Badge of Infamy: A Positronic Book - Hardcover

by Del Lester Rey (Author)

Lester del Rey's Badge of Infamy is a fast-moving classic of medical science fiction, Martian danger, and institutional control. Dr. Daniel Feldman has been ruined by the medical authorities that dominate his world, branded with the mark of disgrace that makes him an outcast among his own people. Forced to survive outside the protection of the system, he travels to Mars, where the rules of Earth still reach across space-and where a deadly crisis may require exactly the skills he has been forbidden to use.

On Mars, Feldman finds a society caught between bureaucracy, fear, and disaster. A plague threatens the colony, official power moves too slowly, and the man treated as infamous may be the only one willing to act. Del Rey builds the story around a strong science-fiction premise: what happens when law, professional monopoly, and public health collide at the edge of human settlement. The result is an energetic mid-century adventure about exile, courage, medicine, reputation, and the cost of doing what must be done.

A compact and readable work from one of the important figures of American science fiction, Badge of Infamy offers the pleasures of Golden Age and post-Golden Age SF: Mars, plague, social engineering, medical ethics, action, and rebellion against a rigid future order. It remains a strong choice for readers interested in classic science fiction, dystopian systems, planetary adventure, and stories of one capable outsider forced to confront a civilization's failures. Explore other exciting Positronic Books devoted to classic science fiction, fantasy, and mystery.