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''Hunted'' is a science fiction novel written by Canadian author James Alan Gardner, and published in the year 2000 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints.〔HarperCollins, Avon Books, HarperCollins Canada, SFBC/Avon; paperback edition 2000, Eos Books.〕 The novel is the fourth in Gardner's "League of Peoples" series, after ''Expendable'' (1997), ''Commitment Hour'' (1998), and ''Vigilant'' (1999). ==Backstory== As part of the "League of Peoples" series, ''Hunted'' exploits the same conceptual framework as the earlier books. By the middle of the 25th century, an advanced human society calling itself the Technocracy, based on a terraformed New Earth, will be part of an interstellar social order called the League of Peoples. As part of the League, humanity will benefit from many advanced technologies, interstellar space flight being only the most obvious. The price for belonging to this galactic order is relatively mild: all societies in the League must renounce fatal violence against other sentient beings. Violation of this simple cardinal rule means that the guilty individual, or society, is no longer eligible for interstellar travel—the mere attempt brings instant death from the highly advanced species (far beyond the human level) who run the League. In ''Hunted'', for the first time in the series, humans fall foul of the League's guiding principle; in the opening scene, the entire crew of a spaceship is instantly and mysteriously executed when they enter interstellar space. (The paperback edition of the novel contains a short afterword by Gardner, in which he makes some observations about the assumptions behind his series. In his fictional future, humans are not "important"...but neither are they, or we, "downtrodden slaves of bug-eyed monsters...." In a galaxy of many intelligent species, those who are "billions of years" in advance of humanity have no desire to rule us, just as "we humans don't want to govern earthworms...." Gardner's strategy allows him to escape clichés about conquerors and the conquered, to tell original stories.) The other key elements of Gardner's fictional future universe—the Outward Fleet of the Technocracy and its Explorers Corps, and a growing assemblage of advanced alien species, cleverly imagined and described—are naturally included. ''Hunted'' also adds depth and perspective to one other element of Grander's grand scheme. The human species of the future is deeply corrupt and degenerate: "...the Technocracy is so pathetically weak, I sometimes want to puke. We're lazy and venal, like Imperial Rome at its most decadent..." The book sets up these and other themes and concepts for the next novel in the series, ''Ascending'' (2001). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hunted (Gardner novel)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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