These tales by Layman Kingsford are meant to introduce you to some of the characters in the Living Cosmos saga, but they are also something of a LANGUAGE EXPERIMENT.

Following in Gene Roddenberry's footsteps, the Living Cosmos setting depicts a galaxy that is "post-scarcity", meaning that its inhabitants are all (ostensibly) provided with what they need in order to live full lives - food, shelter, education, entertainment.

What these stories are also doing is depicting a society that is POST-GENDER. The use of language, most noticeably pronouns, is altered to reflect the cultural lack of gendering within the Situdel galaxy.
 
Admittedly, it is a tad unusual to read at first. Trust me, it's even more challenging to write. As an English major, there are SO many embedded rules of grammar and syntax that, even after proofreading multiple times, a "his" or a wrong subject-verb agreement still sneaks through.

Click the cover image to open an EPUB file of the story.

Click on the button below for the LANGUAGE PRIMER to learn about pronouns, vocabulary and word structure in the Living Starship stories..