Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Healer's War: A Fantasy Novel of Vietnam
    Unavailable
    The Healer's War: A Fantasy Novel of Vietnam
    Unavailable
    The Healer's War: A Fantasy Novel of Vietnam
    Ebook426 pages6 hours

    The Healer's War: A Fantasy Novel of Vietnam

    By Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Winner of the Nebula Award: “A brutal and beautiful book” that follows the surreal, fantastical journey of a Vietnam War nurse (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

    A literary departure for acclaimed fantasy author Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer’s War draws on her personal experience as an army nurse in Da Nang to create a classic novel of the Vietnam War, enriched with a magical, mystical twist.

    Lt. Kitty McCulley, a young and inexperienced nurse tossed into a stressful and chaotic situation, is having a difficult time reconciling her duty to help and heal with the indifference and overt racism of some of her colleagues, and with the horrendously damaged soldiers and Vietnamese civilians she encounters during her service at the China Beach medical facilities. She is unexpectedly helped by the mysterious and inexplicable properties of an amulet, given to her by one of her patients, an elderly, dying Vietnamese holy man, which allows her to see other people’s “auras” and to understand more about them as a result. This eventually leads to a strange, almost surrealistic journey through the jungle, accompanied by a one-legged boy and a battle-seasoned but crazed soldier—as McCulley struggles to find herself and a way to survive through the madness and destruction.
     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateApr 29, 2014
    ISBN9781497632172
    Unavailable
    The Healer's War: A Fantasy Novel of Vietnam

    Read more from Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

    Related to The Healer's War

    Related ebooks

    Occult & Supernatural For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Also Out

      Jul 15, 2020

      Words have mystical power in Jay Posey’s space opera EVERY SKY A GRAVE (out now, Harper Voyager). Set in a future where mankind has mastered the Deep Language of the universe, it centres on an adept sent to a world that’s become corrupted. The world

      1 min read

    • Article

      I Was a Prison Hospice Aide. Then Came Coronavirus.

      Apr 10, 2020

      “I know firsthand how the looming threat of COVID-19 is being absorbed by all of us behind the walls.”

      4 min read

    • Article

      An Accidental Witness

      Jan 27, 2020

      An Accidental Witness
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Secret Life of Grief

      Dec 3, 2013

      The Secret Life of Grief
      12 min read

    • Article

      Morbidity & the Miniature

      May 11, 2018

      Morbidity & the Miniature
      14 min read

    • Article

      A Rear Old Time

      May 9, 2021

      A Rear Old Time
      7 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Physics for Mothers

      Dec 15, 2020

      Quantum Physics for Mothers
      10 min read

    • Article

      The longest Night

      Mar 28, 2022

      The longest Night
      13 min read

    • Article

      My Disease is Not a Metaphor

      Oct 2, 2018

      My Disease is Not a Metaphor
      11 min read

    • Article

      Bright Passage

      Mar 8, 2022

      Bright Passage
      19 min read

    • Article

      A Survey of My Right Arm

      Sep 1, 2019

      A Survey of My Right Arm
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Dying Of The Light

      Dec 13, 2023

      The Dying Of The Light
      7 min read

    • Article

      Voicing Our Fears

      Aug 30, 2019

      Voicing Our Fears
      10 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 24, 2020

      MY LATE wife, Colleen, wrote this after our dog, Tina, died. I thought your readers might enjoy it. “I find myself reaching for you in my sleep to make sure I don’t hurt you when I roll over. I still smell your fresh doggy-smell after your “spa day”

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Seven-Year Cycle

      Jul 5, 2022

      The Seven-Year Cycle
      8 min read

    • Article

      Like Hell

      Jan 20, 2021

      Like Hell
      8 min read

    • Article

      What We Get Wrong About Dying

      Dec 28, 2017

      My first exposure to the death of a patient came during my third year of medical school, in Israel. It was my first clinical rotation, which happened to be in internal medicine. Tagging along with my mentor, a senior physician to whom I had been assi

      12 min read

    • Article

      Robert C. Koehler: Life Goes On, Right?

      Mar 10, 2022

      I had a breakthrough yesterday — and I don’t mean metaphorically. Wars rage, countless humans suffer, the rich get richer, life goes on. I still have my morning coffee. But not yesterday. What happened — about 5 a.m. — was a fleeting . . . oh so flee

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Final Truth

      Jan 21, 2020

      The Final Truth
      5 min read

    Reviews for The Healer's War

    4/5

    12 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Substance: Gritty realism with paranormal happenings. Based on author's experiences as a nurse in Vietnam. Minimal (but standard) political references. Mostly personal reaction. Only nominally SF, because of the magic amulet. Style: First-person narrative, mostly well done. Marred by a few foreshadowings more appropriate to Gothic romances, and not needed.
    • 5/5
      The Healer's War won the Nebula Award for best novel in 1989 which is a little surprising since it has only the barest fantasy element: an amulet that allows the wearer to see auras. It's really a Vietnam War novel from the woman's perspective. It follows Lt. Kitty McCully an army nurse at the hospital in Da Nang, as she's lost in the jungle, and when she gets home. Kitty treats each person she cares for as a person but comes to realize that because Americans can't tell which Vietnamese is the enemy, sometimes they hated all of them. She tries to keep her humanity during wartime, and it's almost impossible to do. Toward the end of the novel Kitty just wishes she could be home, and she realizes the Vietnamese are home and have no where to feel safe. While reading, I couldn't help thinking of the current mid east wars and how, even if the fighters come home physically intact, their humanity has to be impacted in devastating ways.
    • 1/5
      Wanted to enjoy this historic novel but after struggling through 75 pages, just couldn't read any more.I did not find the protagonist interesting and the story of the unfortunate Viet Nam citizens has been told before.