1982: Kinship of the White Bird 3 - A Tapestry of Time (Cowper, Richard)

Dark Age quest for redemption & Renaissance quest for truth (4/5)

A Tapestry of Time is the third and final book in the Kinship of the White Bird trilogy. The first book, The Road to Corlay opened with a prologue with a romantic overview of how the Kinship was born. The remainder of the novel presented the noble beginnings of the cult and how a telepathic time traveler influenced the lover of the famous piper. The second book, A Dream of Kinship, showcased the history of the cult through the eyes of the son born from the piper and his lover, an auspicious boy with a talent for the lute. Still in the year 3038 A.D., book three follows this boy after he leaves the archipelago of England for a European journey after denouncing his Kinsman ways.

Rear cover synopsis:
"Twenty years have passed since the martyrdom of the Boy-piper at York, twenty years in which his legacy, the movement of Kinship, has challenged the tyranny of the Church Militant in Britain's seven island kingdoms. Now his namesake, Tom, bearing the Boy's own pipes and perhaps himself imbued with the spirit of the White Bird, in wandering Europe in company with the girl, Witchet. But disaster overtakes them and Tom, in a fury of vengeance, breaks his vow of Kinship. A Terrible path lies before him, one that transcends his own world. As he travels it, Tom must come to understand the true nature of the wild White Bird, of The Bride of Time and her Child, and of the Song the Stat Born sang."

There are two parts of this book. The first 114 pages follows Tom and Witchet as they traverse Spain, France, and Italy by themselves and with troupes of traveling actors. Befriended by a family of actors, the duo ply their art of lute-playing and singing, which enchant the crowds and earn the troupe much income. When word comes of highway robbers, they hire security for their caravan, only to lose them in a storm and come unexpectedly upon the robbers, who masquerade as shepherds. Defenseless, the bandits attack the troupe and leave them without transportation. Deciding to head north, the duo detach from the troupe in order to reconnect with friends and family.

The second part of this book is a 142-page journal entry and post-script from the years 3798-3799 A.D., nearly eight hundred years after the founding of the religion of the Kinship. With Europe, and especially England, now flourishing in an industrial era, historical studies of the Kinship can be undertaken with academic intensity. Professor Robert James Cartwright and his history studies colleague Margaret Coley attend mass on New Years eve. Afterwards, the two witness a mystery which they hesitate to calla a "miracle." Studiously, the two separately retell the event on paper and compare notes. They concur that the child that Margaret caught did, indeed, disappear from her very hands. Only when Cartwright begins to see an apparition of a bearded man does he attach significance to the chance miracle. The soon-to-be-betrothed couple seek out an ancient manuscript which they hope will shed light on some historical facts regarding the characters in the White Bird tales.

The first part following Tom and Witch was unlike anything in the first two books, this half cast a dark shadow on the plot with scenes of violence and pestilence; it very much had a Dark Ages feel to it. This contrasts the "second Renaissance" in the last half, where universities have sprung up, where steamships navigate the English isles and telephone service has made a comeback. This is a time when the Catholic church is known, but the nearly universal Kinsmen religion has become more organized, straying from its humble birth as a workingman's personal ethic.

The two halves (3038 and 3799 A.D.) have their respective quests: Tom has a quest to save the soul of his dead lover while attempting to redeem or ignore the souls of two recently departed wrong-doers. The quest takes place in a parallel reality which Tom is sure exists purely within himself. This fantastical realm is occupied by spirits but maintains the same geography wherever Tom is. The second quest is the last half is an academic pursuit of delving into ancient papers while correlating facts, matching dates, interviewing locals, and tracking down a relic. The spiritual fantasy quest is an odd countenance to the European trek and strays from the prior books' humble beginnings. The quest for the truth and relic, however, is exciting from its far-future perspective during the second Renaissance.

You've got to give credit to Richard Cowper for one thing, besides his romantic writing and intelligent plot structure, and that is he is aware of his limitations, as he writes in the author's notes:

"[...] in any sequence of novels a point is arrived at when the author becames [sic] painfully aware that there is a limit to the amount of background information which he can hope to incorporate in each successive book without grievously restricting the flow of his narrative." (9)

The three books of the White Bird of Kinship trilogy are all inclusive and Cowper was wise not to prolong the series, selling out to produce a never ending stream of loosely linked novels in the same universe. You can start with book one knowing that at the end of book three, there is a satisfying conclusion which leaves the reader with a sense of piqued curiosity and awe.

Beyond the Kinship trilogy, look into his humor with Profundis. This is one author I'm eager to research more and more into until I exhaust his entire bibliography... next I have Clone and Out There Where the Big Ships Go.

1979: Profundis (Cowper, Richard)

Zany submariner post-apocalyptic adventure (4/5)
From August 16, 2010

The only thing I knew of Richard Cowper was that this name was a pseudonym for John Middleton Murry Jr. and his main claims to science fiction fame were for the romantic Kinship of the White Bird trilogy and his satirical Clone novel. Having never read a Richard Cowper novel, I wasn't sure what to expect, but the rear-cover synopsis sounded zany enough to win me over to purchase it.

Rear cover synopsis:
"KN4/2-034-17/Jones T. (M(AQ)C GRADE 3) is naïve, impressionable and very, very willing. His chief talent is conversing with dolphins in the Aquatic Mammals Division of HMS Profundis, a gargantuan submarine destined to roam the ocean depths for a century following a nuclear holocaust.

Years pass and mad captain succeeds mad captain. Eventually the ship falls under the command of one Admiral Horatio Prood, a kind, understanding man who finally comes to a startling conclusion. He is God the Father. The Almighty Himself. And all he needs now is a Son to sit at his right hand. Enter the innocent Tom Jones of the Aquatic Mammals Division..."

Yes, it's quite a silly novel which is silly from the start when Jones is ordered by his android manager to the office of Commander Bonze, who will determine if he is psychologically fit, by the request of Admiral Prood, who has recently discovered that he is God by simple definition. His computer Profundis is the Holy Ghost by default. Jones is fingered for being chosen as God's son because he exhibits a talent which seems miraculous: he speaks with dolphins. After being brainwashed into preaching the word of the artificial God and acting as His son, Jones is led around the giant ship in a quest to reach as many ears as possible through any means possible.

Cowper offers little tidbits of one-liners which leaves me shaking my head and giggling at the same time: "Her vast bosom shuddered like a harpooned whale." The dialogue is also filled with nonsensical pinging and ponging between dense and childish characters. It's all very light-hearted and has an honest aim at good humor. However, the humor side of the plot tends to pour forth radically idiosyncratic characters which take center stage for a few pages and are never heard from again. It's this point which I find irritating while wanting Cowper to wrap it all up in a nice, big comical gift.

Cowper writes with grace, whim, wit, and intelligence. Profundis has definitely made me a fan. Since reading Profundis, I've read and reviewed the entire Kinship of the White Bird, starting with The Road to Corlay. On my shelves, I also have Clone and the five story collection in Out There Where the Big Ships Go. I'm eager to delve into these juicy morsels of obscure science fiction!

2007: Cauldron (McDevitt, Jack)

When the journey is worse than the destination (2/5)

Book Six of McDevitt's Academy sextology, the same sextology with the excellent base premise of exploring the mysteries of near-space, establishing contact with alien races, and dabbing in some xeno-archaeology. You may wonder, as I did, how this tantalizingly wondrous premise came to produce one mediocre book after another. Book Six, much like the previous five, dips its grimy paw of curiosity into the adventure honey pot and refuses to taste the sweetness of its discovery, just when things are looking good.

Rear cover synopsis:
"By 2255, the age of starflight is over. The Academy of Science and Technology is long closed, and the only efforts at space exploration are carried on by privately funded foundations. However, physicist Jon Silvestri insists that an abandoned prototype for a much more efficient star drive is workable. Priscilla Hutchins, now a fund-raiser for the Prometheus Foundations, persuades the group to back his research. Soon the Cauldron--the core of the galaxy--is only months away. As long last, the mystery of the deadly omega clouds that have devastated the galaxy for centuries can be penetrated. And a handful of brave men and women, Priscilla Hutchins among them, will journey into the very heart of the Cauldron..."

I'm assuming this book is called "Cauldron" not because of the book's destination, but because of the book's journey. Whereas the destination of Cauldron is the tumultuous radiation-plagued galactic center, the journey of Cauldron is simply a 350-page vat which McDevitt filled with half-cocked ideas that he couldn't flesh out into full novels. The reader typically wants a destination, but it seems the author ignores this plea and favors the journey... which is asinine because the entire journey in the Academy series was painful. McDevitt hints as his preference for the "journey" over that of the "destination" here: "The sense of getting from one place to another. Journeys are not about destinations, they are about the route." (291)

The journey within Cauldron is chaotic and McDevitt takes no time to stop and smell the metaphorical roses. He rushes by everything at FTL speed, leaving the reader gasping for a breather. If the "journey" is what is important to the author, then why are the first 195 pages of the 351 page book about getting ready to leave? Simply put: a wondrous new drive is discovered, tested, and crewed. Done... one sentence, which McDevitt draws out into 195 pages. Seriously. That leaves the reader with roughly 156 pages of "journey" and "destination." Unfortunately, McDevitt attempts to cram as many idle-brained scenarios as he can before reaching the destination of the galactic core.

(1) Makai 4417 is the target of the stealth satellites' transmission (from Chindi) but the planet is oddly rustic with denizens living simple lives. (2) Sigma 2271 is the source of a SETI reception of alien origin. The planet is barren save for a tower sticking out of the snow. (3) Tenareif is home to a once thought unpaired blackhole, but upon visuals it seems the blackhole has a very odd companion, indeed. (4) The Mordecai Zone is the conclusive source of the omega clouds. The clouds in the galactic core are massive and difficult to penetrate and explore.

All of these great scenarios are hurried by, in what seems like an attempt to boil down the plots of four other books and cram the remains of it into a grand finale. However, none of the "journeys" above provide any sort of relief to the readers desires for alllll those little dots to connect: the Monument Makers, the saviors of Deepsix, the intentions of the Chindi, the intention of the Omega clouds, and the reasoning behind the Moonriders... none of this will be answered, all of it will be skirted and ignored. If you're looking for closure, you've come to the wrong place. Even 7-11s have doors that open and close! McDevitt doesn't have the artistic license like Gene Wolfe to leave he reader in the dark.

I've written in prior McDevitt reviews that the author has an annoying knack for mentioned the height of every cast member. In Omega, McDevitt uses "tall" seventeen times to describe the height of characters, while in Odyssey he uses "tall" sixteen times. This trumps any other height description by a landslide. Here in Cauldron, he uses "tall" nine times (pages 12, 15, 24, 27, 37, 50, 54, 71, and 188); short, large, small, and huge were each used once; and "average" was used twice. McDevitt has gotten control of his "of course" diarrhea, too. One additional thankful note is the largely missing Gregory MacAllister, the mouthpiece upon the pages for McDevitt.

If you haven't read any of the Academy novels, then try out The Engines of God because I liked it when I read it in 2007. But with five years of heavy reading behind me, I find that all the McDevitt novels border on mediocre and terrible... 2-3 stars each. I'm in the unfortunate position to be in the possession of three more McDevitt novels, so this isn't the last review of a McDevitt novel... is there hope for him? I've heard Infinity Beach is much better... better than what, I don't know.

2007: Axis (Wilson, Robert Charles)

Unexceptional in all regards: tedious and unexotic (2/5)
From May 2, 2009

The sequel to the mind-bending novel Spin: sheathed in the mysteries of the Hypotheticals, the Spin, the Martians and the Fourths. Axis was a welcome sequel which could shed some light upon the mysteries left over from Spin. Alas, the curiosity is yet quenched.

Synopsis:
"...the "world next door"--the planet engineered by the mysterious Hypotheticals to support human life, and connected to Earth by way of the Arch that towers hundreds of miles over the Indian Ocean. Humans are colonizing this new world--and, predictably, fiercely exploiting its resources, chiefly large deposits of oil in the western deserts of the continent of Equatoria. Lise Adams is a young woman attempting to uncover the mystery of her father's disappearance ten years earlier. Turk Findley is an ex-sailor and sometimes-drifter. They come together when an infall of cometary dust seeds the planet with tiny remnant Hypothetical machines. Soon, this seemingly hospitable world will become very alien indeed--as the nature of time is once again twisted, by entities unknown."

The novel proved to be a quick read as it contains limited simple characters, limited locations on the New World and a simple, linear plot. In those regards, the novel is fairly blasé, hardly a worthy sequel to an award-winning novel. The only engaging aspect of this novel is the residue of mystery and awe carried over from Spin. The "ashfall" which takes place in Axis is commonplace throughout the novel but is never grabs my attention. The Fourths, also, while a major point in this novel, seem no different than the unaltered humans and so do not garner any excess consideration. It's just in the last 10% where answers surrounding the state of being of the Hypotheticals and "ashfall" are hypothesized, regardless of how unfounded and unsatisfactory they may be.

The relationships between the limited characters are dry and sometimes even itchingly tedious. Even the dominant love triangle surrounding Lise (along with dull Brain and drab Turk) plays little into the plot. The only characters which got any rise out of me were two agents from Earth inspecting the Fourths on the New World. Their additions to the plot were thin, but Wilson's introduction was classic: "Sigmund was tall, sepulchral, flinty. Weil was six inches shorter and stout enough that he probably bought his pants at a specialty store. Weil was capable of smiling. Sigmund was not." (122) This may be the only smile you'll receive from the entire novel.

Much of the New World which Wilson explores here has Asian overtones. The shipyard where ships are deconstructed is our point of entry into this strange planet. First Wilson states that Indian and Thai workers dominate the yards, but some pages later he writes that Indian and Malaysian workers make up most of the task force. At the same time, the village on the shore near the ship yard is an Indonesian village (more precise, a Minang village). However, the only cultural additions to the pages where the village of Minang is spoken are limited to their language (the one word "Ibu" is an honorific which means missus) and the false statement that the written language is curvilinear. If Wilson wanted to include Indonesian, Indian or Thai culture into his novel, the effort would have been welcome as it needed some exoticism or flare to reflect from the pages.

Lastly, Wilson tends to repeat himself throughout the book. He mentions the same things about the Fourths over and over again as well as descriptions of the strange flora. There are even some fallacies in the plot flow (regardless of how inane they may be, they shouldn't have been present). In one passage Lise makes her way out to the all terrain vehicle to grab some foodstuffs while on the next page she has to put on her boots because it's stated that she hadn't left the room since they had all arrived.

After this total dud of a sequel, I haven't raked up enough interest after five years to bother picking up the third book in the trilogy: Vortex (2011). Please do read Spin but prepare for disappointment with the second instillation.

1981: Kinship of the White Bird 2 - A Dream of Kinship (Cowper, Richard)

Future history without connections to the past (3/5)

A Dream of Kinship is the sequel to the book The Road to Corlay, the two being the first two parts of the Kinship of The Whitebird trilogy. Cowper wrote a clever little novel with The Road to Corlay, which had two parallel plots: one in 1970 A.D. with researchers into time travel and another in 3000 A.D. with villagers fostering a budding religious cult around a gift lute player. Without the addition of the time traveler, Michael Carver, the novel could stand alone as a period piece from the year 1450, if it didn't happen to be actually be set in the year 3000. My interest in the series is linked to these two parallel plots. At the end of The Road to Corlay, the two never really came together to make any "a-ha!" sense. I was hoping for a revelation in A Dream of Kinship (and god... what an awful cover!).

Rear cover synopsis:
"They came to destroy! The treacherous Falcons, uniformed in the black leather tunics of the fanatic Secular Arm, descended on Corlay to burn and kill. Commanded by Lord Constant, ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, they were determined to crush the religious heresy of Kinship. But a new dream rose from the ashes... When four Kinsmen escaped the carnage of their beloved land, each helped to fulfill the miracle that had been foretold: the coming of the Child of the Bride of Time would user in a New Age. For it was he who would claim the secrets of the stars... whose powers would drive him into battle with the dangerous Lord Constant... whose great courage would forge a new destiny on the wings of... The White Bird of Kinship."

Opening in the year 3019 A.D. in the town of Corlay, the Magpie has traveled to meet Jane, who is carrying the child of the martyr Thomas. Over in the archipelago of the Seven Kingdoms of what used to be England, Lord Constant and his Christian cohorts are scheming on ways to either undermine the Kinship or destroy the foundation of the pagan cult. The military branch of the church, the Falcons, who have a reputation for cold-blooded murder, are sent to Corlay to halt the spread of the Kinship and frighten the queen away from announcing her kingdom a Kinsmen haven. While Corlay is being set afire and its people pierced by arrows, the Magpie and the birthing Jane have escaped to the woods.

After the birth of the Child of the Bride of Time (the son of Thomas and Jane, who is also named Thomas), the plot jumps to the year 3038 A.D. where Thomas is in training to be a Kinsman with his friend David. His lute skills are already legendary under the tutelage of the wanderer Marwys, whose arrival to the village was "huesh-ed" by Jane. Thomas also "huesh-es" his meeting with a girl in the sea, a girl who will become drawn to him and unfortunately also draw him into treacherous regal affairs of the Kingdom.

The gruesome suspected poisoning of Lord Marshal Richard has Thomas, David, the Kinsman Healer Anthony, and his Protégé David concerned for anyone with strained ties with the Kingdom. The suspects Duke Philip and Lord Peter are eyed as the most likely to gain from the death of Richard. How this affair will affect the kingdom and Kinship isn't known, but Thomas knows that heavy-handed Christian church is intolerant of the Kinship and has the urge to spread the word.

Where The Road to Corlay was listed as "science fantasy," A Dream of Kinship is oddly labeled "science fiction"--oddly because the 1970 timeline plot is absent from this novel. Michael Carver is mentioned a few times, but the characters never make the time traveling connection and regard the Carver being as a visiting entity once experienced but now vanished. Taking place during the fourth millennium, there is no exploration of the major English landmarks, no derelict buildings, no skeletons of rusting aircraft or oil tankers--no physical connection with the past. This temporal detachment from its own history bestows a physical detachment from the same world; it's not a believable future history because of this. However, Cowper does write in some history of the Drowning:

"[...] the actual physical causes of the catastrophe had never been contested--the massive build-up of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere leading to drastic modification of the planetary albedo with consequent melting of the polar icecaps" (125)

Cowper also added more about the role the Church played in Europe's rising from the catastrophe of the Drowning:

"For hundreds of years the Secular Arm had both upheld and symbolized the supremacy of the Church throughout the Kingdoms of he west. It had become synonymous with political stability, with the fixed order of human affairs, with degree, with authority, and with fear. Above all with fear. Its historical roots lay back in the decades of turbulent anarchy which followed the Drowning, when by faith, self-discipline, and dedication to a noble ideal the Church Militant had gradually achieved its aim of imposing order upon chaos. [...] Printing, publishing, and all forms of technical innovation had been decreed Church prerogative, infringement of which was to be punished by death. Scholarship, other than that permitted within the strict confines of Orthodoxy, had virtually ceased to exist." (114)

This is a moderately intriguing future history, but the disconnection with our modern world displaces the plot to one of fantasy rather than science fiction. If some relics were exhumed, so monuments visited, or some artifacts commonplace, then the connection between the modern world and the future history of 3038 A.D. could be made real and, hence, placed into the genre of science fiction. The only connection presented are the names of countries which are under the rule of the Church of of the Kinship persuasion: Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and America. One promising note at the end of A Dream of Kinship is the onset of a voyage to the said countries.

Aside from the disappointing displacement of time, A Dream of Kinship has just too many minor characters with lords, dukes, Kinsmen, bishops, cardinals, brothers, sisters, princes, fathers, mothers, and maids. Besides having names and titles, there's very little to actually distinguish the slew of them part from one another. Just behind the massive front of the lead characters of Thomas, Alice, Witch, Richard, David, the Magpie, Alison, and Francis lay an entire slough of a barely supporting cast--very muddled.

As I peer at the pleasant cover of the third book, A Tapestry of Time, I have two feelings: one heady sense of adventure and the other a loathing. Where Book 1 was "science fantasy" and Book 2 "science fiction," Book 3 is clearly labeled as "fantasy." If this is the case, then my desire to see the 1970 Michael Carver link may be one of trite hope to be burned off by the temporally awkward future history of 3038 A.D. Book Three had better beings its A-game!

1978: Kinship of the White Bird 1 - The Road to Corlay (Cowper, Richard)

Olde English quaintness ala Connie Willis (4/5)
From August 24, 2011

Richard Cowper is well known for... well, nothing really. I happened to pick up his novel Profundis one year ago. I found his writing to be witty, charming, and well-educated. I took a shot at reading The Road to Corlay because of these characteristics in Cowper's writing. Taking one look at the cover of my edition (Pocket, 1979), it looks like a fantasy novel through-and-through. But on the rear cover of the book, an antenna can be seen in the prow of the boat. An odd addition, but my expectations remained aloft even though fantasy isn't my forte.


Rear cover synopsis:
"On the Eve of the Fourth Millennium a slowly-building civilization, struggling out of the rubble of the Drowning, was crushed beneath the scepter of a powerful and repressive Church. But on the Eve of the Fourth Millennium the sound of a magical pipe was heard, and the air was filled with songs of freedom and enlightenment. And on the Eve of the Fourth Millennium the Boy appeared, bringing the gift of sacrilege, a harbinger of the future, heralding the arrival of the White Bird of Dawning. It is the coming of a New Age... A glorious future bearing the presents of the past!"

The 239-page book begins with a 62-page prologue called "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" which is actually a short story by itself and is included in some editions of The Road to Corlay. A quarter of the book brings the reader up to speed about the history of the region where the novel is set: around the Bristol, Southampton, and Exeter region of south England. However, the time of the plot is set around the year 3000 after the earth had been flooded, so the bucolic landlocked English setting is actually a bucolic seaside setting. The prologue/short story is a mini-saga of a man who is a minstrel of sorts and a boy with a lute (ah, but no ordinary lute, you see). With this lute, the boy is able to charm animals (salmon jump to him and dogs cower in obedience) but can also be made to sooth the minds of humans. This special trait becomes known to the wider Kingdom and his following is called heresy by Falconry Church. Their death is demanded.

After the prologue ends, the reader witnesses the aftermath of the decree one decade later (≈ 3010 A.D.), where the boy's lute-fingering has become legendary and now a following called the Kinship of the White Bird is wide-spread but still secret. From this point on, two stories emerge: one involving a man found at sea and his recuperation at a family's cottage where a young woman possesses the gift of mind-reading and clairvoyance (which is called the huesh). The second story is set around 1970 during an experiment in which Michael Carver falls into coma but still exhibits mental patterns of social interaction. This observation infers that he has made contact with another mind in the future. Like Connie Willis's Doomsday Book where a physical person travels BACK in time, in The Road to Corlay the mentality of a person is transposed into someone in the FUTURE... both highlighting the quaint English countryside.

So yes, for the most part this novel contains very un-SF-like elements. For a seasoned SF reader like myself, the inclusion of mind-reading, Middle English language, and kinships are irking. Cowper keeps in lively with a grand search for the heretics, quests for artifacts, and the appearance of new characters always adding extra dimension to the plot. The climax and conclusion of both story lines were somewhat solemn but still radiated a sense of completion.

Little did I know that there are two sequels to The Road to Corlay: (2) A Dream of Kinship and (3) A Tapestry of Time. Hopefully, if I'm able to get my paws on these, a link between the two plot lines would become clearer and a more resolute conclusion could be made. For something different and intelligent, The Road to Corlay is notable even for an astute SF connoisseur such as myself.

1998: Mind Changer (White, James)

Psychological emergency under the new administration (4/5)

Mind Changer is the eleventh of twelve Sector General books and continues to take the focus off of Conway, a character who really ceased to be engaging after the first few books. Mind Changer shifts its limelight to the history of O'Mara, who was once a space construction worker, but after much personal experience with psychology, albeit without proper training, he was taken on as a psychologist. In this novel, we learn more about how O'Hara came to be and how he has affected the station since taking his posts.

Rear cover synopsis:
"It's where human and alien medicine meet: a massive hospital space station on the Galactic Rim, with 384 levels and a multispecies staff of thousands.
In the course of practicing deep-space medicine, that staff has seen more than its share of challenges--from plagues caused by cafeteria food, to cafeteria food that resembles alien species. But now they face a disquieting new development: the terrifying Chief Psychologist, Dr. O'Mara, has been promoted to head of the hospital.
Worse, he's been given the job on a temporary basis, for just as long as it takes to train his own replacement. After that, he is up for mandatory retirement. Nobody at Sector General can begin to imagine what they'll do without him--assuming they last long enough to find out."

Major O'Mara is notified by Colonel Skempton, the hospital's Monitor Corps administrator, that he will be transferring to a new post and that O'Mara must temporarily fill his shoes before retiring. Prior to his retirement while acting as hospital administrator, O'Mara must select the most qualified person--human or alien--who is both qualified medically and psychologically. His three person team gets his his first attention: human assistant Braithwaite, the Tarlan ex-surgeon Padre Lioren, and the forner warrior-surgeon Cha Thrat. Besides these prospective applicants, O'Mara must interview some other possibilities.

Winding back the clock a bit, O'Mara's personal history with Sector General is reviewed quite thoroughly. He first showed psychological promise back during the construction of the hospital when Major Craythorne took O'Mara under his wing. Once he had some time put in and promotion was imminent, the only logical choice to be inducted into the Monitor Corps, and with that the title of lieutenant. At a time when using mind tapes was a budding science, O'Mara illegally downloaded one tape into himself so as to better understand the psychological problems of a surgeon with the same tape.

From there on, O'Mara always had the tape in his head, with the secret medical knowledge and intimate life experiences of a promising young female Kelgian DBLF doctor. The honesty imparted to him by the mind tape has him viewed as blunt, rude, and nasty but overall loved by the staff for his noble Kelgian-like quality. However, his personal experience in love is blank and find himself unable to emotionally engage other humans, while taking shelter in the psychology of other aliens.

Progressing decades through his trials and errors, secret deeds and deeds, O'Mara witnesses the promising DBDG human medical students Conway and Murchison. Later, when acting as hospital administrator, O'Mara must ride out a telepathic storm brought on by an injured alien. How the problem is solved isn't as important as how soon it can be accomplished before the entire station turns mad by the infectious negative thoughts of the victim. This will be the impetus by which O'Mara selects the next fully qualified hospital administrator.

Rather than a medical emergency or a medical mystery, Mind Changer, as you would expect from the title and the focus on the character O'Mara, deals with psychology. At first, we witness O'Mara adapting to the multi-species alien environment, how we subsumes the Kelgian mind tape, and how he reluctantly falls in love with a DBDG female. Besides O'Mara's own psychological growth, he mentally dissects the administrator applicants and some of the problem patients within the hospital. This exhibits his sympathetic understanding of the needs for the patients and the desire to cure a troubled mind.

The most interesting part of the book in when O'Mara is trying to find himself during a mandatory vacation aboard a starliner cruise. The experiences he has aboard the ship will pave the way for his emotional and professional growth when he returns to Sector General. Thereafter, he takes his annual leave to someplace secret, which, as its revealed in the end, characterizes him even more so and tells volumes about his behavior at Sector General. And though O'Mara is a modest, well-spoken, yet shy man, the tongue-in-cheek sexual innuendos pens around the circumstances O'Mara finds himself in is hilarious:

Hesitating at first but soon getting into the rhythm, she joined O'Mara in blowing hard, sucking, and spitting out. Only once did she stop to look at him and wipe her lips with the back of her hand.

"Yuk," she said with feeling. "That stuff smells and tastes awful! Are you sure I'm blowing and sucking at the right body orifice?"

"Trust me," said O'Mara. (149)

The sexual innuendo passages aren't always that blatant, but I sure had a chuckle. In this scene, the two are giving CPR to an elephantine Tralthan but the unfolding of the dialog above was an unexpected witticism thrown in by White. I don't remember reading such sexual tension or oddly worded sentences in other White books (other than Major Operation), but I like this side of the, otherwise, dryly written books of White.

The non-linear storyline in Mind Changer is the one additional change in this White novel which sets it apart from the other very linear books in the same series. I've only read half of the entire Sector General series, and terrible out of order at that, but aside from Final Diagnosis (Sector General Book #10), this is the best in the series.