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Available
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Series
Collection
Publication
Book Club Edition, Avon Books
Description
In a world where the marginalized of society are sent into space on suicide missions, one woman decides to fight back: "Riveting" (David Feintuch). In Expendable, the first volume of the League of Peoples, Festina Ramos is assigned to escort an unstable admiral to planet Melaquin. Little is known about Melaquin, for every explorer who's landed there has disappeared. It's come to be known as the "planet of no return," and the High Council has made a habit of sending troublesome admirals there in an attempt to get rid of them. It's clear that this is intended to be Ramos's last mission, but she doesn't plan on dying, no matter how expendable she may be.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Nikkles
A little bit different but interesting and pretty good. I really enjoyed this book much to my own surprise as I thought it was going in a very boring direction in the middle, but the author didn't let me down and it got very interesting after this point. This book is about the Expendable Crew
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Members, people in society that don't look normal and cause the crew less distress is they are lost on hostile missions. The concept and writing style are original and interesting, which would be enough for most readers. The pace is good, not overly fast, not too slow. I enjoyed the way the sub-chapters were set up and titled, it added a lot of humor to the story. Coming from a time of imperfection I found it a little hard to believe that all the normal people felt completely horrified by people some of the lesser abnormalities, such as the main characters strawberry birthmark. I gave the author the benefit of the doubt, however, and really enjoyed the book. It is solid sci-fi that also has a good sense of humor, which I always appreciate. I would suggest giving it a try. Show Less
LibraryThing member verbafacio
Though the story falls a little too far on the side of cartoonish fantasy, the moral and ethical ideas in Expendable make it well worth the read. I also very much enjoyed Gardner's writing style -- the short themed chunks make the book fast-paced and exciting.
LibraryThing member squidcoats
Expendable is not the strongest book in the League of Peoples series, but you've absolutely got to read it, because without reading it you won't for the life of you understand Ascending.
We follow Festina Ramos, an intergalactic scout whose physical imperfection (a large port-wine birthmark on her
When the inevitable happens and Festina is sent planetside to complete her mission and/or die, she is forced to stop worrying about dying and begin to come to terms with living.
I love this book because it sets up Festina for the whole rest of the League of Peoples series, which are quirky and semi-comedic science fiction books. I highly recommend you read Expendable and afterwards immediately read Ascending, and THEN decide whether you like the series or not.
We follow Festina Ramos, an intergalactic scout whose physical imperfection (a large port-wine birthmark on her
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face) makes her an expendable crew member. The knowledge that she is, sooner or later, going to be sent to her death - and the knowledge that nobody will care - has made her an obsessive, strange person. When the inevitable happens and Festina is sent planetside to complete her mission and/or die, she is forced to stop worrying about dying and begin to come to terms with living.
I love this book because it sets up Festina for the whole rest of the League of Peoples series, which are quirky and semi-comedic science fiction books. I highly recommend you read Expendable and afterwards immediately read Ascending, and THEN decide whether you like the series or not.
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LibraryThing member Wagenius
I enjoyed this book very much, and I liked the angle of the League of Peoples essentially making space combat impossible, and taking a strangely divided yet strong moral standpoint.
The book has a heroine who strongly reminds me of Kylara Vatta or Heris Serrano from Elizabeth moons Vatta and
The book introduces us to the League of Peoples universe which has many interesting angles. A great example is the introduction of ECM - Expendable Crew Members - or the alien races described, who are in some cases entirely new concepts to me. I had to really use my imagination to get a hold of the physical aspects of the characters. Not to mention some of the engineering ideas mentioned, such as the skin machine or the glass shark.
If there is one drawback with the book, it would be that it is occationally too fast paced. Our heroine arrives at too many correct conclusions based on too few facts too fast. And far too often her first instinct is the absolute correct one. As such she does appear a bit too "perfect" in the brains-department. Still i found it easy to overlook these flaws, as the book is not long, yet pulls the reader through many different phases.
For those considering reading more of the League of Peoples books, it is important to note that you should not fall in love with our protagonists. Following this first book in the series are three books who center on different and varying people. Festina Ramos and her friends does reappear, but not until far later in the series.
I give this book a four out of five. It has a few flaws, but it is a quick read, as well as an entertaining one.
The book has a heroine who strongly reminds me of Kylara Vatta or Heris Serrano from Elizabeth moons Vatta and
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Familias Regnant series. Indeed the introduction of Festina Ramos in the beginning of the book, although bleaker and more self pitying, is almost identical in vibe with the first introduction of Heris Serrano. The character is strong, but yet with flaws one can associate with.The book introduces us to the League of Peoples universe which has many interesting angles. A great example is the introduction of ECM - Expendable Crew Members - or the alien races described, who are in some cases entirely new concepts to me. I had to really use my imagination to get a hold of the physical aspects of the characters. Not to mention some of the engineering ideas mentioned, such as the skin machine or the glass shark.
If there is one drawback with the book, it would be that it is occationally too fast paced. Our heroine arrives at too many correct conclusions based on too few facts too fast. And far too often her first instinct is the absolute correct one. As such she does appear a bit too "perfect" in the brains-department. Still i found it easy to overlook these flaws, as the book is not long, yet pulls the reader through many different phases.
For those considering reading more of the League of Peoples books, it is important to note that you should not fall in love with our protagonists. Following this first book in the series are three books who center on different and varying people. Festina Ramos and her friends does reappear, but not until far later in the series.
I give this book a four out of five. It has a few flaws, but it is a quick read, as well as an entertaining one.
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LibraryThing member laughingwoman6
I just re-read this and I enjoyed it very much, I love Festina Ramos...what a wonderful female character.
LibraryThing member crazybatcow
I'm sorta surprised this series hasn't come to my attention sooner... it's exactly the kind of sci-fi I enjoy reading: bit of tech (but not overly technical), bit of space faring (but not solely space based), some interesting aliens, and a social "message" that is not moralistic.
I liked the concept
Even the behavior of the "bad guys" was believable. I'm not sure how the series will continue since the characters/story in this novel seemed to be fully resolved, but I will certainly read the next book to find out.
I liked the concept
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as to how one became an Explorer... sadly enough, it seems a logical extension of our own reality too. And the League of People's was also an intriguing change in space lore - some powerful alien community which did not have the goal of destroying or dominating every other species they met... can't see that ever really happening, but it's cool to think that it could.Even the behavior of the "bad guys" was believable. I'm not sure how the series will continue since the characters/story in this novel seemed to be fully resolved, but I will certainly read the next book to find out.
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LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
This is really a 3 1/4 book, but I'll bump it. I liked the book, the premise, and world - what I didn't like was the situation of those deemed "expendable". It seems that in the name of exploration, a few people deemed too ugly for society are sent to die exploring, even though the person can be
Festina is one of these expendables - she was born with a large ugly birthmark on her face. She is competent, hard working and resigned to her fate. So when she is sent on a mission to a planet where nobody returns from, she learns a lot about the world and herself.
Its a very simple story, very white and black. While the characters are likable, they are very transparent. Also, the race of glass people seem a bit... pointless. Still, its a good read if you are looking for a simple story, not a lot of thought, and a quick read.
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"fixed". Because normal people won't feel bad about it.Festina is one of these expendables - she was born with a large ugly birthmark on her face. She is competent, hard working and resigned to her fate. So when she is sent on a mission to a planet where nobody returns from, she learns a lot about the world and herself.
Its a very simple story, very white and black. While the characters are likable, they are very transparent. Also, the race of glass people seem a bit... pointless. Still, its a good read if you are looking for a simple story, not a lot of thought, and a quick read.
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LibraryThing member bonreads
I love this book. This is probably my 5th or 6th time reading it. I usually am not a fan of sci-fi, but I love this story. I would highly recommend it.
LibraryThing member Xleptodactylous
I actually debated with myself for a long while as to whether I'd read the rest of this book. I'm not sure what drew me in to read it, because I found the characters to be 2D and conceited and, whilst I quite enjoyed the concept of people who look abnormal to be thought of as "expendable" people
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whose deaths don't cause low moral and can be sent off to explore unknown and most probably dangerous planets, I found the way the author wrote about it extremely tiresome. I only found detestation and I'm certain I could work out the rest of the plot by myself if I tried. It was also not exactly sci-fi, because rarely did anything sci-fi happen, except floating about in space. The writing was fine but the dialogue was shaky. I was also very disappointed with the "disformity" of the protagonist: a birth mark on her face? If the author had deigned to write about someone with, for example the protag's best friend, half a face, then maybe it could have been something else; something wonderful and not just a remark on how people who look a bit weird and treated a bit weird. Show Less
LibraryThing member LisCarey
Some five hundred years in the future, humans are part of the League of Peoples, and exploring space in ftl ships. The Admiralty discovered some while back that the deaths of Explorers during planetary explorations caused an unacceptable amount of damage to ship morale, and found a way to avoid the
Expendability in the eyes of their fellow crew members is important because nearly all Explorers eventually die, or at least disappear, during Landings on new worlds.
The narrator and heroine of this story is Festina Ramos, whose deformity consists of a large birthmark on her face. She and her partner, Yarrun Derigha (who has a missing jawbone), are assigned to escort an admiral on an exploration of Melaquin, a planet from which no one has ever returned in forty years of attempts at exploration. The admiral, it seems, is also expendable.
What follows is an interesting adventure of no very great depth. The mystery of why no one has ever come back from Melaquin is solved within a couple of paragraphs of the party setting foot on the planet, and the mystery of the planet itself takes not much longer. That leaves only the question of what Festina's going to do about it. An enjoyable book, but I'm discouraged rather than encouraged by the fact that there are apparently now several sequels to it.
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problem. Now, all Explorer Corps members are to varying degrees deformed--not drastically, not enough that their effectiveness is impaired, but enough so that other crew members will view them as imperfect and won't identify with them. They're expendable. (All of their deformities and imperfections are quite fixable with 25th century technology; people whose deformities and imperfections are bad enough that they aren't potential Explorers get their problems completely fixed, up to normal 25th century standards of perfection. None of these techniques are available to people whose imperfections fall in the range that leaves them useful as Explorers.)Expendability in the eyes of their fellow crew members is important because nearly all Explorers eventually die, or at least disappear, during Landings on new worlds.
The narrator and heroine of this story is Festina Ramos, whose deformity consists of a large birthmark on her face. She and her partner, Yarrun Derigha (who has a missing jawbone), are assigned to escort an admiral on an exploration of Melaquin, a planet from which no one has ever returned in forty years of attempts at exploration. The admiral, it seems, is also expendable.
What follows is an interesting adventure of no very great depth. The mystery of why no one has ever come back from Melaquin is solved within a couple of paragraphs of the party setting foot on the planet, and the mystery of the planet itself takes not much longer. That leaves only the question of what Festina's going to do about it. An enjoyable book, but I'm discouraged rather than encouraged by the fact that there are apparently now several sequels to it.
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LibraryThing member EmScape
I plowed through this whole seven-book series in less than two weeks time, joined the author's Patreon, tweeted at him (and received a reply!) and then went looking for more of his books (sadly, there aren't many -- yet!). I don't remember each of the books individually very well (should have
The basic premise is that we aren't alone in the universe, there is a League of Peoples who have agreed to an edict handed down by a far superior (and never actually seen) species, which is basically not to cause harm to any member of any sentient species. There are still people living on Earth: those who refuse to agree to this rule or who have already broken it, but the sentient individuals who can abide by it flit around the universe, investigating new planets and species and making trade relationships.
Throughout the series we get to meet various fascinating races of 'aliens' and learn about their cultures and species. We also get to explore the theme of what constitutes "harm" intentional or otherwise, and towards the end make some hypotheses about the nature of this superior race who enforce the no-harm rule by basically immediately killing anyone who has broken it the next time they try to leave one planet for another. The series is packed with fun characters the reader comes to understand and even love, but they are properly flawed and dynamic individuals who are living their own journeys.
I really, really wish (hope?) there were (will be?) more books in this series. You should do yourself a favor and read it. I'll definitely revisit it someday.
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reviewed them right away), but I'll leave this review for the series as a whole: The basic premise is that we aren't alone in the universe, there is a League of Peoples who have agreed to an edict handed down by a far superior (and never actually seen) species, which is basically not to cause harm to any member of any sentient species. There are still people living on Earth: those who refuse to agree to this rule or who have already broken it, but the sentient individuals who can abide by it flit around the universe, investigating new planets and species and making trade relationships.
Throughout the series we get to meet various fascinating races of 'aliens' and learn about their cultures and species. We also get to explore the theme of what constitutes "harm" intentional or otherwise, and towards the end make some hypotheses about the nature of this superior race who enforce the no-harm rule by basically immediately killing anyone who has broken it the next time they try to leave one planet for another. The series is packed with fun characters the reader comes to understand and even love, but they are properly flawed and dynamic individuals who are living their own journeys.
I really, really wish (hope?) there were (will be?) more books in this series. You should do yourself a favor and read it. I'll definitely revisit it someday.
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LibraryThing member NurseBob
Interesting piece of world building which promises to be an equally engaging series. Gardner's approach not only to FTL travel and exploration but to the social/political/military hierarchies it engenders is novel, to say the least, and he complements the story's biological stretches with enough
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droll humour to make it all seem plausible. Show Less
LibraryThing member lyrrael
I really felt this book was a lot of fun, and was genuinely enjoying the experience...until the scene changes about halfway through the book. I kept slogging, thinking that possibly it'd pick back up, until I realized I was page flipping about eighty pages from the end. Blargh. Not worth continuing
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with if I'm going to be doing that. :/ Show Less
LibraryThing member zjakkelien
Pleasant writing style. I found the story to be a bit farfetched at times, but it did have physically flawed people as main characters, and good female representation.
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Physical description
337 p.; 8.5 inches