author

Sam McClatchie

b. 1915

A medically trained writer who brought a doctor's eye to speculative fiction, he wrote tense, idea-driven stories about genetics, disease, and the risks of modern science. His known books include the science-fiction novels The Last Vial and Mother America, along with the nonfiction work Misdirected Medicine.

2 Audiobooks

The last vial

The last vial

by Sam McClatchie

Mother America

Mother America

by Sam McClatchie

About the author

Sam McClatchie was a physician as well as an author, and published fiction as Sam McClatchie, M.D. The surviving catalog records and ebook listings linked to his work consistently connect him with medicine and with science-based storytelling.

His best-known fiction appears to be The Last Vial and Mother America, both now available through Project Gutenberg. The jacket and catalog copy for The Last Vial presents it as a biological-warfare thriller, while the introduction to Mother America describes it as a science-fiction story about geneticists and a future competition culture.

A later nonfiction title, Misdirected Medicine (1973), suggests that his professional experience also shaped his work outside fiction. Reliable biographical detail on his personal life is scarce in the sources I could confirm, so the clearest picture is of a doctor-writer whose books explored medicine, public health, and the social consequences of scientific change.