Plot: 5/9. It was made up of several discontinuous chapters each of which told a main case where the author affectedly withheld much of the information abruptly—the lowest way to create suspense.
- O’Mara managed to deal with an ailing alien baby along with a superior begrudging him, and accordingly secured a job in the Hospital.
- Conway misused the tape, dispelled the invading harassment while maintaining his own principle, overcame his prejudice against the military and the violence.
- Conway helped a stuck-up doctor to edify an alien dinosaur about the teleportation. So the dinosaur could escape from the climatic catastrophe in its habitat in the near future.
- Conway and his new alien assistant called Prilicla rescued fellow doctors from the toxic gas in time, and eventually cooperated to catch a young, amorphous and deranged shape-shifter barging about the hospital unscrupulously.
- Conway discounted others’ opinions in treating the unknown disease of an unknown alien rescued from a crashed ship and kept the reason in secret because of his own uncertainty. It turned out that his presumption and action were right, for the disease was actually a normal symptom of this species’s natural metamorphosis.
Core: 6/9. I’d like to read more stories on distinctive and talented aliens cooperating with the protagonist to conquer tricky problems of intergalactic patients together in a comprehensive hospital.
Character: 4/9. I originally anticipated more heartwarming interactions with loveable colleagues or memorable alien patients, particularly like the witty badinage between Conway and his bad-tempered superior O’Mara:
O’Mara, “I wouldn’t trust you with my appendix.” Conway, “I have got your lousy appendix… It’s on my bookcase.”