SHADOW IN THE WARD

A hospital is taken hostage by its AI physician in Gray’s debut SF thriller.

In 2042, the American medical system is stretched to the point of breaking. While the rich attend new medical facilities staffed by robotic doctors, everyone else winds up in the emergency rooms of underfunded hospitals, consulting old-fashioned human doctors like Seth Kelley. Treatment in such facilities is a numbers game—move people in and out as quickly as possible—and even altruistic physicians like Seth can’t help but long for their own impending obsolescence. Burned out, he accepts a new job as an overnight physician at Premier West Hospital, where he has the opportunity to work beside an “Automated Healthcare Provider,” controlled by a supercomputer known as ALDRIS: Autonomous Learning for Diagnosis, Resuscitation, Imaging, and Surgery. “It has broad, macroscopic swarm-level control, like a commander orchestrating troops on a battlefield,” Seth’s new boss, Dr. Ian Winter, explains. “Truly revolutionary.” What could go wrong? When the supercomputer inevitably decides to rebel against its creators—it turns out ALDRIS doesn’t quite abide by the Hippocratic oath—it’s up to Seth and his colleagues, anxious medical student Daria and night owl programmer Cody, to lockdown the hospital, treat the patients, and outsmart one very intelligent, very dangerous machine. The tension between human knowledge and inhumane technologies runs throughout Gray’s sharp, often didactic prose: “We’re in a world now where automation is quickly changing the landscape of work,” Seth laments to Cody. “Do you ever worry that machines might take over your job?” Cody replies, “Every day…But then again, I also remember that someone needs to build and maintain those machines.” Gray clearly has a deep knowledge of medicine, which adds to the verisimilitude of the world even as jargony passages occasionally bog down the pacing. The book fits within the larger genre of technological Frankensteins, though the healthcare twist adds intriguing and timely dimensions.

An authoritative techno-thriller that pits physician against machine.