Help me find a young adults hard sci-fi book about a space medic?
July 1, 2008 8:41 AM Subscribe
Please-help-me-identify-a-book-filter. Trying to track down a young adults hardish sci-fi book from the mid 80s in the UK about a space medic in trouble.
I read it from the young adults/teenagers library fiction section, when I was about 10 which puts it around 1984-1986.
It was fairly hard sci-fi for a YA book, and addressed the story of a travelling space-ship. There was some sort of accident or other mishap that ended up leaving the medical officer - fairly young, I think - in charge. I remember one particular incident in the book where they had to pass through a radiation storm/solar flare with insufficient shielding. The crew and passengers hid behind the water tank, and they had to jury-rig manual attitude control of the thrusters back to the safe compartment, to rotate the ship thus keeping the water tank between the radiation and the passengers for some period of time. I also believe there might have been some sort of disease that the doctor had to try and diagnose with insufficient experience and tools, that was slowing spreading amongst the crew, which he finally succumbed to near the end of the book.
hopefully my memory isn't completely wrong, and someone kind recognises this from my description. My nephew is very much into space and sci-fi, so I'm sure he'd love this if I do manage to find a copy. My google-fu has failed so far.
I read it from the young adults/teenagers library fiction section, when I was about 10 which puts it around 1984-1986.
It was fairly hard sci-fi for a YA book, and addressed the story of a travelling space-ship. There was some sort of accident or other mishap that ended up leaving the medical officer - fairly young, I think - in charge. I remember one particular incident in the book where they had to pass through a radiation storm/solar flare with insufficient shielding. The crew and passengers hid behind the water tank, and they had to jury-rig manual attitude control of the thrusters back to the safe compartment, to rotate the ship thus keeping the water tank between the radiation and the passengers for some period of time. I also believe there might have been some sort of disease that the doctor had to try and diagnose with insufficient experience and tools, that was slowing spreading amongst the crew, which he finally succumbed to near the end of the book.
hopefully my memory isn't completely wrong, and someone kind recognises this from my description. My nephew is very much into space and sci-fi, so I'm sure he'd love this if I do manage to find a copy. My google-fu has failed so far.
Response by poster: That sounds exactly like it - a series of catastrophies that kept getting worse due to exhaustion of the crew and unrest amongst the passengers - and using some of the water supply to regenerate oxygen does ring bells. Man, I've been trying to track this one down for weeks, and I was a big fan of Harry Harrison books (stainless steel rat etc) at the time!
Thank you so much.
posted by ArkhanJG at 8:53 AM on July 1, 2008
Thank you so much.
posted by ArkhanJG at 8:53 AM on July 1, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
I remember it as a sequence of catastrophes hitting the ship one after the other...
posted by handee at 8:46 AM on July 1, 2008