Summary:
This is a collection of stories that follow the adventures of Calhoun and his assistant Murgatroyd, a Tormal. In the future humanity has spread far and wide with many different governments and cultures having came into existence over the hundreds of years of expansion. Since no one government controls everything the Med Service, kind of a galactic Red Cross, was created to be an impartial entity that serves the purpose of keeping human kind healthy and up to date on the latest and greatest in medical information. The organization also serves as a kind of loose communication net that helps humanity keep in contact with itself throughout the galaxy.
They also have the responsibility to deal with any medical emergency that they may come across during their travels. To help with this every ship is assigned a Tormal. A cat like creature that evolved to have a super reactive immune system that can create antibodies in response to any known or unknown virus in existence.
Unfortunately, though it’s never stated why, the Med Service stopped or couldn’t fulfill its mission for some time which left quite a few worlds to muddle through any problems they had on their own. This is where Calhoun and Murgatryod come in. Along with their normal planetary medical checks, they are also given the task of checking on planets that haven’t had a visit from med service in years or in some cases centuries.
Calhoun must be ready for anything as medical emergency can cover many problems such as a planet’s population being poisoned so a businessman can buy a planet, a renegade med ship doctor, a plague of demonic possessions, and planet that once set foot on, can never be left. No matter where he goes or what he encounters, Calhoun has to think on his feet and keep his cool as one mistake will not only cost him his life but doom those he came to help!
My Thoughts:
I thought that this was a pretty good read. There are eight stories in this book and all of them are interesting in one way or another. It’s important to remember that Lester Murray wrote these in the 1950’s and 1960’s so that if certain parts tend to drag or some parts may seem odd compared to modern stories then that’s mostly due to when the stories were written. It’s also easy to see how these stories influenced future SciFi stories that were to come. Some of the plot points may seem like old hat now, but this is the era that those well tread plot points started in. There is also some interesting psychology and history woven in to a few of the more interesting stories. If your interested in reading one of the great early SciFi writers or you just looking for a collection of good SciFi stories give this one a read. M.a.c ( )

F.Scott Fitzgerald reading Calhoun and his alien companion Murgatroyd travel the galaxy solving inventive medical mysteries with a fast moving prose style from Leinster. Some of the dialogue is a bit heavy handed, but the action moves at a fast clip. I was drawn to the details of interstellar travel, especially the hazards of space travel as presented by Leinster. The invention of the tormal, Murgatroyd, adds humor and is a unique science fiction creation. ( )

This book was in the free bin at the library and I picked it up because I had read some of the stories in the book when they first appeared in magazines. As a teenager, I liked the puzzle solving but now, rereading these after nearly fifty years in some cases, I value the underlying perspectives about altruism, the futility of war and the use of creative thinking to resolve conflicts. ( )

A good collection of medical related science fiction stories / novels from the 1950s & 60s. Calhoun (he doesn’t seem to have a first name) is a physician with the interstellar medical service who goes from planet to planet with his pet /assistant Murgatroyd (which I picture as something like a small monkey) fighting plague and unruly citizens. The stories are enjoyable but tend to be repetitive and I think are better enjoyed by not reading them all at once. Taking a break between each one (as would have happened when they were first published in the science fiction magazines) definitely improves them. ( )

Clever and funny. Classic sf. ( )