Contents
The stories follow the adventures of "Old Doc Methuselah" in a future where interstellar travel is completely routine; humanity has spread through several galaxies, and has met many alien races.
Old Doc Methuselah is a "Soldier of Light". The Soldiers of Light are an organization of supremely skilled, extremely long-lived physicians whose prestige and authority are so great that they can go where they please and do very much as they please. At one point, a low-ranking character mentions that in his instructions for welcoming visiting dignitaries, Soldiers of Light are not mentioned. "Neither is God", is the answer he receives.
The stories usually deal with some situation that has become very bad, until Old Doc Methuselah arrives, figures out what has gone wrong, and puts things to rights, using his great authority to bend lesser folk to his will.
His only companion for most of the series is an alien he bought on a whim. The alien prefers serving Old Doc Methuselah over freedom, and mopes when the Doc frees him in one story. His servant is quite useful because of his photographic memory and great resilience and strength.
Read more about this topic: Ole Doc Methuselah
Famous quotes containing the word contents:
“To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no Angel’s wing, no Seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Yet to speak of the whole world as metaphor
Is still to stick to the contents of the mind
And the desire to believe in a metaphor.
It is to stick to the nicer knowledge of
Belief, that what it believes in is not true.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“If one reads a newspaper only for information, one does not learn the truth, not even the truth about the paper. The truth is that the newspaper is not a statement of contents but the contents themselves; and more than that, it is an instigator.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)