Born in Simcoe, Ontario,[1][2] he attended the University of Waterloo, where he published his first story, "The Phantom of the Operator", in 1984.
He has written a number of novels in a "League of Peoples" universe in which humans encounter highly advanced aliens that define murderers as "dangerous non-sentients" and kill them if they try to leave their solar system.
[3] In 1989, Gardner's short story "The Children of Creche" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest.
Two years later his story "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" won a Prix Aurora Award.
His "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream" won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards.