Sector General

Sector General is a gigantic multi-species hospital space station founded as a peace-promoting project by two heroes from opposite sides of humanity's first full interstellar war.

[3][4] In the fourth book the Galactic Federation decides that the emergency service which the hospital offers to victims of space accidents and planetary catastrophes is its most effective means of making peaceful contact with new spacefaring species, which allows the series to expand its range of plots, characters and locations.

He credited his wife, who was an intensive care nurse at the height of The Troubles, for advice on medical details and for pointing out how padres often did more good than doctors for disturbed patients, which inspired The Genocidal Healer.

[3][9] The hospital uses a four-letter system to assign patients to wards that provide suitable environments, a classification technique used earlier by E. E. "Doc" Smith's Children of the Lens.

[9] In the case of species with two permanent sexes, including but not limited to Earth-humans, the stories state that females are psychologically incapable of allowing their psyches to be violated to the extent required by the educator tapes.

"[19] White's hatred of war and xenophobia is a constant theme of the series, notably in: Star Surgeon, where the Monitor Corps fights a savage battle in defence of the hospital space station, to prevent the conflict from escalating into a full interstellar war that can only end in genocide;[20] and in The Genocidal Healer, where an alien race's sexual urges are almost eliminated by a plague and can only be stimulated by hand-to-hand combat.

In Dave Langford's opinion the xenobiological novelties were becoming less credible by the end of Star Healer, and using a variety of alien viewpoint characters gave the later books "considerable new pep".

"[18] On the other hand, Todd White wrote that the series declined after Star Healer (1985), hitting a low point with The Galactic Gourmet (1996), and that the later books tended to stretch a short story's worth of content to the length of a novel.

[21] Publishers Weekly described Mind Changer as "White's finest performance, replete with wit, originality, medical expertise and sheer decency" and commented that the series shows no signs of aging,[22] and Booklist described the book as an "enjoyable, witty resumé" of Chief Psychologist O'Mara's career.

[23] Clinton Lawrence described the last Sector General book, Double Contact (1999), as "in a very positive way, a throwback to an earlier era in science fiction" since it is optimistic and depicts several advanced species working harmoniously.

[8][24] Originally White intended to end the series with Star Healer (1985), by which time the central characters had reached the top levels in their careers, but Ballantine Books persuaded him to continue.

He extended the stories' range by introducing new central characters beginning with Code Blue - Emergency (1987), and The Genocidal Healer (1992) focused on psychological and theological issues of guilt and forgiveness rather than strictly medical ones.