James Alan Gardner Books In Order

Publication Order of Dark/Spark Books

Publication Order of League of Peoples Books

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

James Alan Gardner
James Alan Gardner is a 1989 graduate of the Clarion West Science Fiction Writers Workshop, and has had many science fiction stories and novellas appear in publications like Amazing Stories, Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

James won the Aurora Award, the grand prize of the 1989 Writers of the Future contest, and has been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo Awards.

James is also a technical writer and an educator. His book, called “Learning UNIX” is used as a textbook in some Canadian universities.

He was raised in Bradford and Simcoe, Ontario, he earned Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo. Along with writing, he is strongly interested in geology and math. In whatever spare time he has, he teaches kung fu to kids and (unsuccessfully) his rabbit.

James finds that writing has the best safety net in the whole world. Unlike doctors and many others, if he has a bad day, nobody suffers. He can always come back and rewrite it tomorrow, or the next day. Or the next. Also, worst case scenario for a book is that the reader feels as though they wasted a few bucks, however the best case scenario is that somebody’s changed permanently for the better.

“Expendable” is the first novel in the “League of Peoples” series and was released in 1997. Under the League of Peoples’ benevolent leadership, there is very little crime, no war, and life’s sacred. Well, unless you’re an Explorer. The flawed, the ugly, the misfit, the deformed, they’re the unwanted, flung out to the furthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and odd, savage creatures. Out here, there are a thousand different, and horrible, ways to die.

Festina Ramos belongs to this well-trained, always dwindling ranks of ECMs (Expendable Crew Members). Now she and Yarrun Derigha, her partner, just been ordered to escort the unstable Admiral Chee to Melaquin (the feared “Planet of No Return”) which has swallowed up countless Explorers before them without any trace.

This is obviously meant to be the final mission for both Derigha and Ramos. However it will not be, if Festina can possibly help it.

“Commitment Hour” is the second novel in the “League of Peoples” series and was released in 1998. The 25th century. Tober Cove is an absolutely wonderful place to be. With much of Earth’s own population long having since departed for other planets, and with them the tech which makes such a journey possible, life here’s serene and simple, particularly for Fullin, this gifted musician whose own talent commands many times the wages of a fisherman or farmer. However, Fullin is twenty years old, and at that age, each person in Tober Cove has to make the most important choice in their whole entire lives.

Ominous winds of change are swirling toward Fullin’s own idyllic existence, carrying some dark secrets which will upend his beliefs, change his view of reality, and then threaten his very life. However for the boy, there is no longer any more room for indecision. The time’s come to take an irrevocable stand and seal his own fate forever. The commitment hour has come.

“A Clean Sweep With All The Trimmings” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2011. A Damon Runyon-esque story of bulletproof dolls, courteous guys, and the fedora clad spacemen that bring them all together.

This week marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Damon Runyon’s death. He was an American writer that was best known for his distinctive and delightful style of prose as well as for the post-Prohibition New York tales which eventually inspired the musical “Guys and Dolls”.

“All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault” is the first novel in the “All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault” series and was released in 2017. Monsters are real, but so are heroes.

Sparks are champions of strange science. Boasting costumes and capes and amazing superpowers which only make sense if you just don’t think too hard about them, they fight an eternal battle for justice and truth, mostly. Darklings are creatures of magic and myth: vampires, ghosts, were-beasts, and the like. Their mere presence wars reality. Cobwebs gather where they linger, and doors creak at their approach.

Kim Lam is just an ordinary college student until this freak scientific accident (what else?) transforms Kim and three housemates into Sparks, and drafts this quartet into a never ending war between the Dark and Light. They struggle with mastering their new abilities—and designing cool costumes and coming up with their great hero names, of course.

It turns out that “accident” was only the opening salvo in a Mad Genius’ latest diabolical scheme. Now it is up to these four newbie heroes to save the day, before they even have the chance to figure out what their team’s name should be.

This is a thrilling, smart, funny, and rather original fictional treatment of magic by a master of each that features an irresistibly appealing heroine. James keeps this story zipping along at a whirlwind pace, yet each part of the plot is coherent and crystal clear, not to mention quite brilliant. These characters are endearing, and this novel is a totally enjoyable romp, that gets madcap and daft at certain times.

“They Promised Me The Gun Wasn’t Loaded” is the first novel in the “All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault” series and was released in 2018. Just days have passed since this freak accident granted those four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her buddies (who’ve not yet even selected their superhero team name as of yet) get all caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius’ misplaced super weapon.

However when Jools falls in with this modern day Robin Hood and his group of super powered Merry Men, she finds it tough to sort out the Good Guys from Bad. And figure out which side she actually belongs on. Especially because no one is really certain about what the Gun even does.