Caduceus Wild

Book excerpt: Armchair fiction presents extra large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels. "Caduceus Wild" is forgotten sci-fi classic by Ward Moore & Robert Bradford. The Medarchy was a tyranny that only a tiny minority considered oppres¬sive. Practically speaking, the Medarchy, was a sane and healthful society where the doctor's prescription was law, and everyone had to carry a medical chart with him at all times. How could the underground opposition--referred to as the maladjusted, or "the mallies"¬--hope to overturn such a system, when so few could see that cradle-to-grave regulation of a person's life (in the name of "health") robbed him of all human dignity? And now, two of the government's most outspoken critics, Cyrus Tarn and Virginia Carling, were faced with a life as fugitives--continually on the run. For should they be apprehended, they wouldn't be exe¬cuted, they'd be cured, robbed of their memories and individualities--a fate that awaited all who disagreed with the iron hand of the Medarchy.