James Alan Gardner

James Alan Gardner is a Canadian science fiction author born in 1955 in Simcoe, Ontario. His League of Peoples novels, including the Festina Ramos sequence that begins with Expendable (1997), imagine a galaxy where superior alien civilizations forbid violence among younger species, forcing his human protagonists, often members of a disposable diplomatic corps, to navigate first contact and interstellar politics. Commitment Hour (1998), set in the same universe, explores a coming-of-age ritual involving gender choice. Gardner won the Writers of the Future grand prize in 1989 for "The Children of Creche," has received multiple Aurora Awards, and won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award in 2009; in 2022 a translation of his work won a Seiun Award. He also works as a technical writer and educator.