Ambulance Ship

Ambulance Ship (Ballantine, 1979)

The 1980 Corgi edition adds 'Spacebird' (see under Short Stories). Fix-up novel, 65000 words.

Fix-up novel:  'Contagion'; 'Quarantine'; 'Recovery' (see under Short Stories).  Plus Introduction: 'The Secret History of Sector General' (see under Non-Fiction).  By this time, the law of diminishing literary returns had started to affect Sector General.  Only more exotic aliens with yet more exotic ailments (e.g. 'meatball'/ Major Operation) kept the series from slipping into sameiness.  Then White shifted the emphasis away from Diagnostician Conway towards some previously unsung heroes who are just as essential to the great hospital's smooth running.  Hence Captain Fletcher of the ambulance ship Rhabwar.

Synopsis by Graham Andrews

First Publication:

BB/Del Rey,No 345-28513-1, October 1979

Publication History:

Corgi, London, No 0553-11551-8, December 1980

BB/Del Rey reissue ISBN 0-345-28513-1, January 1985

Macdonald/Futura, Orbit, ISBN 0-7088-8183-1, July 1986       contents mix-up Spacebird mentioned on fly leaf but not in book, 25/7/86

Macdonald hardcover, ISBN 0-356-14003-2, 25/7/86

Collected in Alien Emergencies, Orb (Tor Books), June 2001

Foreign Publication:

MOEWIG SF No 3507,sometime 1980 as Das Ambulance SchIff

Wilhelm Heyne, Munich, No 06-4977, ISBN 3-453-06222-1, 1993 as Ambulanceschiff

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