sigelphoenix

I very much like how even though Gardner has characters carry over from book to book (particularly Festina) he has yet to re-use a narrator. And each narrator has a very distinctive style and voice (which is part of why Ascending is so fun to read -- Oar's narration is priceless). While Festina is unquestionably the main character of the series, in some ways I think it's more effective to only let her narrate the first book; I feel like we get a much better idea of her personality if we see her through the eyes of others.

It also pleases me that of the seven narrators he's written so far, only one has been a white male. The diversity of the narrators, supporting characters, even background characters, is one of the things I like a lot about Gardner's writing. You definitely don't feel like he's just shoehorning in token gay characters or female characters or characters of color out of some hollow sense of political correctness; he really wants to represent a wide variety of people in his books, and I like that.

I liked Hunted a lot, mainly because Edward was such a sweetie. XD I didn't think he was whiny at all; so far, the only narrator I've found irksome has been Fullin, for the reasons you mentioned. (Admittedly, Phil (narrator of Trapped) is a bit whiny, but he's entertainingly so.) I also really enjoyed the development of the Mandasars, both as individual characters and as a species. God bless James Alan Gardner for not ascribing the 'humans with bumpy foreheads' school of alien race design.

Overall, Gardner strikes me as a smart writer who really does his homework, whether it's writing characters of vastly different backgrounds, inventing a way for FTL travel to work, or developing alien cultures out of whole cloth. He's not lazy when it comes to fleshing out his novels, and that definitely earns my respect.

Ascending features a number of new or previously-undeveloped alien races, so I'm sure you'll find that interesting. ^^ It's one of my favorite books in the series, in large part because of Oar's narration. <3 She's just so endearing.