Buy this
book at Amazon.com now!
Buy this
book at Amazon.com now!
My reviews of books normally center around a short synopsis of the book followed by a few choice comments without giving away too much. Starting with this review, I will taking a different path as I will not keep very much hidden about the plot, nor its characters. It will be more like a review that would be shown in the newspaper and should really give you my personal opinions of this book and all others in 2001 and beyond. Also, check out my new rating system at the end of the review. It's on a 100-point scale, with 100 (of course) being the best.
"Expendable"starts off with a different 'hook' than most science-fiction novels give you in the beginning of a story. Instead of leaving you in wonderment and pulling a reader in with what you think the novel's universe might look like, James Alan Gardner uses another approach by letting you have it in the first chapter.
The protagonist, Festina Ramos, tells you who she is and what her life has amounted to in hundreds of years in the future of an Earth empire called the Technocracy, which is greatly influenced by the League of Peoples, an ancient body of aliens that oversees everything in the galaxy. The League of Peoples only allow races to join if they have evolved past their violent ways by not killing their own kind or any other sentient being.
Festina Ramos, raised from birth to be an Explorer, a part of the Technocracy whose members are sent to the farthestcorners of the galaxy to 'check out' hostile planets with deadly life. The Explorers are the ugly, the flawed, the malformed, the misfits, and very much the unwanted. The Technocracy considers them expendable and the citizins could care less if one or two deformed humans die while on a mission. Festina and her partner, Yarrun, are then ordered to escort Admiral Chee to the most infamous and dangerous planet: Melaquin, where no Exlporer has ever returned.
Festina's tale takes us to the planet Melaquin where a cover-up by the Technocracy's High Council was about to be uncovered. Festina, Admiral Chee, and Yarrun arrive to see that Melaquin doesn't live up to its reputation and is very earth-like in almost every aspect.
Festina's determined to survive, no matter what the cost. She doesn't want to end up like the others. As the plot develops, James Alan Gardner really inks together a story that delivers a strong character-base and history. Festina ends up losing the companionships of Chee and Yarrun and becomes stranded on Melaquin and Gardner then introduces a whole new set of colorful characters with Festina's only real enemy being her own guilty conscious of being responsible for the death of her partner, Yarrun, until the time she discovers why all other Explorers were never heard from again and the possibility of an escape from Melaquin to show the Technocracy the errors of their ways.
His strength in character development and moving the plot forward overcome any weak areas of his writing. He uses the theme of an semi-oppresive, ignorant and selfish government that forgot its reason for being, to its maximum, but does not let it get in the way of true story. Festina's ability to overcome the death of her partner and elevate herself in the face of abandonment and her own possible end from another stranded Explorer is the story that brings me into truly enjoying the book.
Expendable: 87