2023 Canon Promo Post

[keita52]

Use the comments of this post to promote your favorite canon(s). Please use one comment per canon. You can use the template provided here or whatever format you wish.

If it is freely available online, consider adding it to the Freely Available Canons spreadsheet.



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[violet_pencil]

Text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18492
Free audio book: https://librivox.org/star-surgeon-by-alan-edward-nourse/

Name: Star Surgeon
Author: Alan E. Nourse
Length: short novel made up of linked stories, approx 50k words
Sub-genre: Interplanetary medical drama / fish out of water protagonist

Why it's awesome: Dal Tigmar is the first alien to join the all-human "Star Surgeons," in a universe where interstellar doctors are basically treated like rock stars. His human friend Frank "Tiger" Martin staunchly supports him in the face of species-ist/racist harassment from co-workers and higher-ups who think aliens aren't capable of being good doctors. Dal is a lovely main character: intelligent, hard working, caring and compassionate, stubborn in the face of obstacles but not immune to self-doubt, and his relationship with Tiger is surprisingly nuanced.

Any other important information to know about: Some plague/pandemic based storylines. Most of the outdated ableist language & attitudes (especially regarding the ranking of species as having higher/lower intelligence "levels") that you'd expect from being written by a doctor in the 1960s. Literally zero female characters, as far as I remember.