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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9108655" data-attributes="member: 508">My first thought was also Dune, but upon reflection I might have to go with Expendable by James Alan Gardner, merely because it's a book that really reeled me in to the science fiction universe it laid out: basically, an "Anti-Star Trek" universe where there is a Federation analog (the League of Peoples), but with a super-powerful alien race that keeps those races (like humans) who still reside in a physical form from doing harm to other species outside their own solar systems.  (Basically, they'll let us be as nasty as we want within our own systems, but anyone who has harmed a sentient being simply dies upon leaving their home system - the overlords won't let us spread that nastiness elsewhere.)  Thus, you have a bunch of allied races with no lethal weapons on their starships, so there's pretty much no space combat.The Explorer Corps are basically the red shirts of Star Trek, but they're made up of the "imperfect people" - the Space Admiralty has learned that the rest of the crew gets pretty bummed out when a good-looking Explorer gets killed while checking out a new planet, but if the Explorer happens to be disfigured, the crew tends to get over it much faster.  The main character, Festina Ramos, is perfectly healthy, but she was born with a wine-colored birthmark on one cheek, so it was an Explorer's life for her.  Expendable covers the story of her life, and of a particular mission where she's accompanying a retired Admiral to the "planet of no return" - so named because nobody who's ever landed there has been heard from again.As I said, the universe is simply fascinating, the characters are top notch, and I've probably read the novel at least four times since it was published in 1997 (and it still makes me cry - manly tears, of course! - at the end every time).  I enjoyed Dune, but I have to say I've gotten much more enjoyment out of Expendable, so it would have to get my vote.By the way, there are a half a dozen sequels to Expendable, and some of them are quite good, but none is as top-notch as the original.Johnathan</blockquote>

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