved. I’ve been more a fan of his standalone novel (All Judgement Fled, The Dream Millennium, etc), but the Sector General novels are really good, too. Great post.
I’m surprised this hasn’t become a TV series. “ER in space”, with Noah Wyle as Conway.
I too loved Sector General. Along the same lines, there’s Prostho Plus by Piers Anthony, about a prosthodontist who is kidnapped by aliens and gets to repair the teeth of many different species.
@26 – jmeltzer: I’d watch that, STAT!
I’ve read most of the series. As a nurse, I was impressed the Murchison went from a hand maiden to the doctors, to a skilled diagnostician in her own right. She couldn’t use the educator tapes, but thanks to practical experience and working with the Sector General pathologist, she truly grew throughout the series.
If this is your first time hearing about the series, check it out.
Why can’t I get these for Kindle?
26, 28, back in the ancient days, there was a space station, may have been five miles long, could have been located in neutral territory, where they had commerce, and maybe diplomacy, a shining beacon in space, lonely in the dark, the name of the place? Mercy Point.
30, there are some available, but they have a bit of a complicated publication issue, with a couple released under new names, which are you having problems finding?
Besides the nudity taboo, another human custom the other species had trouble with was a human female “losing her identity” upon mating/marriage by taking the male’s name. So although Conway and Murchison married at some point, she keeps her own name which was not common at the time the novels were written.
@5 Reading order, start at the beginning… except that some stories are out of the order, or tangential to Sector General. In publishing order, start with Dr Conway in “Hospital Station”, his first story therein being “Medic”. Stick with it because he’s kind of an idiot there.
One of White’s stories is about a war memorial. You see a human and a Nidian (or some such) facing off in the middle of a space battle. This isn’t a statue, it is actual people of each species in stasis. They actually stopped the war by communicating; they are in stasis because they were mortally wounded. By the end of the story, medical science having advanced, they’re out of stasis and in hospital – not this one.
These heroes are next seen being thrown off a planet for protesting against warmongering artworks. Since their efforts to maintain peace between their species aren’t working, they discuss change of tactics. They’re interrupted by a disastrous accident in the spaceport. All species put aside their differences and render medical assistance. Lightbulb moment… Sector General hospital was dedicated to their memory, if only doctors had time to read the plaque in the dining hall(s). That doesn’t matter. It worked.
Then there’s a story with O’Mara, who actually was a construction worker building Sector General. But in the first Conway story, O’Mara is running the place. O’Mara also gets his own life story novel, “Mind Changer”. But start with “Medic”.
“Babylon 5” has some related elements: a terrible war in early human-alien relations due to a terrible misunderstanding, and elderly Delenn in “Deconstruction of Falling Stars” metaphorically (?) shaking her first at those young whippersnappers who weren’t there and don’t know. And occasional medical emergencies, and lots of goofy aliens to have them.