Mind Changer

1998

Chief Psychologist O'Mara has been at Sector General longer than any other being - initially as a calloused construction worker involved in assembling the gigantic construct, then as a member of the psychological team that made sure that the hospital staff and their patients got along with the minimum of fuss. Mainly, in O'Mara's case by terrifying the bejeesus out of his colleagues.

The medical staff thought that they were able to cope with anything that was thrown at them - from mutating equipment to all-out war, they'd seen it all, but a frisson of… of concern is sent down their collective spines (for those that have one!) when it's announced that the old Chief Executive of the hospital is retiring, to be replaced by O'Mara. But O'Mara's orders are quite explicit - he is to look for a new Chief Psychologist and then he is to retire himself.

As he considered the options, we get to see his past in a more direct fashion than we usually get and it's made clear that O'Mara is much deeper than the brief glimpses of the grouch we get to see in the other books.

In a way this is a poignant story in that it is the last Sector General book that James White got to write before his death so we have an unusual sense of closure in this being the last hurrah of O'Mara and James White together.

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