Stewards of the Flame - Engdahl, Sylvia

Stewards of the Flame is science fiction and it's free. This would be a great book if the author didn't suffer from logorrhea. This is a fairly long book. I suspect the Reader's Digest condensed version would be the length of a short story. The book contains too much useless dialog and introspection, and is preachy to extremes on the perils of modern medicine. Lack of a good editor is one of the dangers of self-publishing.

Jesse Sanders was the captain of the star ship Eureka. Then Jesse had the misfortune to get drunk on the colony planet Undine. The government of Undine was the planet's medical establishment. Alcoholism was a disease and the Meds couldn't let it go untreated. Jesse was arrested and missed his ship's departure window. Now he's been stranded on Undine, but a group called the Stewards of the Flame recruit him in a bid to defeat the control of the Meds. The potential exists for this to be a great book. It's not achieved. I read the whole thing to see how it developed, and even the ending left a lot to be desired. Not recommended.