On July 9th, 2355, at 11 AM California time, the last broadcast from Dr. Zeus Inc is broadcast across the temporal advisory channel to all agents of a certain security. "We still do not know..." This marks the end of the Temporal Concordance and the end of known time as near as Dr. Zeus's operatives in the past know of it. Known as The Silence, it's been foreshadowed since early on in The Garden of Iden, and every book in Kage Baker's The Company has inexorably lead up to the arrival of the end of time. Which is finally covered in the penultimate book, The Sons of Heaven.
As a quick recap, we have at least 4 known cyborg factions going into the Silence. We have Aegeus and Labienus, the two Executive Facilitators who want the Cyborgs to rule the world after taking down Dr. Zeus, but differ on how humanity should be dealt with after that; we have the Enforcer Bupu, who wants to kill off the human behind Dr. Zeus humanity alone, and we have Executive Facilitator Suleymen, who wants the silence to end without cyborgs particularly killing anyone.
We have the Homo sapiens umbratilis running around, with one hybrid (Bugleg) working for Dr. Zeus, and Bugleg's cousin Ratlin, who figured out how to disable Literature Preserver Lewis in the underhill. Ratlin is adding nanobots to chocolate in attempt to disable the cyborgs. In the mantime, Tiara, one of the female Umbralites, has managed to escape from Quean Barbie and found her own lair, which conveniently houses the remain of Lewis. Whom she rehabilitates.
The Humans who actually work for Dr. Zeus are paranoid that the silence will be like the game Cyborg Conquest, which sort of resembles The Terminator on speed. They become convinced that ALL of cyborg kind will rise up in The Silence and overrun them. To that end, they create an AI to house all of Dr. Zeus, and use a Hellenic statue as its avatar.
And somewhere out of time, we have Mendoza, who has Nicholas Harpole and Alec Checkerfield locked in her head someplace, as Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax managed to remove both Alex and Nicholas from Alec's body and lock them up in Mendoza's head at the end of the last book. He'll release them, but only if given immortality and only if Alec's AI program helps Edward and Mendoza have twin boys who will house the consciousnesses of Nicholas and Alec. While Edward has his own designs on ruling the world, most of his plans change after having children. Some of this is due to figuring out how to free himself and Mendoza (and the AI Captain) from linear time, and some of this is from having to raise children of his own. However, the children have to be raised in linear time, so...
There's a lot going on throughout the book, and given that time does not particularly follow linear progression throughout, one is forced to read with the assumption that everyone will arrive where they are supposed to WHEN the are supposed to. Particularly when Suleymen goes back to Alpha-Omega (back at the beginning of time-ish) the night before the Silence to get all of Dr. Zeus's store genetic information. (which Alec et al raided in the last book for his own genome.)
While the book takes some time to get moving, and having to make a few detours to show where in the end times events in previous books got their start, by the time we reach July 8th, it becomes a masterwork.
On Catalina Island, Aegeus and Labienus gather the night before the Silence with their entourages, sitting in the same room for the first time since probably early Egyptian civilization. Both presume Victor, the plague bringer, is working for them. And dinner is superb, with all the courses the same as what were served to the First Class passengers on the Titanic. We see the two argue over their ideals while Gotterdamerung and requiems play accompaniment. And as the last course comes around, The Commandant from Don Giovanni comes to dinner. And the cyborgs become reflections of Don Juan, the statue, and the demons. It's beautifully rendered.
And towards the end, as the Silence descends, and all the characters wind up where they need to be for the end, Joseph finally reaches some kind of peace with his "daughter" Mendoza, and the world as was recorded ends. While I won't spoil the world to come, I was very amazed at how well Baker managed to reconcile so many disparate plot lines and give this series a satisfying ending. We've come a long way from the frightened girl rescued from the Inquisition, turned into an immortal cyborg, and then heartbroken as her first love, an English Lutheran/Calvinist is burned at the stake during the brief reign of Mary.
While I will admit concern as to how and indeed if the series would end, given that Baker died in 2010 and Wikipedia lists the last book in the series as being publish in 2012... However, a quick look at Amazon reveals that the books following this one are either set in the same setting, but not directly related to the main story arc, or are prequels.
Really, I wish more of my friends would read this series, since I'd love to have a big book club discussion on the series as a whole.
Showing posts with label The Company. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Company. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Friday, April 17, 2015
Up time, downtime, and in m'lady's chamber
So, given the last book in Kage Baker's The Company series was more or less an anthology that filled in narrative gaps from previous volumes, it was interesting picking up The Machine's Child and picking up from where The Graveyard Game as well as The Life of the World to Come left off. Which is to say Facilitator Joseph is regenerating his "Father", the enforcer Budu, last seen hacked to pieces by Victor in 1906 San Francisco; Mendoza is being dismantled somewhere in prehistory; and Alec, the third and final incarnation of Project Adonai, living with the other two incarnations living in his head. All three incarnations of course being Mendoza's lovers. (This would be Nicholas Harpool, last seen burning at the stake in The Garden of Iden, and Edward Bell-Fairfax, last seen being shot to death towards the end of Mendoza in Hollywood.)
There's a lot going on, including a few seemingly unrelated stories concerning a non-immortal cyborg back in 500,000 BCE dealing with office politics near The Silence in 2355 CE, as well as Facilitator Suleyman gathering Immortals near and revealing the facility Mendoza had been held captive in. He also marks a spot 2 years from The Silence towards the end, when all the operatives are given a special emblem of service.
But that's neither here nor there. Most of the book is focused on Alec learning to live in his head with the rather disparate personalities of his prior incarnations. His AI, The Captain. helps the three of them go back in time to save Mendoza from Operations Research, currently headed by Marco, one of the old Neanderthal enforcers. Using the same poison used on Budu, he does get what's left of Mendoza out, which leads into the parallel regenerations of Mendoza and Budu.
Budu is dealing with a slightly off kilter Joseph, who's obsessed with finding Mendoza and Alec. Which, given Alec can move through time, and after experimenting with Mendoza's chrome radiation, finding they can move past the point where she got sent back into prehistory....
There's a lot of time jumping going on. Joseph and Alec meet about 2/3 of the way through, leading to more than a few revelations.
We also have Alec chasing after his DNA so that The Captain can make him immortal as well, and Alec and Mendoza going through time dropping off literal time bombs, set to go off when The Silence happens.
It's kind of jumbled in places, and the ending asks more questions than it really answers. But, after reading so much series fiction, it's kind of nice to find serial fiction, where everything is building off of everything that came before. Although no one as of yet has figured out about Homo sapiens umbratilis, nor has anyone found Literature Specialist Lewis, he's still being discussed, since they assume Dr. Zeus took him out. Which, well, sort of.
Anyway, I'll be returning to this sooner or later, since I'm really enjoying the series, and I'm really wondering how finished it was when the author died.
There's a lot going on, including a few seemingly unrelated stories concerning a non-immortal cyborg back in 500,000 BCE dealing with office politics near The Silence in 2355 CE, as well as Facilitator Suleyman gathering Immortals near and revealing the facility Mendoza had been held captive in. He also marks a spot 2 years from The Silence towards the end, when all the operatives are given a special emblem of service.
But that's neither here nor there. Most of the book is focused on Alec learning to live in his head with the rather disparate personalities of his prior incarnations. His AI, The Captain. helps the three of them go back in time to save Mendoza from Operations Research, currently headed by Marco, one of the old Neanderthal enforcers. Using the same poison used on Budu, he does get what's left of Mendoza out, which leads into the parallel regenerations of Mendoza and Budu.
Budu is dealing with a slightly off kilter Joseph, who's obsessed with finding Mendoza and Alec. Which, given Alec can move through time, and after experimenting with Mendoza's chrome radiation, finding they can move past the point where she got sent back into prehistory....
There's a lot of time jumping going on. Joseph and Alec meet about 2/3 of the way through, leading to more than a few revelations.
We also have Alec chasing after his DNA so that The Captain can make him immortal as well, and Alec and Mendoza going through time dropping off literal time bombs, set to go off when The Silence happens.
It's kind of jumbled in places, and the ending asks more questions than it really answers. But, after reading so much series fiction, it's kind of nice to find serial fiction, where everything is building off of everything that came before. Although no one as of yet has figured out about Homo sapiens umbratilis, nor has anyone found Literature Specialist Lewis, he's still being discussed, since they assume Dr. Zeus took him out. Which, well, sort of.
Anyway, I'll be returning to this sooner or later, since I'm really enjoying the series, and I'm really wondering how finished it was when the author died.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Whole Lotta Shaking Going On
Returning to a series I haven't been back to in a while, I just finished Kage Baker's The Children of the Company, book 6 in her Company novels.
Although, really, this one isn't so much of a novel as much as it is short stories connected by reflections of one of the newly revealed antagonists of the series, Executive Facilitator Labienus. Much like Facilitator Joseph (narrator of Sky Coyote and The Graveyard Game), Labienus was recruited by Budu back in prehistory. Unlike Joseph, Labienus is working on his own endgame, which may or may not end well for humanity.
We start in early Sumerian culture, with Labienus set up as God and ruler of Nippur, En-Lil. (Interestingly, as someone who's studied Sumerian myths, I was facinated by the idea presented here that the reason the afterlife as presented in Sumerian mythos was a way to prevent suicide. The Gods created human to do all the work for them, and when you die, you go to a dark realm to be bored for eternity.) As Sumer evolves, Labienus winds up going to Egypt, where he encounters Joseph acting as court magician. While he doesn't think Joseph will be an ally, he does get Joseph to set up the mystery cults that will eventually evolve into Dr. Zeus Inc.
We find Labienus is involved in a private war with Aegeus, another Executive Facilitator trying to be the one in charge when the temporal concordance runs out. Aegeus has a protege in Victor, who's eventual fall under the sway of Labienus forms on of the overall stories within. It's Victor who must deal with Literature Preserver Lewis, last seen in the far future being taken captive and presumably killed by strange beings on Catalina Island. One of the big reveals in here concerns Lewis's time at a monastery dictating pagan tales of Ireland to a monk scribe. It seems "fairies" keep trying to take one of the monks to underhill, leading Lewis and his monkly scribe to investigate, discovering Homo sapiens umbratilis, a race of human like beings who allege that they evolved from a race other than Neanderthal or Cro-Magnan. They also seem to have ways on taking out the immortal cyborgs, which is indeed a rarity in this setting. Victor's job is to wipe Lewis's memory of anything involving this new race, which eventually succeeds. (This would also explain Lewis's issues when confronted with them in The Graveyard Game.)
Aegeus does manage to capture 2 members of umbratilis, including a female. The female eventually breeds with a normal human, and one of the few surviving children shows up much later in the plot threads.
About halfway through, we finally find out how Budu came to be in so many pieces during The Graveyard Game. Seems in an attempt to talk to Victor in San Francisco in the early morning of April 18th, 1906, Budu manages to push Victor too far. Mind you, Victor, in one of a few incidents of such, finds out he's being used as a cyborg Typhoid Mary, releasing a nasty virus that shuts Budu down right before the Tongs come in and dismember him.
Time advances, and we find out that one of our Russian cyborgs gets screwed over by Labienus for figuring out the Sattes virus. As his role is to preserve things in shipwrecks, the rescue team fails to save him from his sunken ship.
We end with Labienus preparing to interfere with Mendoza's life again, this time by sending the latest iteration of the Adonai project into her life.
Again, there is a hell of a lot of information in this volume, most of it designed to better flesh out what's been going on behind the scenes of previous volumes. We also see a resurgence of thematic content, with the cyborgs playing a sort of Eliza Doolittle to Humanity's Henry Higgens. This ranges from "Exterminate all the humans" to "Save all the humans" to "Pare down the humans to better manageable population size that they might serve us".
Can't wait to get some more breathing room to get the next volume.
Although, really, this one isn't so much of a novel as much as it is short stories connected by reflections of one of the newly revealed antagonists of the series, Executive Facilitator Labienus. Much like Facilitator Joseph (narrator of Sky Coyote and The Graveyard Game), Labienus was recruited by Budu back in prehistory. Unlike Joseph, Labienus is working on his own endgame, which may or may not end well for humanity.
We start in early Sumerian culture, with Labienus set up as God and ruler of Nippur, En-Lil. (Interestingly, as someone who's studied Sumerian myths, I was facinated by the idea presented here that the reason the afterlife as presented in Sumerian mythos was a way to prevent suicide. The Gods created human to do all the work for them, and when you die, you go to a dark realm to be bored for eternity.) As Sumer evolves, Labienus winds up going to Egypt, where he encounters Joseph acting as court magician. While he doesn't think Joseph will be an ally, he does get Joseph to set up the mystery cults that will eventually evolve into Dr. Zeus Inc.
We find Labienus is involved in a private war with Aegeus, another Executive Facilitator trying to be the one in charge when the temporal concordance runs out. Aegeus has a protege in Victor, who's eventual fall under the sway of Labienus forms on of the overall stories within. It's Victor who must deal with Literature Preserver Lewis, last seen in the far future being taken captive and presumably killed by strange beings on Catalina Island. One of the big reveals in here concerns Lewis's time at a monastery dictating pagan tales of Ireland to a monk scribe. It seems "fairies" keep trying to take one of the monks to underhill, leading Lewis and his monkly scribe to investigate, discovering Homo sapiens umbratilis, a race of human like beings who allege that they evolved from a race other than Neanderthal or Cro-Magnan. They also seem to have ways on taking out the immortal cyborgs, which is indeed a rarity in this setting. Victor's job is to wipe Lewis's memory of anything involving this new race, which eventually succeeds. (This would also explain Lewis's issues when confronted with them in The Graveyard Game.)
Aegeus does manage to capture 2 members of umbratilis, including a female. The female eventually breeds with a normal human, and one of the few surviving children shows up much later in the plot threads.
About halfway through, we finally find out how Budu came to be in so many pieces during The Graveyard Game. Seems in an attempt to talk to Victor in San Francisco in the early morning of April 18th, 1906, Budu manages to push Victor too far. Mind you, Victor, in one of a few incidents of such, finds out he's being used as a cyborg Typhoid Mary, releasing a nasty virus that shuts Budu down right before the Tongs come in and dismember him.
Time advances, and we find out that one of our Russian cyborgs gets screwed over by Labienus for figuring out the Sattes virus. As his role is to preserve things in shipwrecks, the rescue team fails to save him from his sunken ship.
We end with Labienus preparing to interfere with Mendoza's life again, this time by sending the latest iteration of the Adonai project into her life.
Again, there is a hell of a lot of information in this volume, most of it designed to better flesh out what's been going on behind the scenes of previous volumes. We also see a resurgence of thematic content, with the cyborgs playing a sort of Eliza Doolittle to Humanity's Henry Higgens. This ranges from "Exterminate all the humans" to "Save all the humans" to "Pare down the humans to better manageable population size that they might serve us".
Can't wait to get some more breathing room to get the next volume.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Mendoza, you oaf!
True story. I've been postponing reading The Life of the World to Come by Kage Baker mainly because I've already reviewed 3 books in the series on here already and I wanted to space things out a bit.
And on a side note, This blog is about 13 months old now. Which I really wasn't expecting, since the last time I tried tracking my reading, it fell off after a few months. (Not that I post about everything I read, more than a few titles are either YA lit I picked up on Ebay or comic book collections, etc.)
Anyway, the series so far has alternated narration duties between Mendoza (books 1 and 3) and Joseph (books 2 and 4). Which should mean Mendoza should be narrating this one. And she does for the prologue. Living on Catalina Island in the WAY WAY BACK when animals hadn't yet crawled out of the sea, she chops vegetables for Company resorts to serve to guests. She mentions boredom, and how she sometimes sleeps for several years, based on her internal chronometer. And then a handsome man crashes a time ship in her front yard. Who also quite resembles Nicholas Harpoole, last seen burning at the stake in The Garden of Iden, as well as Edward Alton Bell-Fairfaix, last seen being shot by American agents and dying in Mendoza's arms in Mendoza in Hollywood. Alec Checkerfield comes from about 4 years before The Silence descends. Of course, he and Mendoza go a bit loopy and ravish each other in the primeval. She helps him disable the explosive device on his stolen time machine, and tells him how to avoid being sick from time travel. He promises to return once he has avenged his Captain, whom Dr. Zeus Inc. killed. Not loing after he leaves, Mendoza's journal gets cut off mid sentence. A Latin verse that roughly translates as Strong as death is love, hard as hell is envy. Well, it would if she had completed the sentence. Thankfully, Google found the full phrase and the translation he in 2013.
Anyway, the rest of the book follows two different plots. One follows young Alex, growing up on his father's ship, cruising the world, free from the regulations of the modern world of the 2300's. The other follows three effete men in 2350 who are trying to design better versions of the Enforcers, who, as we found during The Graveyard Game, kind of went off the radar. Rutherford, Frankie Chatterji, and Foxen Ellsworth-Howard work for Dr. Zeus, tailoring genes to create a better Enforcer, under the codename Adonai. Which is amusing, since one gets the distinct impression they're trying to create a man who can be what it is they most desire but refuse to pursue for whatever reason. (Seriously. They walk outside at one point for what amounts to maybe a few blocks. They wind up with blisters on their feet and sunburns on their bald heads.)
Alex, on the other hand, spends most of his childhood blaming himself for his parents' divorce not long after they moved back to London. Mom leaves, Dad goes back to the sea. His caretakers give him a virtual playmate (to help keep children away from germs), whom Alex manages to reprogram on day 1. The Captain (Alex likes pirates, you see) pretty much loses most of his ethics programming, thanks to Alex, who is quite the savant when it comes to tech.
As Alex grows, he becomes quite rich, not only due to the fortune he inherited from his father, but from the profiteering he does running contraband on his ship, the Captain Morgan. He gets involved with a revolutionary group founded by one of his upper class peers.
In the mean time, results from the first two incarnations of the Adonai project come in and get reviewed. The first winds up burned at the stake. The second gets shot by American agents on Catalina Island. (Sound familiar? Particularly when the 3 creators get annoyed the same Preserver botanist is involved with both deaths.) The third one is being run in contemporaneous time, and you guessed it, is one Alex Checkerfield.
These two plots collide as Alex breaks into Dr. Zeus to steal a time machine to run guns to Mars One before everyone in the colony gets forcibly evicted. (This is a nasty subplot.) He manages to steal the time machine as the Captain gets taken offline by Dr. Zeus's avatar. Alex winds up in the WAY WAY BACK where he meets a beautiful preserver named Mendoza.
To make a long story short, the device Mendoza deactivates in the WAY WAY BACK ends up changing Alex's destiny, which ultimately leads to Alex getting an opportunity most of us don't get in life, that of meeting his maker(s). It also leads to a case of multiple personalities as Alex, Edward, and Nicholas end up inhabiting the same body. We also now have a name of someone who's been manipulating things behind the scenes.
As much as I want storyline resolution on what the heck happened to Mendoza, plus what's going to happen when Joseph wakes up his mentor, or find out what actually happened to Lewis, this book really brought out the themes of the series in a very readable way. I can't wait to find out what comes next.
And on a side note, This blog is about 13 months old now. Which I really wasn't expecting, since the last time I tried tracking my reading, it fell off after a few months. (Not that I post about everything I read, more than a few titles are either YA lit I picked up on Ebay or comic book collections, etc.)
Anyway, the series so far has alternated narration duties between Mendoza (books 1 and 3) and Joseph (books 2 and 4). Which should mean Mendoza should be narrating this one. And she does for the prologue. Living on Catalina Island in the WAY WAY BACK when animals hadn't yet crawled out of the sea, she chops vegetables for Company resorts to serve to guests. She mentions boredom, and how she sometimes sleeps for several years, based on her internal chronometer. And then a handsome man crashes a time ship in her front yard. Who also quite resembles Nicholas Harpoole, last seen burning at the stake in The Garden of Iden, as well as Edward Alton Bell-Fairfaix, last seen being shot by American agents and dying in Mendoza's arms in Mendoza in Hollywood. Alec Checkerfield comes from about 4 years before The Silence descends. Of course, he and Mendoza go a bit loopy and ravish each other in the primeval. She helps him disable the explosive device on his stolen time machine, and tells him how to avoid being sick from time travel. He promises to return once he has avenged his Captain, whom Dr. Zeus Inc. killed. Not loing after he leaves, Mendoza's journal gets cut off mid sentence. A Latin verse that roughly translates as Strong as death is love, hard as hell is envy. Well, it would if she had completed the sentence. Thankfully, Google found the full phrase and the translation he in 2013.
Anyway, the rest of the book follows two different plots. One follows young Alex, growing up on his father's ship, cruising the world, free from the regulations of the modern world of the 2300's. The other follows three effete men in 2350 who are trying to design better versions of the Enforcers, who, as we found during The Graveyard Game, kind of went off the radar. Rutherford, Frankie Chatterji, and Foxen Ellsworth-Howard work for Dr. Zeus, tailoring genes to create a better Enforcer, under the codename Adonai. Which is amusing, since one gets the distinct impression they're trying to create a man who can be what it is they most desire but refuse to pursue for whatever reason. (Seriously. They walk outside at one point for what amounts to maybe a few blocks. They wind up with blisters on their feet and sunburns on their bald heads.)
Alex, on the other hand, spends most of his childhood blaming himself for his parents' divorce not long after they moved back to London. Mom leaves, Dad goes back to the sea. His caretakers give him a virtual playmate (to help keep children away from germs), whom Alex manages to reprogram on day 1. The Captain (Alex likes pirates, you see) pretty much loses most of his ethics programming, thanks to Alex, who is quite the savant when it comes to tech.
As Alex grows, he becomes quite rich, not only due to the fortune he inherited from his father, but from the profiteering he does running contraband on his ship, the Captain Morgan. He gets involved with a revolutionary group founded by one of his upper class peers.
In the mean time, results from the first two incarnations of the Adonai project come in and get reviewed. The first winds up burned at the stake. The second gets shot by American agents on Catalina Island. (Sound familiar? Particularly when the 3 creators get annoyed the same Preserver botanist is involved with both deaths.) The third one is being run in contemporaneous time, and you guessed it, is one Alex Checkerfield.
These two plots collide as Alex breaks into Dr. Zeus to steal a time machine to run guns to Mars One before everyone in the colony gets forcibly evicted. (This is a nasty subplot.) He manages to steal the time machine as the Captain gets taken offline by Dr. Zeus's avatar. Alex winds up in the WAY WAY BACK where he meets a beautiful preserver named Mendoza.
To make a long story short, the device Mendoza deactivates in the WAY WAY BACK ends up changing Alex's destiny, which ultimately leads to Alex getting an opportunity most of us don't get in life, that of meeting his maker(s). It also leads to a case of multiple personalities as Alex, Edward, and Nicholas end up inhabiting the same body. We also now have a name of someone who's been manipulating things behind the scenes.
As much as I want storyline resolution on what the heck happened to Mendoza, plus what's going to happen when Joseph wakes up his mentor, or find out what actually happened to Lewis, this book really brought out the themes of the series in a very readable way. I can't wait to find out what comes next.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Dig deep
So, when last we heard from Facilitator Joseph, he was running around as an indigenous Coyote God. Now, in what was the modern era when the book was written, he works in San Francisco.
We last saw literature Specialist Lewis at New World One just prior to the Spanish arrival in Central and South America. He's in Los Angeles.
And when last we saw Mendoza, she was WAY back in time.
And since this is an even book in the Company Series, we're back to Joseph for The Graveyard Game by Kage Baker.
Basically, we cover one whole hell of a lot of time in this one, from the mid 1990's to 2289ish. We follow Joseph and Lewis as they try to figure out what happened to Mendoza, who more or less dropped off the face of the planet. (Lewis was there in the last book when Mendoza jumped forward in time [theoretically impossible], and is now trying to figure out where the botanist ended up, since her current assignemnt is merely a number.
We go through the second American Civil War, the complete veganization of the UK (and later on the newly reconciled USA), suborbital travel and antigravity cars....
We find out about different factions within the Immortals (including the Plaguebringers, the founder believed to be Budu, the Enforcer who found Joseph back in the neolithic era.) We learn that Edward Alton-Fairfax is indeed almost the same man as Nicholas Harpoole. (Basiclaly, the two men Mendoza loved. The former was shot by the Yanks, the latter was burned as a heretic.) We learn that one Immortal in particular (who really doesn't like "Monkeys" set Edward up to take a fall. We learn of a group of humans who know about the Immortals and who have been chasing Lewis for quite some time.
Oh yes, and conspiracy theories abound about 2355, the Year The Silence Descends. (I'm sure my fellow Whovians will giggle about that. Sadly, The Silence here refers to the year that all communication from the future stops. Not Aliens trying to end the universe.) Really, it's interesting, since there are more than a few places where I keep thinking Moffat co-wrote some of this book.
All very interesting, as we dig through graveyards both literal and figurative, learning secrets here and there. Like what happens to retired cyborgs. And the fate of Budu, last seen under arrest in Sky Coyote. What we don't know at the end is where Mendoza is, and what will happen in 74 years from the end of this novel.
I'm amused at how hooked into this series I am, particularly since The Garden of Iden took me so long to get through. Now, I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next and what happened to Mendoza after her trip WAY WAY back.
We last saw literature Specialist Lewis at New World One just prior to the Spanish arrival in Central and South America. He's in Los Angeles.
And when last we saw Mendoza, she was WAY back in time.
And since this is an even book in the Company Series, we're back to Joseph for The Graveyard Game by Kage Baker.
Basically, we cover one whole hell of a lot of time in this one, from the mid 1990's to 2289ish. We follow Joseph and Lewis as they try to figure out what happened to Mendoza, who more or less dropped off the face of the planet. (Lewis was there in the last book when Mendoza jumped forward in time [theoretically impossible], and is now trying to figure out where the botanist ended up, since her current assignemnt is merely a number.
We go through the second American Civil War, the complete veganization of the UK (and later on the newly reconciled USA), suborbital travel and antigravity cars....
We find out about different factions within the Immortals (including the Plaguebringers, the founder believed to be Budu, the Enforcer who found Joseph back in the neolithic era.) We learn that Edward Alton-Fairfax is indeed almost the same man as Nicholas Harpoole. (Basiclaly, the two men Mendoza loved. The former was shot by the Yanks, the latter was burned as a heretic.) We learn that one Immortal in particular (who really doesn't like "Monkeys" set Edward up to take a fall. We learn of a group of humans who know about the Immortals and who have been chasing Lewis for quite some time.
Oh yes, and conspiracy theories abound about 2355, the Year The Silence Descends. (I'm sure my fellow Whovians will giggle about that. Sadly, The Silence here refers to the year that all communication from the future stops. Not Aliens trying to end the universe.) Really, it's interesting, since there are more than a few places where I keep thinking Moffat co-wrote some of this book.
All very interesting, as we dig through graveyards both literal and figurative, learning secrets here and there. Like what happens to retired cyborgs. And the fate of Budu, last seen under arrest in Sky Coyote. What we don't know at the end is where Mendoza is, and what will happen in 74 years from the end of this novel.
I'm amused at how hooked into this series I am, particularly since The Garden of Iden took me so long to get through. Now, I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next and what happened to Mendoza after her trip WAY WAY back.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
It's like a Tom Petty song...only with cyborgs...
I discussed The Company novels by Kage Baker after reading the second book, and now just finished Mendoza in Hollywood.
Mendoza narrated the first book, The Garden of Iden, where we met our little immortal cyborg as she was recused from the Inquisition in Spain, made an immortal cyborg, then became one of Dr. Zeus Inc.'s botanists. She met a wonderful young man whom she loved in England under the reign of Bloody Mary, Queen of Scots, and had her heart destroyed when the Papists burned her heretical Lutheran lover at the stake.
After the events in Sky Coyote, Mendoza remained in California, preserving plant species in relative isolation beforfe being reassigned by the company to a Stagecoach way station outside of Los Angeles in 1862. (Also American Civil War period. there's a lot of plot and counterplot in the background as Mexico and Britain try to interfere with Union supplies from the coast using Confederate plotters.)
We meet Porfirio, who remembered enough of his family to become a special guardian to them even into his immortal life, which come back to bite him about halfway through the novel; Einar, who's preserving coyotes and longhorns and also is a huge fan of Early Hollywood (which in this time period hasn't started yet); Oscar, the anthropologist who peddles wares to get information from the locals; Juan Batista, the bird guy with evil condor Erich von Stroheim; and Imarte, posing as the stagecoach lady of negotiable virtue.
Given that Mendoza's part in all of this really doesn't get going until the last few chapters, most of the book focuses on Early Statehood residents, as well as Einar's obsessions of what will be where in several decades. (During the latter part of the book, Mendoza and her beau wind up on a spot marked "Harrison Ford's front porch".) There's also the Immortal Film Festival, easily disguised from mortals due to a drought and the Civil War interrupting stage coach traffic. Which leads to one very long and interesting chapter detailing D. W. Griffith's follow up to Birth of a Nation, Intolerance. (Which I had to Wiki, since I'd never heard of it. I was kind of amused to find that Lillian Gish was in both of the aforementioned movies, since she at one point lived in the house next to where my mother currently resides.) That particular movie sets off Imarte, who was made immortal during the days of Babylon. Watching the Persians at the gate destroying her city again, combined with lots of whiskey, has her chasing off into the valleys of SoCal for a night, reliving her past. It's another glimpse into the hell of being a being who won't die and can't forget anything.
There's also a chapter of what I assume is foreshadowing for a later part of the series, wherein we get more of a glimpse of Mendoza's latent psychic abilities. (As of yet, these are largely undefined. They weren't really mentioned at all in the first book, and Joseph mentions them in passing in the second. In here, a trip to Laurel Canyon winds up interacting with "Chrome radiation" [also not really well defined, but something that some beings generate that also builds up in crystals] and sends Porfirio and Mendoza very briefly to modern era LA, complete with smog, cars, and gang warfare. They get sent back to where they started fairly quickly (since 2 people in 19th century clothes on horseback appearing from nowhere might set off a few alarms), but not before Lewis, another character from earlier in the series, tries to warn her not to go back.
Anyway, in the last part, as pretty much everyone else is gone from the Inn, Mendoza ends up meeting British spy Edward, there to pick up a valise left by a colleague who left it there during an...interlude...with Imarte. Since the valise has plans dealing with the British backing the Confederate privateers trying to cut Union gold supplies (centered on Catalina Island).
Anyway, Mendoza sees her lover Nicolas (last seen burning on a stake) in Edward, and winds up trying to help him in what she already knows to be a failed plot.
Much of the conclusion tells us of what her punishment is for doing so, and meditates on reincarnation and whether or not being immortal is always such a good things. We also get more of the "What is Dr. Zeus Inc really up to?" that Joseph ran in to towards the end of Sky Coyote, as Dr. Zeus Inc. has interests in Catalina, and there are tales of giant white men out there who some presume to be aliens.
Really, this entire series has shown more improvement as I read further in to it. Not that I didn't like Iden, but much of the hints of a greater metaplot weren't really present within, and it got bogged down in comparative theology. Now, though... my curiosity is piqued as to what will happen now as the series continues. (Ms. Baker evidently died, but she did finish the series before that, at least according to wikipedia.)
Mendoza narrated the first book, The Garden of Iden, where we met our little immortal cyborg as she was recused from the Inquisition in Spain, made an immortal cyborg, then became one of Dr. Zeus Inc.'s botanists. She met a wonderful young man whom she loved in England under the reign of Bloody Mary, Queen of Scots, and had her heart destroyed when the Papists burned her heretical Lutheran lover at the stake.
After the events in Sky Coyote, Mendoza remained in California, preserving plant species in relative isolation beforfe being reassigned by the company to a Stagecoach way station outside of Los Angeles in 1862. (Also American Civil War period. there's a lot of plot and counterplot in the background as Mexico and Britain try to interfere with Union supplies from the coast using Confederate plotters.)
We meet Porfirio, who remembered enough of his family to become a special guardian to them even into his immortal life, which come back to bite him about halfway through the novel; Einar, who's preserving coyotes and longhorns and also is a huge fan of Early Hollywood (which in this time period hasn't started yet); Oscar, the anthropologist who peddles wares to get information from the locals; Juan Batista, the bird guy with evil condor Erich von Stroheim; and Imarte, posing as the stagecoach lady of negotiable virtue.
Given that Mendoza's part in all of this really doesn't get going until the last few chapters, most of the book focuses on Early Statehood residents, as well as Einar's obsessions of what will be where in several decades. (During the latter part of the book, Mendoza and her beau wind up on a spot marked "Harrison Ford's front porch".) There's also the Immortal Film Festival, easily disguised from mortals due to a drought and the Civil War interrupting stage coach traffic. Which leads to one very long and interesting chapter detailing D. W. Griffith's follow up to Birth of a Nation, Intolerance. (Which I had to Wiki, since I'd never heard of it. I was kind of amused to find that Lillian Gish was in both of the aforementioned movies, since she at one point lived in the house next to where my mother currently resides.) That particular movie sets off Imarte, who was made immortal during the days of Babylon. Watching the Persians at the gate destroying her city again, combined with lots of whiskey, has her chasing off into the valleys of SoCal for a night, reliving her past. It's another glimpse into the hell of being a being who won't die and can't forget anything.
There's also a chapter of what I assume is foreshadowing for a later part of the series, wherein we get more of a glimpse of Mendoza's latent psychic abilities. (As of yet, these are largely undefined. They weren't really mentioned at all in the first book, and Joseph mentions them in passing in the second. In here, a trip to Laurel Canyon winds up interacting with "Chrome radiation" [also not really well defined, but something that some beings generate that also builds up in crystals] and sends Porfirio and Mendoza very briefly to modern era LA, complete with smog, cars, and gang warfare. They get sent back to where they started fairly quickly (since 2 people in 19th century clothes on horseback appearing from nowhere might set off a few alarms), but not before Lewis, another character from earlier in the series, tries to warn her not to go back.
Anyway, in the last part, as pretty much everyone else is gone from the Inn, Mendoza ends up meeting British spy Edward, there to pick up a valise left by a colleague who left it there during an...interlude...with Imarte. Since the valise has plans dealing with the British backing the Confederate privateers trying to cut Union gold supplies (centered on Catalina Island).
Anyway, Mendoza sees her lover Nicolas (last seen burning on a stake) in Edward, and winds up trying to help him in what she already knows to be a failed plot.
Much of the conclusion tells us of what her punishment is for doing so, and meditates on reincarnation and whether or not being immortal is always such a good things. We also get more of the "What is Dr. Zeus Inc really up to?" that Joseph ran in to towards the end of Sky Coyote, as Dr. Zeus Inc. has interests in Catalina, and there are tales of giant white men out there who some presume to be aliens.
Really, this entire series has shown more improvement as I read further in to it. Not that I didn't like Iden, but much of the hints of a greater metaplot weren't really present within, and it got bogged down in comparative theology. Now, though... my curiosity is piqued as to what will happen now as the series continues. (Ms. Baker evidently died, but she did finish the series before that, at least according to wikipedia.)
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Wait, what?
This may be another case of me being behind the rest of society, but I'm now in Book 2 of Kage Baker's Company novels, Sky Coyote.
I think it's best to explain the premise of these before getting deep into the plot. Basically, in the 24th century, Zeus Inc discovers time travel. And the numerous complications with it. You can only go back in time and you can only return to the present that you left. You can take stuff back in time, but not bring things back from the past. You can't change recorded history. Which makes it rough to make a profit.
Which is why Zeus Inc changed its name to Dr. Zeus Inc, using another failed project, immortality. See, immortality can only be conveyed before the end of puberty. And it's quite expensive. Therefore the middle aged rich men who could afford it can't get it. By combining projects, Dr. Zeus sent folks back in time to make people who wouldn't be missed immortal to collect and preserve things outside of recorded history until they can be revealed in the 24th century. Dr. Zeus makes a huge profit, several beings gain immortality, everyone's happy. Well, sort of.
In Book 1, The Garden of Iden, we meet Mendoza and watch her transformation from mortal to immortal following a slight encounter with the Inquisition. Mendoza becomes a Grade 6 Botanist within the company, and gets assigned to Elizabethan England. (Ok, technically on the cups of that era. Mendoza winds up accompanying Prince Phillip's entourage to England as he prepares to marry Mary.) She falls in love with Nicholas, who has a dark past. (Heaven forbid! He was a libertine. Now he's a Lutheran in a period when Mary's trying to stamp out Anglicans and other heretical non Roman Catholic heresy.) Their love, much like two lovers in Verona a few years later, is about as successful and long lived as Mary's reign in England.
Book 2 picks up towards Winter Solstice in 1699 CE. We join Joseph the facilitator (and also the one who saved Mendoza from the loving arms of the Inquisition) as he checks in to New World One, one of The Company's outposts in South America. Wherein we find out about his past in what was to become the Basque region of the Pyrenees. However, New World One is a Mayan city with 24th century technology and humans who think the guy in charge is Kukulkan. On New Year's, said Administrator holds a fin de sicile mourning the soon to come destruction of the indigenous folks by conquistadors. On New Year's Day, 1700, Joseph and Mendoza leave for what will one day be California.
The California base is very sterile and run by 24th century mortals, who tend to view the cyborgs as something to be feared or ignored. Somehow less than human, really. All of which is a bit beside the point, since Joseph's real purpose is to save the Chumash tribe for preservation and release in the 24th century. (I might be misremembering here, but all I could think of was Buffy: the Vampire Slayer's Season 4 Thanksgiving episode when I read the tribe's name.) The Chumash religion focuses on anthropomorphic a\sky gods, of whom Sky Coyote is the one who deals with humans. The Chumash are also fairly advanced, having a sea shell based monetary system and trade with neighboring tribes, organized labor, etc. Joseph gets some prosthetic work done and takes on the role of Sky Coyote, here to save the Chumash people from the Sun's white men in big canoes who will kill the Chumash.
We have a few themes floating around in here. Neolithic Chumash society has a lot in common with late 20th Century American society, what with business versus labor concerns. The Scientists, the priests, the astronomers, and the shaman all want to argue about what Sky Coyote actually means when he says something, much the way contemporary humans debate religious dialog. Also, a tribe further south is now monotheistic, and convincing other tribes that their god is the real one, and Sky Coyote is actually a being who fell out of favor and therefore fell from grace.
Meanwhile, back at the California base, conflict is stirring between the cyborgs and the future humans. One of the more interesting passages concerns Lopez discussing how the cyborgs appreciate the culture that came before the 24th century (technically future culture at this point), versus the future humans who ignore the foundations of their culture and instead play games all day and worry about hurting abalones that the cyborgs want to eat for dinner. Also, one of the human admins would rather save the monotheistic tribe rather than the Chumash, because the monotheistic tribe's values seem to line up better with his, at least on a superficial level.
A quick look at the library catalog suggests a few more books in the series, while Wikipedia reveals the author died a while back. Which is sad, since It's really quite fascinating reading, if a bit slow in the outset.
I think it's best to explain the premise of these before getting deep into the plot. Basically, in the 24th century, Zeus Inc discovers time travel. And the numerous complications with it. You can only go back in time and you can only return to the present that you left. You can take stuff back in time, but not bring things back from the past. You can't change recorded history. Which makes it rough to make a profit.
Which is why Zeus Inc changed its name to Dr. Zeus Inc, using another failed project, immortality. See, immortality can only be conveyed before the end of puberty. And it's quite expensive. Therefore the middle aged rich men who could afford it can't get it. By combining projects, Dr. Zeus sent folks back in time to make people who wouldn't be missed immortal to collect and preserve things outside of recorded history until they can be revealed in the 24th century. Dr. Zeus makes a huge profit, several beings gain immortality, everyone's happy. Well, sort of.
In Book 1, The Garden of Iden, we meet Mendoza and watch her transformation from mortal to immortal following a slight encounter with the Inquisition. Mendoza becomes a Grade 6 Botanist within the company, and gets assigned to Elizabethan England. (Ok, technically on the cups of that era. Mendoza winds up accompanying Prince Phillip's entourage to England as he prepares to marry Mary.) She falls in love with Nicholas, who has a dark past. (Heaven forbid! He was a libertine. Now he's a Lutheran in a period when Mary's trying to stamp out Anglicans and other heretical non Roman Catholic heresy.) Their love, much like two lovers in Verona a few years later, is about as successful and long lived as Mary's reign in England.
Book 2 picks up towards Winter Solstice in 1699 CE. We join Joseph the facilitator (and also the one who saved Mendoza from the loving arms of the Inquisition) as he checks in to New World One, one of The Company's outposts in South America. Wherein we find out about his past in what was to become the Basque region of the Pyrenees. However, New World One is a Mayan city with 24th century technology and humans who think the guy in charge is Kukulkan. On New Year's, said Administrator holds a fin de sicile mourning the soon to come destruction of the indigenous folks by conquistadors. On New Year's Day, 1700, Joseph and Mendoza leave for what will one day be California.
The California base is very sterile and run by 24th century mortals, who tend to view the cyborgs as something to be feared or ignored. Somehow less than human, really. All of which is a bit beside the point, since Joseph's real purpose is to save the Chumash tribe for preservation and release in the 24th century. (I might be misremembering here, but all I could think of was Buffy: the Vampire Slayer's Season 4 Thanksgiving episode when I read the tribe's name.) The Chumash religion focuses on anthropomorphic a\sky gods, of whom Sky Coyote is the one who deals with humans. The Chumash are also fairly advanced, having a sea shell based monetary system and trade with neighboring tribes, organized labor, etc. Joseph gets some prosthetic work done and takes on the role of Sky Coyote, here to save the Chumash people from the Sun's white men in big canoes who will kill the Chumash.
We have a few themes floating around in here. Neolithic Chumash society has a lot in common with late 20th Century American society, what with business versus labor concerns. The Scientists, the priests, the astronomers, and the shaman all want to argue about what Sky Coyote actually means when he says something, much the way contemporary humans debate religious dialog. Also, a tribe further south is now monotheistic, and convincing other tribes that their god is the real one, and Sky Coyote is actually a being who fell out of favor and therefore fell from grace.
Meanwhile, back at the California base, conflict is stirring between the cyborgs and the future humans. One of the more interesting passages concerns Lopez discussing how the cyborgs appreciate the culture that came before the 24th century (technically future culture at this point), versus the future humans who ignore the foundations of their culture and instead play games all day and worry about hurting abalones that the cyborgs want to eat for dinner. Also, one of the human admins would rather save the monotheistic tribe rather than the Chumash, because the monotheistic tribe's values seem to line up better with his, at least on a superficial level.
A quick look at the library catalog suggests a few more books in the series, while Wikipedia reveals the author died a while back. Which is sad, since It's really quite fascinating reading, if a bit slow in the outset.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)