Mr. Wilson at his very best. ( )

In The Healer, a human, Steven Dalt, travelling to another planet finds himself in a cave, where an alien creature fuses to him forming a symbiotic relationship. Steven was an ordinary person with nothing fantastic about him, but once the alien attaches to him, he becomes this superhuman immortal. The alien creature has incredible knowledge and skills that Steven does not. On the other hand, Steven has the body the alien did not. He becomes The Healer, capable of healing almost anything, including himself. The story goes on for centuries across galaxies and eventually comes to a conclusion.

Although I found the book interesting and fairly well written, overall I wasn't too crazy about the novel. Mostly what I didn't care for was that there was no coherent plot. It skipped centuries and went from place to place, but it was hard to dig into. If you were to ask me what the central plot line was, I would be hard pressed to give an answer, because there was no real central plot. If there was a focus to the story, I think it would be more effective. As a result, my feelings about this novel was lukewarm at best.

Carl Alves - author of Blood Street ( )

F. Paul Wilson is best known for his horror fiction, particularly his bestselling vampires-among-the-Nazis, The Keep. I rather enjoyed that pot-boiler, but I like his LaNague novels much more--but then I am a libertarian, and this is definitely libertarian science fiction. LaNague is at the center of An Enemy of the State, but he only gets mentions in The Healer, which was the first novel published. Or maybe series of short stories? Because this reads like several interconnected short stories about the title character rather than a novel. Steve Dalt flees into a cave on a planet in "Occupied Space" and a bat-like creature lands on his head. Legend says 999 of a thousand will die when that happens--but Steve lives--with a traveler inside his mind that lends him immortality and special powers. The Wiki claims that Wilson's two influences are John W. Campbell and H.P. Lovecraft. You can see the Campbell in the earlier LaNague novels, and the earlier stories in Healer; these are very much space opera of the Star Trek kind. There are faster-than-life ships using warp drives and crystals and aliens and M-class planets even time-travel tech, but above all the first book An Enemy of the State was economic fiction as much or more as science fiction, weaving in economic theory on monetary policy into the yarn. There's still a libertarian theme evident in Healer, but it's more conventional science fiction and there's definitely a Lovecraft aspect to Healer where you can more easily see this is by the author of The Keep. I found this quite enjoyable. ( )