S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
VITAL STATISTICS
Name:WHITE, James
Aged:71
Born: April 7, 1928
Where: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Died: August 23, 1999
Where: _ _ _
Interred: Cremated
Married: Margaret (Peggy) Sarah Martin
When: 1955
Awarded:1988 Analog Award for Best Novelette "Sanctuary," 1997 SF Chronicle Award for Short Story "Un-Birthday Boy," and the 1998 Skylark Award for Imaginative Fiction.
James White
"My wife has the influenza and I've had to look after the children. My feeling on
this, the fifth day, is that parents should keep the first child and drown the rest.
Is this a subject for controversy?"
Science Fiction's non-violent author . . . and master of imagining aliens and their environments.
Unable to be a doctor, White became one in fiction, creating a body of work known as the Sector General series of short stories and novels that dealt with the medical diseases and psychological problems encountered in an orbiting space hospital, all 384 levels. The series was set far enough into the future so that it could involve a wide mix of extraterrestrial patients and staff members to solve various complex medical problems and plot twists.
Writing at night, White sold his first novel, The Secret Visitors, in 1957 to Donald A. Wollheim at Ace Books. His second novel, Hospital Station, was a fixup of three Sector General short stories, but it started a twelve book series (see bibliography) that became White's trademark. Other worthwhile non-Sector General novels included The Watch Below (1966), All Judgement Fled (1967), Tomorrow is Too Far (1971), and The Silent Stars Go By (1991 alt history). His shorter work was also excellent, winning awards and gathering wide attention, but in his final decade, White worked only on novels.
Except for a few years in early life spent in Canada, James White was educated, worked, wrote, lived, and died in Northern Ireland. He was educated at St. John's Primary School and St. Joseph's Technical Secondary School in Belfast. He became a tailor for "ladies and gentlemen" by serving an extended apprenticeship and spent two decades in that profession with several firms. The next two decades involved a job change when White acquired a position at Short Brothers, Ltd aircraft company in their public relations department, rising to Publicity Officer. A worsening eye condition, related to his diabetes, then brought about early retirement in 1984. The Whites removed to Portstewart on the north coast and James lived out his remaining 15 years there. White continued to write, but read little, by using increasingly larger fonts on computer screens.
White was one of those SF writers who became interested in SF fandom before becoming a writer and would often attended UK conventions and sometimes American ones, usually as a guest. He was also an active member of the British Science Fiction Association and was president of the ISFA, the Irish version. He was a co-founder of the Belfast Science Fiction Group, which was noted for meetings held in a pub or similar establishment.
"Some people fool themselves into thinking that the things
they do are good. They can cause an awful lot of trouble."
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here and try this page from SectorGeneral.com.
OBITUARY: The Guardian
