Review – The Cure is Worse Than the Disease
The Cure is Worse Than the Disease was the kick off for a series.
Background
In response to a prompt about diseases and their cures, the title, as a phrase, lodged itself into my head and would not get out.
At the same time, I read an article about the marsupial wolf (this extinct creature was also called the Tasmanian tiger). A scrap of paper held the tiniest of plot bunnies – smart kangaroos.
Plot
Cria, a tween secondary female Daranaean
At the conclusion of Intolerance, Pamela Hudson is poised to leave the Nereid Medical Academy. Will Owen is distraught and is about to be kicked out, but Blair Claymore, Mark Stone, and An Nguyen are still going to be there. What happens to those newly minted doctors once they graduate?
I decided that An would graduate at the top of his class. And he would get a job with Erika Hernandez and become the Chief Medical Officer on her canon ship, the USS Columbia (the NX-02).
While on a routine voyage, they come across a pleasure craft which is emanating a distress call, a medical emergency. When they answer it, they come upon a most curious species, the Daranaeans.
It seems that there’s already a physician on board, Doctor Rechal. So, why isn’t he treating the sick individual? Because she’s a second-caste female, and he doesn’t treat their kind. As An, Erika and the remainder of the Columbia‘s crew learn, there is institutional sexism in this species. Everyone seems to be in on it. The men look down on the women. The Prime Wife looks down at the secondary. The secondary looks down on the third-caste female. And the women are kept barefoot and pregnant.
Doctor Nguyen loses a lot of his innocence then, as he learns that even a species that could be an ally can have some rather nasty personal practices.
Story Postings
- The Cure is Worse Than the Disease original posting (contains reviews)
- The Cure is Worse Than the Disease on Fanfiction.net
- In addition, The Cure is Worse Than the Disease on Fictionpad
- The Cure is Worse Than the Disease on Wattpad
- The Cure is Worse Than the Disease on G & T Show Forums
- Finally, The Cure is Worse Than the Disease in context
Rating
The story is Rated K+.
Upshot
The story was so well-received that fellow authors demanded a sequel. I wrote a few, and created a series for the Daranaeans, called Emergence. And it all sprang from this one story.
