Reddit mentions: The best medical fiction books

Well, I'm almost 40, and I trade books with my 60+ neighbor.

If you're sticking with romance, Eloisa James is a good romance author; Courtney Milan is also amazing.



For science fiction and fantasy with a dose of romance - Lois Bujold's Vorkosigan series (start here) is very very very good, and her Chalion series (here) is excellent for the first two books (you can easily skip the third book, it's a prequel and not as interesting all around.)Bujold tends to be very, very popular with women, and older women; she's a very sharp and insightful person who happens to write big, fun space operas.


I strongly recommend Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population; it has no romance but features an older woman, adn is very very thoughtfully done. Her The Speed of Dark is more challenging but still excellent work. Karen Lord's The Best of All Possible Worlds is also utterly amazing.

For nonfiction, try Bill Bryson. I recommend A Walk In The Woods.

I recommend Dune, as it's similar to ASOIAF as far as political machinations go to some degree, also epic story lines.

You might also like Hyperion by Dan Simmons, I read the first two books, they're kind of freaky.

I also liked Eon by Greg Bear, which is interesting as it shows a look at a future where a big asteroid appears above earth and it has an object on it that the joint Russian/U.S spaceforce goes to investigate, if you're interested in futuristic politics as evidenced by your love for the Bean series, then I'd say this one is for you. Although it's not quite similar to that in the blatancy of its political machinations, it does show an interesting look at this culture and that is in the background.

He also did a couple of good books like Darwins Radio and Darwins Children. I actually started out with Darwin's Children even though it's a sequel. I really liked it. Think Escape to witch mountain.

Earth by David Brin : Experiments with a black hole on the earth's surface goes horribly wrong, near future society where privacy has become a thing of the past

If you're looking for a good post-apocalyptic romp I'd suggest Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. She also did a great series called the Patternist series. This covers several generations. She also did something widely praised called the Kindred though I have yet to read it. Also Lilith's Brood was cool.

You might also like the Stardoc novels. It's a little bit smaller scale in terms of focus but follow large events.

Also one of my favorite all time books is Mainline. It's about an assassin who can slip through parralel time streams to make a hit. It's pretty awesome.

Ok good luck!

And read Lost World Jurassic Park.

The Sparrow: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Doria-Russell/e/B000APW42W/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1373741779&sr=1-2-ent
Brilliantly written, powerful ending. So powerful I was afraid to read the sequel for years. I'm glad I did, but wow. This book hit me hard.
It has a lot of different themes, music, the place of humanity in the universe, how different intelligent races view the world and how their culture can be very different from ours and not be "wrong" how entire ecologies work and what can happen when humans meddle. Also,
Religion, Jesuits, God, faith.

Passage by Connie Willis
Is there an afterlife? Can we use science to measure it look into it?
Where do "you" go after death, no where? Somewhere? What is a good metaphor for dying?
Willis' Domesday Book aslo is great but Passages have me, the emotionless Vulcan crying. But just reading a book for a good cry isn't what makes it a good book. I really cared about the Characters.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553580515

It's not actually fiction, but it reads like it (i.e. written in a narrative style). If you're at all interested in the goings-on of an abortion clinic, Peter Korn's Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic is really good.

In the same vein, I find that memoirs read very much like fiction, so I really enjoyed Susan Wicklund's This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor and Willie Parker's Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice.

I also read The Mothers by Brit Bennett and found it a pleasant read, although it didn't leave a major lasting impression.

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas, on the other hand, does still stick with me- a really haunting imagined not-so-distant future where abortion has been made illegal (not quite as dystopian as The Handmaid's Tale).

Gabriel Weston's Dirty Work is ostensibly pro-choice, I think, but kind of challenging. I didn't love it, but I don't regret having read it, and it is an interesting book simply for having been written by a surgeon.

I can confidently say to stay away from The Fourth Procedure: A Novel of Medical Suspense by Stanley Pottinger- ended up feeling like a very pointless read.

Soooo I wrote this book... :) I specifically asked my editor to make sure the cover was gender-neutral because lots of guys read my book and like it too! One of my primary motivations in writing Courting Greta was to present a much more, ummm... I guess honest view of what romance is really like. And to also show that a love story involving people with serious flaws can be romantic. I dunno, check it out. ;)

Hello everyone! I've written a romance/medical thriller for the Kindle pentopublish contest 2017. The story is about a post transition FTM guy who tries to save his estranged father's company by playing a very convoluted game. Will he succeed? Should he trust everyone that seems to be helpful? Would he end up losing more than he bargained for?
Find out in my book: CATHARSIS
https://www.amazon.in/gp/aw/d/B0773KKXS6/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1509625721&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX118_SY170_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=catharsis
P.S. I appreciate all kinds of reviews. The book is available for free until 8th of November so hurry!

Check out Drood by Dan Simmons. I picked it up on a whim, and couldn't be happier that I gave it a chance. It's a total trip, and suspenseful in a laid-back / behind-the-scenes sort of way.

Also, I find anything by Michael Chrichton to be utterly "un-put-downable". I'd recommend starting with Congo or Prey, but definitely give Sphere a shot before you move on.

Edit: Sorry I meant Micro instead of Prey. Prey was "meh" but Micro is great. Also definitely check out Timeline! (Sorry, I'm basically obsessed with Chrichton)

Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, is another favorite of mine. But, it's been so long since I last read it that I can't really remember why. I'm going to be rereading that one again soon.

Still Alice because it is awesome! Well written, great story.

Or

The Art of Racing in the Rain excellent book. Loved every word.

Harmony by Project Itoh

> In Japan, Tuan Kirie and her friends Miach Mihie and Cian Reikado are taught about a period called the Maelstrom during which nuclear bombs and diseases ran rampant and destroyed the country once known as the United States of America. A horror of disease has driven the older generation to remake society, replacing nation-states with smaller "admedistrations," organizational bodies that use nanotech "medicules" and societal pressure to ensure that each person is as healthy as possible. The three teenagers, led by Miach, attempt to use this technology to commit suicide and thus rob society of valuable resources-their own lives. Miach is successful but Cian reveals the plot and she and Tuan are saved. Thirteen years later, Tuan continues to rebel, even while she attains a high-level position in the international medical police corps. It is under this aegis that she investigates when Cian commits suicide (one of thousands, worldwide). During her search, Tuan discovers that there may be something even more repugnant than a world of perfectly healthy people. Itoh presents a future in which humanity willingly collaborates in its own subjugation to "medical correctness."

The amazon page lets you read the first bit of the book for anyone interested. The prose has parts formatted like coding inserted into it, giving it a little unusual style.

Ooo, I loved His Dark Materials! I read a ton and the last few book that made me really happy were Gone Girl, Where'd You Go Bernadette?, and if you are open minded, Prepared, which is a novel about the lives of morticians. It was a surprisingly fun read! http://www.amazon.com/Prepared-Lindsay-K-Mason/dp/149222037X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409858324&sr=8-1&keywords=lindsay+k.+mason+prepared

Well, I went to one of the big three in the Caribbean. I won't say that all the professors were bad, but there were bad ones, and a large part of the student body didn't take things seriously.

The school hired locals for a lot of staff positions and corruption ran pretty deep. You could buy exams from staff members or find someone circulating old exams. The old exams weren't 100% of what would be on the exam you would have, but probably around 60%. The school over accepted by probably 10-15%. If everyone showed up to lecture, there wouldn't be enough seats to sit. Their goal was to get students to drop or get held back a semester in the first year. Granted, this really only applied to mostly students that deserved it, but I saw a few people get hit pretty hard over petty things, like missing a lecture they didn't know was mandatory(keep in mind, the lecture hall didn't fit all students so you were better off watching a recording later). They also put you on probation if your average dropped below 76%. If you had two semesters below 76% (even if you were passing), you were kicked out. The course work was mostly a USMLE prep course.

I went to a bar right outside campus and saw a professor doing coke at the bar. This sounds outrageous, but isn't necessary out of the ordinary in the Caribbean.

I have no experience with this, but there were rumors of professors trading upcoming exams for sexual favors.

If you don't mind all the bullshit, and you are okay with students at the same university getting by doing the bare minimum, the school will get you where you need to go. But if you think you have a chance at a US school, or think you have a chance doing a masters to MD program, or a chance at a DO program, go that route even if it takes an extra year or two.

Also, applying while you're in school is difficult. You are going to be in the Caribbean during the interview time frame. You'd have to make international flights for any school you interview at.

The course work you are doing won't matter, because you will find out if you are accepted before the semester is over. The only case where the course work would matter is if you do a full year at the Caribbean school before transferring. So if you think you have a chance to get accepted during the first semester, there is no reason to attend that first semester. If you think you need a full year of good grades, by the time you get accepted, you'd only have another six months in the Caribbean before moving to New York for the clinicals.

Give http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Factory-Offshore-Medical-Professors-ebook/dp/B004WKQXWS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419486110&sr=8-1&keywords=doctor+factory a read, but read it with a grain of salt. I don't know if all the stuff the author says happens actually happens, but I do know that some of it does.

There are a lot of good international programs out there that aren't Caribbean. But if I were to do it all over again, I'd look at the masters to MD options.

Complications is great. It's worth the price of admission for the chapter on necrotizing fasciitis alone. Also, check out Gawande's semi-regular dispatches for The New Yorker (most available online without paywall).

Also, if you like the show House, the first few seasons were largely inspired by the stories in Berton Roueche's The Medical Detectives, a collection of non-fiction vignettes about epidemiologists running-down medical mysteries. It's great even if you've already seen the House episodes that cover the same diseases. There are also a couple of sequels, but they were out of print the last time I checked.

And then you have your paperback medical thrillers. Off the top of my head, a couple of decent House-esque ones were Joshua Spanogle's Isolation Ward and EARLY Tess Gerritsen books like Bloodstream.

If you want something a little more character-driven and a lot more cynical, try Richard Dooling's Critical Care, which is about 20 years old, but I think its critique of U.S.-style medicine is still relevant. (BTW, everything Dooling has written is terrific -- he's sort of a thinking person's John Grisham -- with White Man's Grave probably being his best book; I have no idea why he's not better known.)

This book Atlantis looks super interesting - I can only have hard copy right now :)

If I were a book, I hope that I'd be a great one.

You should read Passage by Connie Willis. It's about a psychologist researching near-death experiences. It's not great literature or anything, but it's super super interesting.

I have not read "This is Not a Test", but I looked it up and added it to my list of books to buy.

I'm going to do something unusual here, and recommend a book that I have not yet read, but I love this subject as well and I am awaiting the arrival from Amazon of "The Cobra Event" by Richard Preston.

I have read his "The Hot Zone" which was a compelling and awful read about the true events unfolding in Washington D.C. involving the Ebola virus. So, I imagine "The Cobra Event" will be well researched and - well - scary.

I thought for a second it would be "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" but by the time I finished reading your post I knew that wasn't it. If you absolutely can't find the one you're looking for but want another good read about a woman in inpatient care for schizophrenia that's a good one.

http://www.amazon.com/Never-Promised-You-Rose-Garden/dp/0312943598

I definitely recommend Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell. Fun book - I listened to the audiobook, which had a great reader.

They all seem to be for 8-14yr olds...

Edit: Oh. Maybe that's what the OP meant. I got excited because I thought it would be a bunch of great books for guys, not for kids.

In case that's what you came looking for too, here's a couple of greats:

Beat the Reaper It's like House meets the Sopranos, except better.

Altered Carbon The most bad ass futuristic sci-fi book, ever.

Sealed In by Jacqueline Druga was a pretty good one IMO. It's about a hybrid virus known as Ebolapox breaking out in the midwest. Scary thing is that it's an actual experiment from during the cold war.

Also, check out Isolation Ward by Joshua Spanogle. This one isn't about a big scale breakout, but more of the CDC preventing one. Still, it's one of my favorite medical thrillers (and a big inspiration for my writing); so I would definitely suggest it.

What a fantastic idea!

Smile, It's a Cute Red Panda!

Either This or This

Your choice!

If you like that you will love this.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/149222037X/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?keywords=prepared%20lindsay%20k%20mason&qid=1385172277&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

I'll definitely give it a shot - but I dunno. I'm passionate about my job, but also humble. I never really liked that whole "people's lives are in our hands" attitude, it just never sit with me. We do what we can to help, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I always liked this quote from "Bringing out the Dead" by Joe Connelly - later a great Nic Cage film:

"I realized that my training was useful in less than ten percent of the calls, and saving lives was rarer than that. After a while, I grew to understand that my role was less about saving lives than about bearing witness. I was a grief mop. It was enough that I simply turned up."

Looks like Miracle Cure.

> Since the face of Violet’s watch is still glowing, she decides to calculate the temperature using cricket noises, something her father taught her how to do when she was twelve, and at least gives you an answer in metric. By cricket it’s ten degrees centigrade out. By conversion: fifty degrees Fahrenheit. It gets her off the porch. Whatever’s out there is better than thinking about this bullshit.

You can read the rest in the book which is a sequel to Beat the Reaper, but you don't really need to read the first book first (but I think it is the better of the two).

There are apparently at least two versions of Wild Thing, as the image above says "Violet decides that while her watch face is still glowing,", but in the Kindle version, the line after "because you can't directly relate any of those quantities." is the one I quoted above. So, I don't actually know what happens to her watch. It could be in that version aliens step out from behind a bush and kidnap her. Who knows.

Another difference comes before the main quote: "[Being raised, as Violet was, without the] metric system is like being raised with a harness on your brain." In the Kindle version, it says "Being raised, as Violet was, without the metric system is like being raised without Vitamin D. Whatever the fuck rickets are, it gives you the mental version of them."

I wonder if the image is from an early draft or something.

Bringing Out the Dead, the book that inspired the cult classic movie by the same name.

A Paramedic's Story: Life, Death, and Everything in Between, which was written by a guy who writes a popular EMS blog.

Paradise General is a great book about the doctors and surgeons who served in Iraq during The Surge.

It has no official release, so the online fan translations I linked are the only ones that exist for it.

A single light novel volume that is licensed that you can buy though is [Bakemono no Ko] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boy-Beast-Mamoru-Hosoda/dp/0316270601/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1458357939&sr=8-2&keywords=the+boy+and+the+beast) in that case. And Another

Project Itoh's novels Harmony & Genocidal Organ are also good.

Michael Crichton books are always a good bet -- [Terminal man] (http://www.amazon.com/Terminal-Man-Michael-Crichton/dp/006178267X) and [Micro] (http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Novel-Michael-Crichton/dp/0060873175/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376689097&sr=1-1&keywords=micro+michael) are fantastic and speedy reads.

[Mary Roach] (http://www.maryroach.net/) - writes non-fiction titles based around her interests. Consider Stiff and Gulp for your reads.

[Alan Bradley's] (http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Bradley/e/B001JRTK5O/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1376689204&sr=8-2-ent) books are fun murder thrillers where the detective is a spunky 11ish year old with a knack for poisons and investigating murders. There are six books in the series and it should still be ongoing (unless something happens)

If you want something a little deep try [Kate Atkinson's Life after Life] (http://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Novel-Kate-Atkinson/dp/0316176486/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376689325&sr=1-1&keywords=life+after+life+kate+atkinson).

Hope these help!

Something like that happens in Galatea 2.2.

Very bleak novel.

Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers.

It's a novel about a group of university professors, linguists, literature professors, philosophers, and cognitive scientists, who collaborate in the creation of a complex neural-network based program. Their intention is to create an artificial intelligence which could pass a Turing test by writing an essay indistinguishable from one written by a student in the literary criticism department. They create version after version, sometimes ending up with nonsense, sometimes seeming to get closer to intelligence, or even an emotional response. Finally, the program seems to be asking introspective questions, but the cognitive scientists don't quite believe it.

A little sensationalised, but an easy read - Hot Zone by Richard Preston

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hot-Zone-Chilling-Story-Outbreak/dp/0552143030/ref=nodl_

You should read Michael Crichton's "Micro". It isn't exactly "working together with insects to survive" but more of surviving insects when you're microscopic.

https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Novel-Michael-Crichton/dp/0060873175

[Bringing Out the Dead] (https://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Out-Dead-Joe-Connelly/dp/0375700293) by Joe Connelly is an interesting book - I read it in EMT school on the recommendation of my instructor. Lately I've been reading [Rescuing Providence] (https://www.amazon.com/Rescuing-Providence-Michael-Morse/dp/158160629X) by Michael Morse. I like it so far but I haven't read much of it yet.

Looks like Miracle Cure.

Girl, Interrupted ( http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Interrupted-Susanna-Kaysen-ebook/dp/B00D0OR5EC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415949143&sr=1-1&keywords=Girl%2C+Interrupted The book is much better than the movie, promise)

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden ( http://www.amazon.com/Never-Promised-You-Rose-Garden/dp/0312943598 That date is the reprint date, this was originally published in 1964)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane ( http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-at-End-Lane-ebook/dp/B009NFHF0Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415949213&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Ocean+at+the+End+of+the+Lane It's a fantasy novel but it fits what you want)

Giant Huntsman Spiders.... Giant Bugs....

You should all read Michael Crichton's "Micro."

http://www.amazon.com/Micro-A-Novel-Michael-Crichton/dp/0060873175http://imgur.com/KM5v2W6

[Beat The Reaper] (http://www.amazon.com/Beat-Reaper-Novel-Josh-Bazell/dp/0316032212) by Josh Bazell

[The Serialist] ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Serialist-Novel-David-Gordon/dp/1439158487) by David Gordon

Josh Bazell: Beat the Reaper

Omg Passage. 800 pages of miscommunication and blocked-off passageways. I still have nightmares about that. I'm a slow reader, but I stuck with the whole book -- for a payoff that never happened!

Currently reading:

My Rise And Fall by Benito Mussolini

I Am the Messenger


Thinking of buying:

Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought

Courting Greta - Not sure about this one.

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

gangster in witness protection gets discovered, takes badass revenge

Andromeda Strain or Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Jurassic park is dinos in a 'modern lost world' scenario and andromeda strain is alien bacteria creating zombie apocalypse without the zombies

Empire of the Ants by Bernard Werber

people get shrunk down and discover the empire of the ants

Watership Down by Richard Adams

animal farm with rabbits and australians

The Lies of Locke Lemora by Scott Lynch

adventure with magic and ocean's 11 style crime. Sometimes funny othertimes adventurous and sometimes badassery

Tunnel in the Sky by Heinlein (very adventure/survival thriller)

kids are getting their survival badges, shit gets real very quickly. Lord of the flies meets firefly

Crichton's last book he was writing. Quite bad. I really REALLY hope the point where the main character is killed was after the point that Richard Preston took over after Crichton died.


Wait, you're pretending it doesn't exist, that's it!