@RUTGERS.ARPA:acw@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA (01/14/85)
From: "Allan C. Wechsler" <acw@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA> Maybe Dean F. Sutherland is thinking of Nourse's _Star Surgeon_. My favorite Nourse is _The Universe Between_. I liked him a lot when I was younger, and now I'm wondering if I missed any. Can someone with a good index forward to the digest a chronological list of Nourse's novels? Is he still writing? --- Allan
ted@usceast.UUCP (Ted Nolan) (01/17/85)
In article <246@topaz.ARPA> @RUTGERS.ARPA:acw@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA writes: >From: "Allan C. Wechsler" <acw@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA> > >Maybe Dean F. Sutherland is thinking of Nourse's _Star Surgeon_. My >favorite Nourse is _The Universe Between_. I liked him a lot when I was >younger, and now I'm wondering if I missed any. Can someone with a good >index forward to the digest a chronological list of Nourse's novels? Is >he still writing? > > --- Allan I don't have a chronological or a complete list, but I'll name a few as an excuse to put in a plug for one of my all time favorites. That being _Raiders From the Rings_. I must have read this book more than 20 times back in younger days. I would always check Raiders and Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ out from the school library several times a year and spend some happy hours with them. As you might guess from the distinguished company I mentioned, Raiders is a juvenile space adventure (not juvenile in any pejorative sense) set partly in the asteroid belt. It seems that sometime in the future, Earth starts to colonize space and then gives it up as a bad job, leaving the spacers to fend for themselves. There is one big catch, because of something to do with radiation and chromosomes (Nourse is a doctor and makes it convincing), no girls are born in space. To survive, the spacers must make lightning raids on Earth to collect women (who like the Sabines eventually come to like their new life). Needless to say, the Earth authorities take a dim view of this and wage a massive propaganda campaign against spacers (which includes supressing the facts that impel the spacers to raid). The story's main character is a young spacer on his first raid. Through a series of circumstances I don't quite remember, he catches both a girl and her brother (which isn't supposed to happen). From that point on, everything starts to go wrong, his ship is damaged and his home wiped out by a massive counterattack from Earth (which has decided to opt for the Final Solution). The only way to save the day is for the 3 hereditary enemies to band together ... and nonhuman eyes are watching too. Great stuff -- give it to your kids, read it yourself. OK, got that out of my system (though I may do a posting on my favorite juveniles someday). _The Universe Between_ - already mentioned, another good juvenile on an alternate dimension's theme. _Psi High & Others_ - A story collection, some good ones in there as I recall. _Hospital Earth_ - A collection a stories set in the same universe as _Star Surgeon_. (Including, I think, the one about the crew who find the only way to control the amoeba like thing infesting their ship it to keep eating it) _The Mercy Men_ - A novel about the human volenteers for medical experiments (I think, never did get a chance to read this one) _Bladerunner_ - Nourse's most recent book that I am aware of, a kind of "If this goes on" for medicine. _Tiger by the Tail_ - Another collection I'm sure there are some others, I think that I'm surely missing at least one story collection and maybe a novel. To cover that case, I will say that I've never read anything of Nourse's that I regretted (although of course some are better than others). Turning a corner that isn't there Ted Nolan ..usceast!ted -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ted Nolan ...decvax!mcnc!ncsu!ncrcae!usceast!ted 6536 Brookside Circle ...akgua!usceast!ted Columbia, SC 29206 ("Deep space is my dwelling place, the stars my destination") -------------------------------------------------------------------------------