Major Operation

Fix-up novel: 'Invader'; 'Vertigo'; Blood Brother'; 'Meatball'; 'Major Operation' (see under Short Stories). "Designed to accommodate virtually any creature brought in for observation or medical care, Sector General was staffed with at least a hundred different species of doctors and nurses. But there was trouble aboard. Some life form had entered the great hospital. The invader was invisible and undetectable -- even by the empathetic Cinrusskins -- and it was creating hallucinations that were causing serious accidents . . ." (blurb). One of those rare fix-ups where the constituent parts hang both together and separately; in the capital reading sense, not punishment!

First Publication:

Ballantine Books No 345-02149-5-095, February 1971

Publication History:

BB, 2nd printing, ISBN 345-24229-7-125, October 1974

BB, 3rd printing 0-345-29381-9, May 1981

Macdonald/Futura, ISBN 0-7088-8185-8, £1-95, February 1987

Collected in Beginning Operations, Orb (Tor Books), June 2001

Foreign Publication:

TERRA No 203, February 1973 as Die Artz der Galaxis

Livros Do Brasil No 223, 1976 as A Grande Operacao

Uitgerverj/Scala, ISBN 90-6221-641-2, 1977/8 as De Grote Operatie

Wilhelm Heyne No 06/4974, 1993 as Grossoperation