Sector General Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Hospital Station | 1962 | Buy |
| Star Surgeon | 1963 | Buy |
| The Aliens Among Us | 1969 | Buy |
| Major Operation | 1971 | Buy |
| Futures Past | 1977 | Buy |
| Ambulance Ship | 1979 | Buy |
| Sector General | 1983 | Buy |
| Star Healer | 1984 | Buy |
| Code Blue -Emergency | 1987 | Buy |
| The Genocidal Healer | 1991 | Buy |
| The Galactic Gourmet | 1996 | Buy |
| Final Diagnosis | 1997 | Buy |
| Mind Changer | 1998 | Buy |
| Double Contact | 1999 | Buy |
James White was born in Belfast in 1928. He wanted to study medicine but couldn’t afford it, so he went to work in tailoring firms instead. He started writing science fiction in the early 1950s, publishing his first story in New Worlds magazine in 1953. The Sector General series, which began with Hospital Station in 1962, let him write about medicine from a different angle — a giant space hospital where the patients are aliens and the challenge is figuring out how their bodies work before you can treat them.
The premise is straightforward. Sector General is a hospital station in deep space, staffed by doctors and nurses from dozens of species. The stories are medical mysteries where the unknown is the patient’s biology. Dr. Conway starts as a junior surgeon in the first book and rises through the ranks over the course of the series. White kept the focus on problem-solving and cooperation between species rather than conflict. There are no wars in Sector General, no villains. The tension comes from the medicine.
White worked at Short Brothers aircraft company from 1965 to 1984, writing on the side. He was active in Belfast’s science fiction fan community and co-produced fan magazines with Walt Willis. He was nominated twice for the Hugo Award and once for the Nebula. Diabetes cost him much of his vision in later years, but he kept writing. Double Contact (1999), the fourteenth and final Sector General book, was in preparation when he died of a stroke in August 1999. The James White Award for short fiction was established in his memory.