Review of 'Expendable (League of Peoples, #1)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I didn't know what to make of this series by a book synopsis. had assumed, rightly so as it turns out, that the first LoP title would have a female lead. In [b:gravity Wells|837275|Gravity Wells Speculative Fiction Stories|James Alan Gardner|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178782802s/837275.jpg|2336302] (one of Gardner's short story collections containing two LoP stories), he writes:
"People ask why I use female narrators so much. My answer is (a) I don't use them any more often than I use
male narrators, and (b) why shouldn't I use female narrators, provided I'm not a jerk about it? To be
sure, men often do lousy jobs of portraying women-but I have to believe that's just sloppiness and
inattention, not an inevitable fact of gender. I don't accept that the only type of character I can
legitimately write about is someone very much like myself... because frankly, I'm bored with
middle-aged middle-class white men, and there are …
I didn't know what to make of this series by a book synopsis. had assumed, rightly so as it turns out, that the first LoP title would have a female lead. In [b:gravity Wells|837275|Gravity Wells Speculative Fiction Stories|James Alan Gardner|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178782802s/837275.jpg|2336302] (one of Gardner's short story collections containing two LoP stories), he writes:
"People ask why I use female narrators so much. My answer is (a) I don't use them any more often than I use
male narrators, and (b) why shouldn't I use female narrators, provided I'm not a jerk about it? To be
sure, men often do lousy jobs of portraying women-but I have to believe that's just sloppiness and
inattention, not an inevitable fact of gender. I don't accept that the only type of character I can
legitimately write about is someone very much like myself... because frankly, I'm bored with
middle-aged middle-class white men, and there are far too many of those guys in science fiction
already. Therefore, I resolved long ago that whenever I wrote about the future, I would show it
containing just as many women as men, not to mention people of diverse cultural backgrounds, old,
young, straight, gay, rich, poor, and every other variation I could make fit within the story's logic."
As you might expect, this geared me up to expect a female lead and a diverse cast for this series.
For openers, this fell somewhat short of my expectations. The protagonist was captivating, the technology and space travel interesting, the science followable, the planet where the bulk of the story is set well managed... I can't quite put my finger on what didn't gel for me, other than trying to put into words having a vague sense of unease about the future of these people (who were, once, mankind). They're still Human; much is made about the political machinations of the higher-ups in the admiralty and the very Human quality of handling the disfigured outcasts of society. Everything's tempered by the League, though - an almost omniscient "force", for want of a better word, that imposes strictures on galactic travellers in return for providing them with technology, political mediation, and so forth.
So: all the elements of a good sci-fi yarn were there, but yet I came away with more questions than answers. There are plenty more to get through, and if I've learned only one thing by reading series' (queue [a:Dave Duncan|30279|Dave Duncan|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66.jpg]), it's not to judge a serial by its appetiser.