TY  - BOOK
AU  - MacLean,Katherine
TI  - Contagion
T2  - Produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1950
AV  - PS 
PY  - 2015///
CY  - Salt Lake City, UT
PB  - Project Gutenberg
KW  - Science fiction
KW  - Diseases -- Fiction
KW  - Space colonies -- Fiction
N1  - Release date is 2015-12-27; Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net; Original publication data not identified
N2  - "Contagion" by Katherine MacLean is a science fiction novella originally published in a magazine in the early 1950s. The story is set on the planet Minos, where a group of space explorers confronts the implications of a disease that has historically decimated previous colonies. The novella explores themes of identity, contagion, and the complex responses of human beings to new environments and situations.  The narrative follows a four-member medical team aboard the spaceship "Explorer" as they arrive on Minos, believing it to be a pristine, uninhabited planet. They soon discover that a small human colony already exists, but the inhabitants have been isolated due to a deadly disease referred to as "melting sickness." The protagonists must grapple with the reality that they have been exposed to this affliction, which turns out to be a contagion linked to the genetic changes in the colonists. As events unfold, the medical team learns the disease alters their identities, leading to a crisis as they become indistinguishable from a dominant local population. The story culminates in questioning the essence of selfhood and belonging, leaving readers with thought-provoking reflections on human identity in the face of profound change. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
UR  - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50774
ER  -