Diagnosis: Terminal an Anthology of Medical Terror

A selection of short medical terror stories ranges from Bill Pronzini's "Angel of Mercy," a dark parable about a time long before Roe v. Wade, to Tina Jens's "The Cuban solution," about a tough woman doctor, and Ed Gorman's "Survival"

From Publishers Weekly

Only two of the 14 authors tapped for this entertaining anthology of medical horror stories are celebrated in that subgenre: Stephen Spruill (Painkiller) and editor Wilson (Implant). The others are newer writers, those renowned in other regions of horror (Chet Williamson; Thomas F. Monteleone; Ed Gorman) or visitors from altogether different genres (Bill Pronzini; Ridley Pearson). So if there's less experimental writing here than in many contemporary horror anthologies, there's plenty of spark, with each author adapting his or her own specialty to medical horror, and only a whiff or two of the patterns established by the king of stethoscope shock, Robin Cook. Pronzini kicks off the collection with a moody evocation of a moralistic madwoman in the last century ("Angel of Mercy"). Williamson contributes a sardonic yarn ("Dr. Joe") about a venal physician who gets involved in an insurance scam, while Pearson digs into his bag of crime-novelist tricks to create a gripping thriller novella about medical vengeance ("All Over But the Dying"). In the clever "Petit Mal," high-tech SF writer Jack Nimersheim imagines programmable biological devices attacking their creator. Elsewhere, Bruce Holland Rogers's "Wind Over Heaven" tells the pleasantly macabre story of a restaurant owner who gets caught up in the world of alternative medicine. With all due respect to the diagnostic abilities of Wilson, who is a physician, the title of this book should be: Diagnosis: Robust. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA. This collection of short stories deals with fictionalized medical terror. The anthology spans many time periods?from Civil War days to the future where mutated creatures are used to absorb human pain?and locations from hospitals to cruise ships. Each story is brief, intense, and written by a prominent author. Though this book will appeal to a limited audience, that audience will love it to death.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

These short stories either by or about physicians are set in medical situations ranging from the wagon of a nineteenth-century woman healer to a metropolitan hospital in a bombed-out Chicago of 2015, and they are first rate, good enough to savor one by one. Editor Wilson's own contribution is about a dramatic boat trip to an offshore floating hospital created by a national health program gone awry. Chet Williamson's "Doctor Joe," about a physician-insurance company scam, has a double twist at the end that provides a wonderful jolt of realistic nastiness. Steven Spruill's "Sinister" winds up, after the murders of several pregnant women, with an obstetrician and his previously unknown twin engaged in a battle in handcuffs to the death. Thomas Monteleone's "Get It Out" is a clever hostage story featuring a general practitioner, his kidnapped daughter, and the it of the title, an electronic implant in an insane man's skull. And there are 10 more! William Beatty

From Kirkus Reviews

Fourteen gripping stories on medical themes edited by horror-novelist Wilson (The Select, 1994, etc.), himself a practicing physician in New Jersey. Though the opening tale, Bill Pronzini's ``Angel of Mercy,'' about a postCivil War lady herbalist who travels about by wagon and dispenses fatal mixes for girls needing abortions, is quite weak, the collection overall has many strong tales and is not the mixed bag one might fear. Chet Williamson's ``Doctor Joe,'' about a general practitioner (now 90) who apparently hangs himself out of remorse for the life-insurance frauds he's been carrying out with a cousin in the insurance business, works neatly toward a surprise ending. Matthew Costello's ``Friendly Wager'' tells of the psychotic Dr. Newlove, who decides to imitate the plot of a grisly Roald Dahl story while on a cruise and sets about killing people with undetectable poisons. The tightest, toughest piece of storytelling here is Tina L. Jens's ``The Cuban Solution,'' about a female American doctor sent to Guantanamo Bay Naval Station to help fight an epidemic among Cuban refugees being detained at the base and finds herself in the middle of an episode of biological warfare. Wilson's own ``Offshore'' is a knockout suspense tale whose background deserves novelization: The federal government has taken over the US hospitals, and the rich are now going to hospital ships beyond the hundred-mile limit off the Florida Keys--floating wards with smuggled medical supplies the government has declared illegal. The late Karl Edward Wagner's ``Final Cut'' tells of an alcoholic who pre-enacts his own death, while Ridley Pearson's ``All Over But the Dying'' deals with the AIDS epidemic in Africa; it's the most serious story of the 14, though it descends into melodrama. Top genre tales. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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