Alan E. Nourse

Alan E. Nourse was barely on my radar as a writer until fairly recently. I'd read one book by him, Raiders from the Rings, and liked it quite a lot. It was young adult SF, and so I picked up another YA SF book by him called Trouble on Titan. This one was even better. An exciting story and really well written. There's a fair amount of poetry in Nourse's work. 

After this book, I checked Nourse out. He was a medical doctor in addition to writing. He wrote fiction and nonfiction and had a medical column in Good Housekeeping apparently. He was born in the USA in 1928 and died in 1992. The two books I've read have a space operish feel to them and that's a good thing from my standpoint. Excitement and adventure. They are also YA mainly because his protagonists are on the youngish side, essentially teenagers. But the concepts are big. His science is a little dated--Trouble on Titan was published in 1954--but that scarcely detracts from the fun. 

If I'd known who Nourse was as a teenager he might have become one of my favorite SF writers, right up there with Anderson, Heinlein, Norton, and Silverberg (at that time). Now I'm going to check online for some more of his books. Maybe you should too.