Jeff Somers is the author of
Lifers,
the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books,
Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including
We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog he tagged nine science fiction novels that imagine the future of healthcare, including:
The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton
Crichton’s 1969 novel is a classic of realistic sci-fi still hailed as a master class in problem-solving under pressure. Every time the characters—trained, intelligent scientists—make a decision out of panic, things go haywire, but when they move deliberately, they tend to make progress. At the center of a fascinating story based on logic is the “universal antibiotic” Kalocin, one of the few truly sci-fi concepts in the book. When one of the scientists believes he’s trapped in a lab where the titular infectious agent has broken free, he demands that he be given a dose of Kalocin as his only chance to survive—but this is refused, because such an antibiotic would kill off everything in his system, rendering him lethally susceptible to an infinite number of infections—a future we might be heading towards anyway, with the overuse of antibiotics creating resistant strains every day.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
The Andromeda Strain is among
Neil deGrasse Tyson's six favorite books and
Joel Cunningham's 11 fictional maladies that will keep you up at night.
--Marshal Zeringue
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