Rating: 
Summary: Move Over O¿Henry ¿ Kage Baker has arrived
Review: What a surprise!! I was expecting little vignettes of Company life with the same roster of characters but the depth and variety of characters, settings and plots was simply stunning. Maybe it is true that the short story - as opposed to the novel, poem, saga, chant or song - is the real American art form. If so, then Ms. Baker has accepted that challenge with gusto. The author is said to be a fan of the X-Files and in that show, one quickly grew tired of monsters and weirdos, yearning instead for the ever-changing, ever-evolving mythology which girded the series. The Zeus books follow a similar pattern. If "The Garden of Iden" is almost childlike - you might say innocent - the following tales evolved into philosophical treatises on the nature, reason and ultimate fate of time travel and, more than anything, the mysterious Chronos Corporation and its hidden agenda. These are splendid stories although it is imperative that one is first acquainted with the preceding novels to which they allude. The sequence seems random but one discovers a serial-like order of presentation. The young lad with the extraordinary powers shows up several times and the attentive reader will discern both the hows and whys of his origin. Some of these stories sound boring in the extreme until the first paragraph. Suddenly you are caught in the web spun by the author and the only escape is finishing the tale. Some are tongue-in-cheek (Lemuria), some are explanatory (Search for the Delacroix), others are reflective of the author's great interest in English history (Shakespeare). All possess that unique "Baker" quality that permeates her works - the excellent turn of phrase, the fidelity to the character and the times, the occasional surprise and the relentless movement of the logic to its conclusions, tragic, maudlin or triumphant. Many of these could easily be developed into novels, a task I hope the author will undertake in the future
Rating:
Summary: Move Over - O'Henry, Kage has arrived
Review: What a surprise!! I was expecting little vignettes of Company Life with the same roster of characters but the depth and variety of characters, settings and plots was stunning. Maybe it is true that the short story - as opposed to the novel, poem, saga, chant or song - is the real American art form. If so, then Ms. Baker has accepted the challenge with gusto. The author is said to be a fan of the X-Files and in that show, one quickly grew tired of monsters and weirdos, yearning instead for the ever-changing, ever-evolving mythology which undergirded the series. The Zeus books follow a similar pattern. If "The Garden of Iden" is almost childlike - you might say innocent - the following tales evolved into philosophical treatises on the nature, reason and ultimate fate of time travel and, more than anything, the mysterious Chronos Corporation and its hidden agenda. These are splendid stories although it is imperative that one is first acquainted with the preceding novels to which they allude. The sequence seems random but one discovers a serial-like order of presentation. The young lad with the extraordinary powers shows up several times and the attentive reader will discern both the hows and whys of his origin. Some of these stories sound boring in the extreme until the first paragraph. Suddenly you are caught in the web spun by the author and the only escape is finishing the tale. Some are tongue-in-cheek (Lemuria), some are explanatory (Search for the Delacroix), others are reflective of the author's great interest in English history (Shakespeare). All possess that unique "Baker" quality that permeates her works - the excellent turn of phrase, the fidelity to the character and the times, the occasional surprise and the relentless movement of the logic to its conclusions, tragic, maudlin or triumphant. Many of these could easily be developed into novels, a task I hope the author will undertake in the future.
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