Ascending

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 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 show more 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. show less

A humpback whale, a honeybee, and Pando walk into a bar....

Ok, not really, but the experience of reading this sure makes me feel as if that's a real joke, and that I'm going to get a punchline at the end. Several diverse truly alien beings, plus Festina Ramos, are having an adventure. More Sense of Wonder than either thrills or even What If, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
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Done.
I'm so glad that I have the series and can reread them at some point.
This does have something like a punchline; a nice efficiently told satisfactory ending, that also leaves me wanting to read 'what next' because there surely is going to be some more adventures!

"Having a perilous adventure is always better than comatose safety. Always."

"... other races are show more following them into the darkness. On their best days, they long to be truly alive... But they are physically incapable of pushing themselves past the emptiness."

"We are all built in ways we would change if we could--we are flawed or damaged or broken by forces beyond our control. In the end we are limited creatures who cannot exceed our boundaries... but here is the other half of the truth: our boundaries are never where we think they are... prove you are more than you think." show less

This review may be unfair... I've loved previous volumes of this series... I just couldn't take the prospect of an entire novel written in the perspective of the SUPREME Archetype Of Conceited Ditz that is apparently where this is going.
Yes the character made for some fun dialogue in one previous volume, but there's only so much of her I can take

I'm conflicted about Ascending. On the one hand, the story started in Expendable continues directly, with more space action and investigations into the deepest sins of the League of People, on the other hand I Am Not Such As One Who Thinks Oar Is Cute.

Four years after Expendable, Oar wakes up on Melaquin, healed by ridiculously advanced technology, just in time to be picked up by a biological spaceship named Starbiter crewed by Uclod, a semi-criminal information broker trying to get some advantage out of the shambles left the death of Admiral York in the previous book. Oak and Starbiter run from the Shadhill (sp? something like that), an even more ridiculously powerful race. They meet up with Festina Ramos, and over the course of the show more story it turns out the the Shadhill are responsible for uplifting most of the local races, and also responsible for ensuring their slow but inevitable degeneracy through concealed flaws in their technology, and a campaign of distracting scientific research into the problems.

It turns out that the Shadhill used to rule the local area about 5000 years ago, until most of their race uplifted. Now there are only two left, and they're afraid to abandon the project. Oar saves the day, fulfilling a mission given to her by an even more ridiculously advanced alien.

The setting moves along quite a bit, and there are some cool ideas, but at the end of the day, I don't like Oar at all as a narrator, and that knocked it down a star. show less

A fun romp through a universe. The twist at the end wasn't so twisty, but thats okay. Oar is a very likeable character. The plot was consistent, the writing well done. But I didn't enjoy the rest of the characters. I found most of them tedious. But, the adventure through space is quite interesting and the Zarret Space Ship was very well done. I would read more about the continuing adventures of Oar.

Gardner was a new author for me, with this book. To me, this novel suffered a lot due to the fact that it seemed like the author couldn't decided whether he wanted to write a tongue-in-cheek, funny farce or a serious sf adventure. The result was something that can't really be taken seriously, but isn't really funny, either.
The narrator is Oar, the last (conscious) woman of her kind - a woman made of transparent glass, who looks, we are told "llike a digital effect." She is also incredibly self-absorbed, naive, and childlike. It turns out that there is a plot-related reason for her character flaws, but reading a story narrated by this incredibly tiresome character gets, well, tiresome.
Oar is worried bout succumbing to the problem all her show more people have succumbed to 'Tired Brain Syndrome'. Around the age of 50, they get tired, confused, and just go to sleep. People though Oar was dead, but she is not, and now an interplanetary team including her friend Festina Ramos has showed up - but another group wants to kidnap her as well - and a mysterious alien who is always associated with terrible disasters has appeared to her as well, offering her a cure in return for her cooperation with an unspecified plan.... the story is rather unmemorable. show less

A somewhat different book than I anticipated, but then again, the League of Peoples books have done that. I jumped to this book directly from the first in the series. I was recommended that this might be good in case I was unsure about the series. I acutally was a bit uncertain having read the first 30 pages of the second book in the series, and having missed Festina and Oar greatly. I do not recommend this for others. Firstly because this book loosely refers things that must have happened in previous books (soon I will know for certain) and secondly because Ive now read further in Commitment Hour, and it has become a vastly better book than it seemed at first.

Now .. to this book. It reintroduces Oar who we met in Expendable. Not only show more is she reintroduced .. we read the entire story as seen through her eyes. It makes for a wonderful story since Oar is both very outspoken and childish at times, but still manages to do the adult thing at many crossroads. She also makes Acending into a quite a bit more comedic than the Expendable and Commitment Hour books are. Later on we also meed Festina Ramos from the first book, and manage to get a view of how Oar views their relationship. All in all, it brings together a duo that in many ways made Expendable work. In addition it introduces a couple of new characters who are not quite as remarkable nor memorable, but still manages to get a point or two across.

Finally we get closer to the Shadill who represent one of the more ancient races, as well as The Polisand, a highly developed alien who proclaims himself to be "The Ultimate Bastard of the Universe", In the end it can be a bit confusing who the title actually refers to, and I will not spoil the read ... suffice it be to say that It does not seem like neither Festina nor Oar has said their Last at this point.

The book is (as was Expendable) a quick read. I spent little less than a week reading it. It gives quite a few laughs, and I would ask everybody who follows the League of Peoples books to stick it out, if nothing else but to read this book in its context. show less