I was on the verge recently of not having anything new to read. I had finished a couple of books which I was looked forward to, while waiting for others which weren’t released yet (or hadn’t made it to my neck of the woods). So, I looked around for a couple new series that I could start from authors whom I hadn’t read previously. This is how I stumbled across James Gardner’s League of People series and read the first book Expendable. Gardner has a setup a wonderful little universe where you can believe there is more going on than just the plot of the book. Let’s go check it out.

Festina Ramos is an Explorer, aka ECM (Expendable Crew Member). Her job is to go to new worlds and look for life or a way to survive on a hostile planet long enough for it to become inhabitable. All Explorers are distinctive. In this future, there is no war and life is sacred, but if you are born with a disfigurement, before humanity fixes it, they test you. If you pass, your disfigurement is left and the government trains you to become an Explorer. If you fail, then they fix your disfigurement and you are brought into normal society. Needless to say, it’s a great life you fail. The known Universe is monitored by the League of Peoples. If they believe that you have killed someone, you’re not allowed out of your solar system. If your species is found to not follow the rules, they are cut off from all contact and left alone in the Universe.

Festina and her partner Yarrun have a new mission, they are to escort an Admiral to the planet Melaquin. Melaquin is basically Earth. It looks like Earth and has an atmosphere and plant life that are very Earth-like. However, no one has ever made it back alive. The Admiral that they need to escort is older and seems to have upset the High Council. This mission is basically a way to kill the Admiral, with the Explorers just being the unlucky ones along, without upsetting the League of People’s rules against murder. But when Festina gets down to the surface, the truth or Melaquin is better and worse than she could have ever realized.

The book starts with certain death for Festina and it goes from there. It’s an interesting tale of the sleazy side of a Utopia. Even when murder is removed from society, there are still ways to murder someone without getting your hands dirty. Overall it’s an interesting book. I liked the basic setup of the book, with Festina laying out her life and the rules of the Universe up front as we get to know her and the story she has to tell. She’s an interesting and flawed character who is the perfect viewpoint for this story. The other characters aren’t as well-developed as Festina, but they just enough characterization to avoid them being plot devices. I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading additional books in this series.