I first heard of Prostho Plus when a friend, Michael A. Burstein, mentioned it to me, and it was something of an endeavor looking for it in used bookstores and online, but it was eminently worth it. Prostho Plus, a stand-alone work by longtime SF/F author Piers Anthony, has to be one of the most bizarre books I have read. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it, but it is . . . odd.Telling the story of a human dentist (prosthodontist, to be exact) kidnaped from Earth to service the dental needs of the universe at large, Prostho Plus was fun, although by no means an essential read, much less a seminal work in the realm of science fiction. The central gag (no pun intended) of the novel is—and I'm not really giving away much of the plot here—that, apparently, even species that have mastered interstellar travel care about as little about proper dental hygiene as humans do—the eternal lament of the long-suffering dentist. It does give some hope for our species that even aliens far more advanced than Homo sapiens still need to be taught to brush, floss, and go for a biannual checkup on a regular basis. Yes, Prostho Plus is somewhat dated—Anthony wrote it more than forty years ago, and his protagonist Dr. Dillingham is a "confirmed bachelor", whose dental assistant Judy Galland is hopelessly in love with him, to name just two elements of the story—but since all or most of us can identify with the need to go see the dentist, Prostho Plus works on a basic level, and offers fun tidbits of plot throughout to boot.Anthony gets some points off for some of the clunkier elements, such as the aforementioned Dr. Dillingham-Judy Galland situation and the scene, typical of Anthony, involving the Jann robot's oath to kill Dr. Dillingham and how Dr. Dillingham avoids that fate, but on the whole, Prostho Plus was a success, if only because—looking at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction—there really aren't many—or any—other SF/F novels in which a dentist is the primary character. (A note: Lawyers aren't well-represented in SF/F either, which is disappointing to myself as an attorney.)I'm definitely going to have to lend this novel to my dentist.
Dentists in Spaaaace! I finally found my copy of this book, which I couldn't find before because I couldn't remember the title or the author.The fantasy is somewhat interesting, and the dentistry more so. I think I've serious doubts about the idea that university administrators could hack it as dictators. On Earth, people mostly ignore them. Is this because we're backward?Includes an interesting solution to the 'None but I shall do thee die' dilemma. NB--on Earth, duck-billed dinosaurs were not generally carnivorous--but in the galaxy, even those that were would probably consider it a breach of protocol to eat fellow sentients.
