Books in series
#0.5
Gravity Wells
2004
Award-winning author James Alan Gardner evokes a sense of wonder that is synonymous with great speculative fiction. Now, in his first short-story collection, he brings together the numerous tales that have made his reputation, ranging from the everyday experience to the cosmic, from peanut butter sandwiches to space drives. There are stories of wonder, imagination, humanity, and the unknown and tales that remind us of the importance of possibility.
Some of the stories in this collection have won the Aurora Award and the grand prize in the prestigious Writers of the Future contest and been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, while others are completely new and undiscovered.
Contents:
Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large (1990)
The Children of Crèche (1990)
Kent State Descending the Gravity Well: An Analysis of the Observer (1992)
Withered Gold, the Night, the Day (2005)
The Last Day of the War, with Parrots (1995)
A Changeable Market in Slaves (2005)
Reaper (1991)
Lesser Figures of the Greater Trumps (2005)
Shadow Album (1991)
Hardware Scenario G-49 (1991)
The Reckoning of Gifts (1992)
The Young Person's Guide to the Organism (1992)
Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream (1997)
Sense of Wonder (1998)
#1
Expendable
1997
Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred...unless you're an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different—and terrible—ways to die. Festina Ramos belongs to the well-trained, always-dwindling ranks of ECMs (Expendable Crew Members). Now she and her partner, Yarrun Derigha, have been ordered to escort the unstable Admiral Chee to Melaquin—the feared "Planet of No Return"— which has swallowed up countless Explorers before them without a trace.
Obviously, this is meant to be the last mission for Ramos and Derigha. But it won't be, if Festina can help it.
#2
Commitment Hour
1998
In the twenty-fifth century, Tober Cove is a wonderful place to be. With most of Earth's population long since departed for other planets, and with them the technology that makes such a journey possible, life here is simple and serene—especially for Fullin, a gifted musician whose talent commands many times the wages of a farmer or fisherman. But Fullin is twenty years old. And at that age, each person in Tober Cove must make the most important decision in life.
Ominous winds of change swirl toward Fullin's idyllic existence, carrying dark secrets that will upend his beliefs, alter his view of reality and threaten his very life. But for the boy himself, there is no more room for indecision. The time has come to take an irrevocable stand and seal his fate forever. The hour of commitment is here.
From the author of "Expendable", a major new voice in imaginative fiction, here is a spellbinding adventure which dares to pose critical questions about the human condition and answer them.
#3
Vigilant
1999
Two species lived in peaceful coexistence on the planet Demoth until a deadly plague wiped out millions of the winged Ooloms while leaving humans untouched, helpless to do more than ease the suffering of their alien friends and neighbors. Faye Smallwood saw the horror firsthand, caring for the plague victims in her father's hospital. She was there when he discovered the cure that made him famous. She was also there when a freak accident killed him.
Desperate to escape her past, Faye joins the Vigil, a band of fiercely independent monitors charged with rooting out government corruption. To help in this struggle, her mind is linked to the powerful datasphere that regulates the planet...and suddenly, she receives a cryptic vision promising peace and healing. Instead, Faye becomes the target of unknown assassins in a sinister conspiracy that threatens to unleash a new and more deadly outbreak.
For humans and Ooloms were not the first species to inhabit Demoth. Somewhere in the ruins of long-abandoned settlements, something was left behind: an alien technology of unimaginable potential to build—or destroy. Enemy agents will stop at nothing to find it. Some of Faye's own people will kill to uncover its secret. With no one else to trust, she turns to the one person who can help unravel the mystery: Festina Ramos—explorer, outcast, ever-vigilant champion of those whom society deems expendable.
#4
Hunted
2000
For the children of Admiral Alexander York, perfection wasn’t just expected, it was guaranteed—written into their DNA before they were born. But while Samantha grew into the physical and mental marvel their father had bought and paid for, her twin brother Edward proved a disappointment. Genetic tinkering had raised Sam above the common herd, but Edward’s faultless body housed a faulty brain.
It took all the Admiral’s influence to get Edward commissioned in the Outward Fleet Explorer Corps—a fiercely independent band of misfits who referred to themselves proudly as Expendables. Accompanying Sam on a mission to the troubled planet of Troyen, home to the alien Mandasar, Edward found himself in the midst of a civil war. There, in an instant of horrifying insanity, Sam was killed, along with the alien hive-queen.
For the next twenty years, Edward was exiled to a lonely outpost on one of Troyen’s moons, blamed by the Admiral for Sam’s death—and blaming himself as well. But when escalating violence forces the evacuation of the system, Edward embarks on a perilous journey home that will lead him into a forgotten past—and, with the assistance of another ex-Expendable, the greatest Explorer of them all, the legendary Admiral Festina Ramos, into a future thick with conspiracy and betrayal. For there lurks a dark secret powerful enough to bury the hopes of human and Mandasar alike…or give them a new and brighter beginning.
#5
Ascending
2001
Oar is the last of her kind—a resident of the so-called "planet of no return," once the Admiralty's dumping ground for undesirables and those who had become expendable. Oar's transparent body is indestructible. Yet the mind it houses grows weary and will soon surrender to the catatonic torpor that has already claimed the others of her genetically altered human race. But Oar cannot sleep, not yet. There are powerful forces seeking her destruction for reasons unknown. There are old allies who need her assistance and a true history that must be revealed. There is much Oar must accomplish before the "apathetic hibernation" overcomes her, though time is decidedly her enemy. Together with her friend, Admiral Festina Ramos, she must find her final destiny ... and in a vast and volatile universe, destiny is never a sure thing.
#6
Trapped
2002
When a female student at a private school is murdered by an unknown alien organism and her boyfriend suddenly vanishes, teacher Philemon Abud Dhubhai finds himself, along with the murdered girl's mother, a notorious criminal, and five other misfits, in a deadly conspiracy that could threaten Earth's future. Original.
#7
Radiant
2004
Admiral Festina Ramos and the Expendables, an expertly trained scout group from the elite Explorer Corps, battle a highly advanced alien intelligence during a mission that leads them to the secret origins of the Explorer Corps and Festina's own destiny. By the author of Trapped and Commitment Hour. Reprint.
Author
James Alan Gardner
Author · 15 books
Raised in Simcoe and Bradford, Ontario, James Alan Gardner earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo. A graduate of the Clarion West Fiction Writers Workshop, Gardner has published science fiction short stories in a range of periodicals, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. In 1989, his short story "Children of the Creche" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Two years later his story "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" won an Aurora Award; another story, "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream," won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards. He has written a number of novels in a "League of Peoples" universe in which murderers are defined as "dangerous non-sentients" and are killed if they try to leave their solar system by aliens who are so advanced that they think of humans like humans think of bacteria. This precludes the possibility of interstellar wars. He has also explored themes of gender in his novels, including Commitment Hour in which people change sex every year, and Vigilant in which group marriages are traditional. Gardner is also an educator and technical writer. His book Learning UNIX is used as a textbook in some Canadian universities. A Grand Prize winner of the Writers of the Future contest, he lives with his family in Waterloo, Ontario.
