![]() | |
Author | James Alan Gardner |
---|---|
Cover artist | Luis Royo |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Series | League of Peoples / Festina Ramos |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Eos Books |
Publication date | 1997 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
Pages | 352 |
ISBN | 978-0-380-79439-3 |
OCLC | 37108212 |
Followed by | Commitment Hour |
Expendable is a science fiction novel by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner, published in 1997 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints. [1] It is the first book in a series involving the "League of Peoples", an assemblage of advanced species in the Milky Way galaxy. There is a "sub-series" involving just the character Festina Ramos, and sometimes the female Oar.
The novel introduces many concepts in Gardner's "League of Peoples" universe, such as the Explorer Corps, Sentient Citizens, and the League itself.
Through the course of the novel, Gardner provides a framework, background, and conceptual structure for his future narrative. In this backstory, humanity attains a technology of "spacetime distortion" to create an effective "star drive", thus leaving the solar system to explore and colonize planets orbiting other stars. Through this exploration and colonization effort, humans come into contact with many different species of intelligent life, sometimes vastly different in nature, sometimes of a much higher state of technological and evolutionary development. The more advanced beings have forms that stretch the humans' definition of life: they can appear as "a cloud of red smoke, a glowing cube", or as nothing at all.
These species have an organization for the galaxy, to control interstellar travel and contact; it is called the "League of Peoples". The League's primary rule is simple: no killing of other sentient beings. No war, no fatal violence; the League even prohibits lethal weapons in interstellar space. This is the guideline that determines sentience in the League's definition. Species that fail to obey this rule are restricted to their native solar systems, within which they can live as they please. If "dangerous non-sentients" attempt star travel, they are punished with instant death. The actual implementation of this rule in practice, in specific and varying cases, is more complex and ambiguous than vague generalities can capture.
For species that do obey the league's primary commandment, however, the rewards can be great: advanced technologies are doled out to co-operative societies. Much of humanity (though not all; a remnant still exists on "Old Earth") has accepted this bargain: from a genetically-engineered New Earth, a unified human culture calling itself the Technocracy sends out a fleet of ships to explore and colonize new planets. The fleet is run under a quasi-military and naval structure, under the command of a High Council of admirals; the spaceships' crews function much as traditional navies did on Old Earth, except for engaging in combat.
Exploring new planets, however, is dangerous work; in a society with no war, little crime or violence, and excellent advanced health care, the deaths of fit and intelligent young people, occasionally in the most extreme and elaborate ways, are a source of significant psychological trauma and social stress. The Technocracy has dealt with this problem by organizing a special Explorer Corps. These are individuals fit enough and smart enough to do the job, but afflicted with physical disadvantages (handicaps, diseases, or sometimes simple ugliness) that place them outside the norm of society. Candidates are identified in childhood, and conscripted into the Explorers; even if their deficiencies are easily correctible, they are left untreated. When these Explorers die in the course of their work—as they often do—the citizens of the Technocracy manage to cope with the shock.
The year is 2452. Festina Ramos is an Explorer, assigned to the Technocracy Fleet ship Jacaranda. Her specific physical "qualification" for her job is a large port-wine birthmark on her right cheek. She and her fellow Explorer and partner Yarrun Derigha (who is missing half his jaw) are the two Explorers assigned to the ship; they lead the isolated existence typical of Explorers, isolated from the healthy and attractive members of the fleet as from the "beautiful people" of the larger society.
Then Festina and Yarrun are plunged into a crisis: they are assigned to escort a Fleet admiral named Chee to planet Melaquin. Melaquin is the great question mark in the Technocracy's domain: for forty years Explorers have landed there, only to lose contact and disappear, cause unknown. The High Council has now acquired the habit of sending its troublesome admirals to Melaquin in the company of a team of Explorers, to rid itself of embarrassments without scandal or controversy. The fact that Explorers are lost in the process is accepted—since Explorers are expendable.
Admiral Chee is precisely the kind of embarrassment the high council wants to dispose of, quickly and quietly. Well beyond the century mark in age, when doses of Youthboost are no longer effective in prolonging his life and health, he is "clearly unstable, possibly senile"—or else "suffering from Don't-give-a-shit-itis". Though they try to avoid the duty, and then concoct a plan of escape from their apparent sentence to oblivion, Festina and Yarrun must accompany Chee to the surface of Melaqiuin. There, things go quickly and badly wrong: Festina accidentally kills Yarrun while attempting an emergency tracheotomy, Chee dies of a stroke, and Festina is cut off from her ship, alone on Melaquin.
The planet reveals itself to be amazingly Earth-like—so much so that it is clearly not natural, but a result of terraforming and genetic modification. Festina quickly meets one of the inhabitants of the planet—"A nude woman made of glass...like an Art Deco figurine." Their meeting does not go as the Explorer corps intends for first-contact situations. Eventually, though, the two establish contact; the glass woman introduces herself: "My name is Oar. An oar is an implement used to propel boats." She has learned English from the previous Explorers who came to the planet. A product of sophisticated genetic engineering, she is human, but flawlessly beautiful and possessing enhanced strength and intelligence; yet she has the emotional maturity of a spoiled child. Through Oar, Festina gains contact with the dying subsurface civilization that lingers on Melaquin, begins to unravel the mysteries of the planet, and pursues the trail of the Explorers who came before her.
Now "friends", Festina and Oar set off in search of the other Explorers and the truth behind Admiral Chee and the high council's involvement with Melaquin. The two find the Explorers building a spaceship; if the Explorers can get to interstellar space and send a distress call, the rules of the League may mandate that they be rescued and returned to society—if the Fleet does not stop them first. In due course Festina meets an old flame (a cross between a schoolgirl crush and the love of her life), who reveals himself to be a profound danger instead of a welcome ally. Oar sacrifices herself for her friend, and Festina manages to return to the Fleet and the Technocracy in a way she could never have anticipated.
The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction novels and stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is set in a future history in which civilizations of human beings on planets orbiting a number of nearby stars, including Terra ("Earth"), are contacting each other for the first time and establishing diplomatic relations, and setting up a confederacy under the guidance of the oldest of the human worlds, peaceful Hain. In this history, human beings did not evolve on Earth but were the result of interstellar colonies planted by Hain long ago, which was followed by a long period when interstellar travel ceased. Some of the races have new genetic traits, a result of ancient Hainish experiments in genetic engineering, including people who can dream while awake, and a world of hermaphroditic people who only come into active sexuality once a month, not knowing which sex will manifest in them. In keeping with Le Guin's style, she uses varied social and environmental settings to explore the anthropological and sociological outcomes of human evolution in those diverse environments.
The Culture is a fictional interstellar post-scarcity civilisation or society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks and features in a number of his space opera novels and works of short fiction, collectively called the Culture series.
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is a fictional character from Orson Scott Card's 1985 science fiction novel Ender's Game and its sequels, as well as in the first part of the spin-off series, Ender's Shadow. The book series itself is an expansion, with some changes to detail, of Card's 1977 short story "Ender's Game."
The concept of self-replicating spacecraft, as envisioned by mathematician John von Neumann, has been described by futurists including physicist Michio Kaku and discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. Self-replicating probes are sometimes referred to as von Neumann probes. Self-replicating spacecraft would in some ways either mimic or echo the features of living organisms or viruses.
A bioship is a type of spacecraft or starship described in science fiction as either predominantly or totally composed of biological components, rather than being constructed from manufactured materials. Because of this, they nearly always have a distinctively organic look.
James Alan Gardner is a Canadian science fiction author.
The Songs of Distant Earth is a 1986 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, based upon his 1958 short story of the same title. He stated that it was his favourite of all his novels. Clarke also wrote a short step outline with the same title, published in Omni magazine and anthologized in The Sentinel in 1983.
The Honorverse is a military science fiction book series, its two subseries, two prequel series, and anthologies created by David Weber and published by Baen Books. They are centered on the space navy career of the principal protagonist Honor Harrington. The books have made The New York Times Best Seller list.
Homeward Bound (2004) is a science fiction and alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove. It is the eighth and final work in his Worldwar series fictional universe. It follows the events of the Colonization trilogy and gives some closure to the storylines.
First contact is a common science fiction theme about the first meeting between humans and extraterrestrial life, or of any sentient species' first encounter with another one, given they are from different planets or natural satellites. The theme allows writers to explore such topics such as xenophobia, transcendentalism, and basic linguistics by adapting the anthropological topic of first contact to extraterrestrial cultures.
The Wess'har Wars series is a six-book science fiction novel series written by author Karen Traviss and is set several hundred years in the future. It involves humanity's contact with a number of alien species with conflicting interests and beliefs, while her central character, Shan Frankland, is caught in the middle of a coming conflict. The series has a focus on environmental impact. All six novels were published by Eos, an imprint of HarperCollins: City of Pearl, Crossing the Line, The World Before, Matriarch and Ally. The last book of the series, Judge was released on March 25, 2008.
The Alliance–Union universe is a fictional universe created by American writer C. J. Cherryh. It is the setting for a future history series extending from the 21st century into the far future.
The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.
The League of Peoples is a fictional interstellar polity present in a series of novels by Canadian science fiction author James Alan Gardner. Although theoretically made up of every sentient race in the galaxy, in actuality the League is controlled by hyperadvanced beings who have little concern for wants, needs, and desires of the less evolved races.
Ascending is a science fiction novel by the Canadian writer James Alan Gardner, published in 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints. It is the fifth novel in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series. It is a direct sequel to the first novel in the series, Expendable, in that it picks up the dual story of Festina Ramos, Explorer turned admiral, and the transparent glass woman Oar, where the earlier novel left off.
Trapped is a science fiction novel written by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner and published in 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints. The book is the sixth installment in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series of novels, set in the mid-25th century. While the majority of the novels in the series take place in outer space, Trapped is set on "Old Earth", and does not feature the series' continuing character Festina Ramos.
Radiant is a science fiction novel by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner. It was published in 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers under their Eos Books imprint. It is the seventh novel in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series. Like the six preceding novels, Radiant is set in the middle of the 25th century; like most of them, it takes place in outer space and on alien planets, and features the continuing character Festina Ramos.
The Long Result is a 1965 science fiction novel by British writer John Brunner.
"Vaster than Empires and More Slow" is a science fiction story by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the collection New Dimensions 1, edited by Robert Silverberg. It is set in the fictional Hainish universe, where Earth is a member of an interstellar "League of Worlds". The anthology was released in United States in 1971, by Doubleday Books.