Publisher Description
In this "crackerjack novel" from the author of Vigilant, a band of misfits on a suicide mission face a war-torn planet (Robert J. Sawyer).
In the fourth volume of the League of Peoples series, Alexander York is one of the High Council's most iron-fisted admirals. When his children, Samantha and Edward, were born, he paid top dollar to have their DNA altered to insure they grew up perfect physical and mental specimens. But when Edward ended up with a faulty brain, his father sentenced him to join the Expendables, a band of misfits and the deformed mandated to explore the most dangerous parts of the galaxy.
Accompanying his sister on a mission to Troyen, an anguished planet and home to the Mandasar, Edward finds himself in the middle of a civil war and is ultimately exiled. As violence escalates, Edward struggles to navigate a treacherous path with the assistance of none other than Festina Ramos—the greatest Explorer of all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest title in Gardner's loosely linked League of Peoples series (Expendable; Vigilant) brings back a few familiar characters but focuses on Edward York, the son of Admiral Alexander York. Edward's secret is that he and his sister were genetically engineered before birth to be perfect. Unfortunately, something went awry, and Edward is a bit slow intellectually, so his father secures him a position in the Explorer Corps, the branch responsible for contacting new life forms. The catch is that Explorers (or Expendables) often die in the process. Despite his handicap, Edward manages to figure things out in his own way, as he becomes enmeshed in a civil war on Troyen, a planet with a long and complicated political and social history. Gardner's plot is rewardingly complex as well, bringing in elements and characters from his previous books, but his wry dialogue and engaging characters propel the narrative. Edward turns out to have some surprising abilities, which enable him to charm both humans and the large, lobster-like natives of Troyen and, when he learns the truth about those he's cared for, to deal with the consequences.
