I'll get to this in more detail later. For now, I'll just note that it's the last of the Sector General books.In fact, it may be the last thing White published. But it doesn't feel like it. There had been many technological changes in our world since the early Sector General stories in the 1960s, but most of them didn't cause any real inconvenience to White, since his stories were very rarely dependent on technology to drive the plot. He changed a few phrases, and was done. Some of the biggest changes were a reduced dependence on metabolism-altering drugs. Although Gurronsevas arranges for a potion which is 'contraindicated for all warm-blooded oxygen-breathers' for the retirement parties in Mind Changers, there's no indication that any of the patients or staff become addicted to such drugs--so evidently they stopped in time.One technology which hasn't yet materialized (leaving aside things like hyperdrive) is a scanner that can view the innards of living things without harmful radiation. Still looking forward to that'n.Though this is labeled as a 'Sector General' book, very little of it is set at Sector General. It starts, in fact, on an alien, non-Federation planet--a hopelessly poisoned planet whose inhabitants are planning to flee, if they can.Again, I have to say that I don't believe in the reported characteristics of the 'druul'. And this isn't just because they resemble DBDGs, either. People who are not DBDGs find them just as incredible in the course of the story. They tend to argue that the CHLI inhabitants just didn't know how to negotiate with the druul, and that the Federation, with more experience in that sort of thing, will probably succeed--or if they can't, they'll be able to confine the druul to their homeworld, or some other world where they can survive without endangering others. As for the CHLI insectoid sapients, there's one point that White gets wrong from the start, and persists in right through. It's only in vertebrates that males are commonly larger and more robust than females. In arthropods particularly, females are often MUCH larger than males. The CHLI may be different--but if so, wouldn't you think more fuss would be made about the difference?In Mind Changer, Prilicla is informed that he ('it' in that book, but 'he' in the present volume, because much of the story is told from Prilicla's point of view) will soon be promoted to Diagnostician. It's because Prilicla has been assigned his mind partners, and will be distracted and perhaps more reckless than his properly cowardly norm (the Cinrusskins count cowardice as one of their primary survival characteristics) that the new Administrator, Braithwaite, suggests that Prilicla not volunteer for what's likely to be an unusually dangerous mission, even for Rhabwar. Prilicla appreciates the offer, but insists that wherever his crew goes, he's going too.The first task is to figure out why three separate beacons (at least one clearly a Federation distress beacon, but the other two of unknown origin) have gone on in one small area, and what help Rhabwar can offer.Attempting to rescue the Monitor Corps Ship is complicated by the fact that the ship tries to avoid physical contact--and accidentally ends up landing on a planet (with Rhabwar's help). In the process, all of the crew of the Terragar are injured (one fatally) by overheating on entry. So a temporary aid station is set up on the planet, because there's a necessity that Rhabwar have no physical contact with the damaged Terragar.In investigating why there can't be any physical contact, an expedition from Rhabwar discovers that Terragar has been infected with a computer virus, which renders useless all the electronic equipment aboard. This seems to have been acquired when Terragar took aboard a destroyed robot from the alien ship--or when they made physical contact with the ship. It's not clear which.This means that contact with the alien ship must be made with highly insulated spacesuits--and that other Federation ships mustn't come too near.There's one assumption here that doesn't seem to be merited. Why WOULDN'T robots have emotions? In organic beings, emotions originate in hormonal secretions, true. But there's no particular reasons not to have the equivalent of hormones, as well. It might be beneficial, in fact, since hormones are used to regulate various biological functions, and might work as well for (bio)mechanical functions. And anyway, in organic beings the control mechanism is neural-->hormonal-->reaction, though there are some feedback effects. Why wouldn't the same things apply with mechanical life? Nor is it necessary for organic life to develop improvements in robotic life past a certain point. White and others tend to argue that this point is only after the development of self-awareness on the part of the robots, but that may not be necessary, IF the robots are supplied with programs to enable them to learn and to repair themselves...as seems to be the case here.Prilicla has to keep withdrawing to take a nap. He envies the more robust species the fact that they don't need to rest as often, but the fact is, he seems to do some of his best thinking in those rest periods. And speaking of his legendary low stamina, I note that it doesn't seem to result in a substantially shorter lifespan than more robust creatures. Possibly the periodic retreats to rest restore functioning to the point that long-term endurance is quite adequate.Before the Trolanni can be medically treated, they have to be extricated from their 'searchsuit'. This is only possible at all because the skin of the searchsuit was damaged in the failed launch of their beacons, so there are dead areas on the skin, where the computer virus can't infect intruders' computerized equipment. But it also requires making successful contact with Keet and Jasam, the female and male Trolanni, a process complicated by the Trolanni's hysterical fear of anything remotely resembling the druul. It's this hysteria that helps convince me that the intransigence is not all on the druul side. There may be reasonable fears, but there's no such thing as reasonable hatred--particularly when that hatred is so inflexible that it wouldn't even consider accepting help from a member of the despised group--or from any creature that even RESEMBLES a druul. This is speciesism at its worst--and that's a pretty low bar to begin with. One has to wonder if this contempt preexisted any real conflict--and, perhaps, helped create and foster the conflict. The fact that the Trolanni refuse to even consider any solution that doesn't involve genocide against the druul indicates that the violence is not unilateral, at the very least.While the repair and extrication process is going on aboard the searchsuit, treatment of the casualties in the aid station on the planet is going smoothly--until Murchison gets bored and starts exploring. This is, I would say, the only part in the whole series that is told from the point of view of Murchison. The display of the qualities which have made her a successful pathologist from the inside reveals that they can easily become reckless through impatience. Murchison tries to reject Danalta's services as a bodyguard, but Danalta insists on accompanying her on her explorations of the island they've landed on.This assiduous attendance turns out to be necessary when Murchison is unexpectedly abducted by spider pirates (who, it turns out, are terribly afraid of getting wet--a serious hazard for seafarers). Why didn't either the Monitors or the Trolanni realize that there was a sapient indigenous species? Because the spiders make their technology mostly out of their own bodies. This apparently means that both males and females are capable of spinning web--but it also means that they must be capable of quite prodigious output. Even if the ships are the result of a great deal of labor by whole communities, it still involves a LOT of webbing. Other materials besides web go into the ships, but even so...Because Rhabwar has less translation capacity than Sector General, there's a lot more pointing and grunting and actual learning of different languages in this book than in the earlier ones. And Murchison points out that the argument that only with the Educator tapes can comparative anatomy be done is not necessarily valid. The Educator tapes make the process simpler technically (but more complex in their impact on the Diagnosticians' lives), but it IS possible to plan surgery on members of hitherto unknown species by analogy with other species.Maybe so--if the species involved are oxygen breathers. But I think Murchison is underrating the variances, as much as she argues that others are overrating them. One problem is the one I've noted before. The insectoid species are almost certainly not all 'warm-blooded'. White's prejudice in favor of homeothermy is apparently unconscious, and I've seen no sign that he ever questioned it.The Kritikukik assumption that any interlopers are the precursors of an invasion force leads to a siege, which will have to be resolved. But the obvious resolution (that everybody climb on board Rhabwar and go back to Sector General, and leave the cultural contact to the professionals) is not viable, because, for one thing, a rapid takeoff would kill a lot of the spiders. Some sort of diplomatic resolution has to be developed--while treating the existing patients surgically--and incidentally, fixing the environmentally damaged reproductive systems of the Trolanni.The refusal of the Kritikukik to even negotiate is a serious danger--to the people at the aid station and aboard Rhabwar, but also to the people of the world they have accidentally invaded. It's not just the danger to the besiegers. The Kritikukik have no fear of the superior technology of the Federation, because they don't believe that Rhabwar is deliberately reducing its own offensive capacity to avoid injuring the attackers. But they've also made another miscalculation. They've seriously underrate the sheer numbers of the potential invaders. The fact that the Federation has no intention of invading is hard to explain to them, because they won't listen. So it's going to be necessary to establish communications before any truce can be arranged.Just as a matter of interest, I wonder what their crossbow bolts are made from. It might be wood--but wooden crossbow bolts are not particularly penetrating. Maybe bone? And what are they fletched with, on a planet with no known birds?Anyway, in order to talk to the Crextic (Kritikukik turns out to be a title, not the name of the people), it's necessary to get past their anger and refusal to talk to people they blame for what they think the newcomers are doing. What the Crextic THINK the Federation ships are doing is, of course, not even close to what they are doing--but that can't be explained to people who won't listen.It's an accident based on a misinterpretation of the nature of the meteor shield that gives them their chance. You'd think that seafarers with roofs on their ships would realize that the meteor shield would be spherical, rather than a wall. But they don't--which brings three of the Crextic inside the wall, in serious need of medical care--and makes an opening for conversation.There's one thing left out of the final resolution--what happens to the ruins of Terragar? The Crextic have already been mining it for metals even before the parley begins--so will part of the deal be that they have to give it back? Some of it, after all, might be dangerous to untrained users.
At last Senior Physician Prilicla, the most lovable character of the Sector General universe, has a story of his own. His very fragile species has had to develop cowardice as a survival characteristic, with empathy to warn them of dangerous emotions in the people around them. When Prilicla's ambulance ship is called to rescue a space-going species at war, and lands them for healing on a planet that turns out to be also hostile, Prilicla's mission will fail if he can't find his courage.I gave DOUBLE CONTACT only three stars because it is strongly tilted toward adventure, less so toward character development. The death of James White after this book was a real loss to sci fi readers.
Do You like book Double Contact (2000)?
I did like this book, but this is probably the first time I have read a book and doubted it was written by the proclaimed author. This book was published the year james white died and there are some inaccuracies which he was very careful of during the first 12 books. Whenever aliens are referred to it is as an 'it' as opposed to 'he' or 'she' unless there is medical reason to have to refer to the beings gender. One of the main characters Pricilla, an empathic insect who is a major character in many of the books, was referred to as he all throughout this book, which is out of style of the rest of the books in addition to the fact that in one of the previous books Pricilla was specifically identified as a female during a conversion about how to refer to beings of another species. Either this book was pulled together from notes left by the deceased or james white was loosing some of his faculties near the end of his life.As a series I had never read before, the sector general series was a fun, set of easy light reads which I would recommend.
—Rob
