Rating: 
Summary: Smart, funny, thoughtful work from a superb new talent
Review: "In The Garden Of Iden" was an impressive debut, introducing both Kage Baker's immense talent and her fascinating Company series. "Sky Coyote" ups the ante considerably: it's darker, sharper and more blackly comic than its predecessor, and plants the seeds of further developments that will no doubt reverberate through future volumes. Reminiscent of both Neal Stephenson and Connie Willis, Baker's a major talent with a distinctive voice. I can't wait to see where she goes next.
Rating: 
Summary: A letdown from the first book
Review: "In the Garder of Iden" garned one of my coveted five stars. Discovering a new author is always exciting, particularly one who writes lucidly and beautifully. Kage Baker fits this test perfectly. But here's the rub: The first novel introduced us to the Company, its workings and some of its main players. It was an orginal, rollicking adventure that set the stage for the next sequeals. Unfortunately this one fails in two categories: (1) The quest (capturing the ancient peoples) is puzzling and boring at best. (2) What about Mendoza, the Spanish beauty we met in the first book? It was disturbing to have Joseph dress like a wolf and tingle the dumb natives and that's about it! This may have been an interest to anthropologists but for the average reader it was a long tale of little action and less meaning. We learn a little more about the mysterious Company of the future and hints are suggested about a possible outcome to the whole enterprise. The wandering tribal preacher at the last seemed forced and out of character. Let's hope for a return of both Mendoza and a plot with some interest.
Rating:
Summary: Laugh-Out-Loud, Fall-on-the-Ground Funny!
Review: 'Sky Coyote' is my favorite Kage Baker novel...so far. It features Baker's wonderful time-traveling, immortal cyborgs (which makes her work worth reading solely for the sheer originality). Joseph, a cyborg facilitator, has the job of preserving the culture of an Indian tribe on the coast of California. Joseph's mission is to evacuate the tribe away from their present location, where only death awaits them, to one of Dr. Zeus's safety zones. But first he must gain their trust...and so he is surgically altered to resemble Coyote, the trickster god from native american religious teachings. It only gets funnier from there. The strength of this novel lies in Joseph's interaction with the Indian tribe. Rather than portray the locals as indigenous and backwards, Baker represents them much as we are today. They worry that if they go off to Heaven with Sky Coyote, how will they make money? Any description of the plot can't do this book justice. This is a masterful comic novel on the scale of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, or P.G. Wodehouse. One of the funniest books I've ever read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Enjoyable & Surprisingly Thought Provoking
Review: 4.5 Stars (I rounded up to five) First - I give the book four and a half stars because of the surprising depth of the tale. I expected a light tale, but the depth caught me pleasantly off guard. There are a few sections that drag a bit, but overall the character development and "enjoyablity index" are quite high. While other reviewers wrote that it is unnecessary to read one book in this series before the next, I disagree. Read them in order. Baker has done a good job at making each book stand-alone to a great extent. However, to really enjoy the premise and development of the plot, as it extends over multiple volumes, I find it better to read them in order. If you read and enjoyed the first volume in the series, you should really enjoy *Sky Coyote*. While I expected a light enjoyable read, I found that Baker added enough depth to make his tale far more than just a "sport read". It has the attributes of a good summer beach book, but incorporates enough substance for me to categorize it as a serious thought-provoking read. *Sky Coyote* delves more into the inner workings of the Zeus organization, creates a vivid picture of the changelessness of humanity, and inspires a rabid appetite to grab the next volume. I find the development of Joseph's character and a better global picture of the Zeus project far more interesting than Mendoza alone. The mythology in the Coyote story is quite appealing, Baker has done a lot of research and it is easy to suspend disbelief throughout the story. I really enjoy the topic of alternate history, as it tends to give a good picture of what day-to-day life in the past. Baker really captures the nuances that I find interesting and compelling. The philosophical and mythological threads heightened my interest and made it a book that actually made me think far outside of the plot and examine how the myths relate to my own life. The 'rules" of time travel are rather flat (so far - I think it will become more defined) and are the hardest area in which to suspend disbelief, but overall, the book is quite excellent. I finished Sky Coyote in a single sitting (albeit a long one - one of those 4am'ers). The first thing I did after closing the book was to order the next two volumes on Amazon. *Mendoza in Hollywood* arrived today, so I expect little sleep tonight.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read!
Review: After coming across the first book in this series, Garden of Eden, I couldn't wait to read the future volumes. Sky Coyote is a great mix of sly humor, time travel,social commentary, and adventure. I couldn't put it down. The main character of this volume, Joseph, is fascinating. I highly reccommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not Bad, but not great either
Review: After finishing In The Garden of Iden I bought this book, hoping for more of Mendoza and Joseph and The Company. While I got more, it wasn't quite what I have expected. It did explain Theobromos to me; it turns out it's chocolate. I liked the idea of a novel based around Joseph, because he's been around so long it's interesting to hear him mention his previous assignments. You get to read bits and pieces of his memories of assignments, but really not enough to get the whole feel of what all he's done. And while he's a kick to read, the rest of the novel isn't as fun. My biggest complaint is the way Baker made the Chumash. They speak like modern day people, and it's very, very confusing. In The Garden of Iden the people speak differently from the immortals, and the discussions are marked that way. Here, the Chumash and Joseph (posing as Sky Coyote) speak the same. It's really kind of a letdown. I like that Baker fleshed out the Chumash by giving them a commercial aspect to focus on, but at the same time, it made them feel pretty one dimensional. And the whole center scene about them throwing a festival and Joseph and the other immortals watching it just seemed out of place. It wasn't funny, and it didn't really fit. I did like meeting some of the people from the 24th or 25th century, it gave me more of a feel of what it's like in that future, but it seemed like the mortals were popping in at all the wrong times, disrupting the story with stuff that wasn't as interesting. Overall it's not a bad book, but I feel a little let down after reading it. It stands alone too well I think.
Rating: 
Summary: A real let-down.
Review: Although Baker tried to spice up this flop of a novel with the introduction of a metastory to attempt to carry our interest beyond the confines of the present narrative, this book was lacking in almost every positive attribute her debut novel offered.
Mendoza, the intriguing protagonist from the Garden of Iden, mysteriously flattened into a two dimensional throwaway. When dealing with large spans of time, it may be tempting to throw 150 years into a character's life, but it is just not plausible that she was the same character in this book as in the first: in the first place had even five years passed in the life of that character -- much less 150 -- we would expect to see her grow and evolve from the girl of the first book. But she has not. But either way, one would expect something more interesting than the shadow of herself from the first book.
The main character in this novel is Joseph, who was a truly engaging figure in the first novel: powerful, wise, a little careless, a little more passionate than he wanted to let on, and very, very good at what he does. In this book, perhaps from too close an inspection, none of these attributes shines.
Finally, there is the take on the native american tribes. Whether or not there is any historical basis for this pre-columbian capitalist culture, the portrayal is painfully jarring. In sharp contrast to the Garden of Iden, the language in this title swings from having no character to having the wrong character entirely. It is simply not persuasive.
By the last third of the book, one feels that Kage is as tired of the story as we are, and she pretty well ties it up and throws it away in the last couple of chapters. What little tension ever existed in the novel sags away, and the cardboard cutout characters are shuffled into their final positions: a big sigh of relief is uttered and we thank goodness that book is over.
Nonetheless, the overall concept remains compelling, and I will give Kage one more chance to redeem this mistake. She has certainly opened enough doors for future work to indicate that she intends to continue the effort, and there is every possibility that, with a better story she will find her voice again and return to the form of her first work.
Rating:
Summary: Add Kage Baker to your favorite authors
Review: Finally a new author and series to relish and to look forward to new books from. As a voracious reader of science fiction, I was grateful to have found a new author that I not only like, but adore. I discovered this series in the middle, with Sky Coyote, and am now desperate for more. Sky Coyote was fascinating and hilarious, Baker's voice fresh and extremely welcome, and I savored every page. Kage Baker is now among my few absolute favorite authors and I can't wait to get ahold of her other books and to see how the series continues.
Rating: 
Summary: Lotsa gravy, little meat but a tasty meal!
Review: I found this story an amusing diversion from my usual diet of futuristic nanotech hard sci fi. There's not much plot to support the single excellent premise of a company reaching back in time and creating immortal operatives who then live into the future preserving cultures and artifacts as they go. This book is more like a few long stories linked by that idea. I was bothered at first by the lack of meat, but by the end of the book I'd let myself settle for a big helping of between meal sweets. I would have loved to have a few of the obvious loose ends properly explained or wrapped up. Perhaps Baker will do so in a later book. All in all, a pleasant diversion, light and enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: I SHALL DUB THEE AWFUL
Review: I have been seeking words to sum up this book and I have revolved around one but it would be normal and banal to say it, but there is no other word that would do this book justice. This book is just plain stupid. It is a horrific pandora's box that should never be opened. It is a cancer for the eye and the mind. I have reasons why I think this and I will lay these out to you, the jury. I enjoyed the first book of this series, In the Garden of Iden, even though it slipped into Harlequin babble here and there. I forgave its first novel blues. The characterization was strong and the historical detail was good. You really got the sense of the time period and the mindset of the people that moved in it. I thought Kage Baker would only get better with the second novel. Boy, was I wrong. Sky Coyote is an awful book in which she not only takes two steps backwards, she reverts to crawling. The plot of Sky Coyote takes place a century later than the first book. The main character from the last book has been chilling in New World One, the south american base of the Company, which is basically an immortal version of Fellini's Satyricon in which its inhabitants are served by mortal slaves and their activity consists of eating, drinking, tennis, and dancing. They seem to be a bunch of lotus eaters more concerned with fashion than doing their life work. Mendoza is not the main character of this novel. Baker has chosen to give Facilitator Joseph, Mendoza's mentor from Iden, the main spotlight here. Unlike the first novel, Joseph here seems to act like a bubbleheaded girl sometimes. I almost forgot to continue to give you the plot. It seems that a tribe of Indians in California will become totally extinct due to disease and the encroachment of the Spanish unless the Company interferes. So Joseph is sent to prepare the way for repatriation (isn't this just the same thing as moving them to a reservation?) Supposedly, the tribe will be safeguarded from their fate by the Company. In the end this consists of doing gruntwork for the immortals. A form of slave labor. The title of the work stems from the fact that Joseph must undergo cosmetic surgery to play the role of Sky Coyote, a Prometheus like God of the Indians. This means that he has wolf ears, snout, and modified hands which are more like paws. He even has a scene where he tests his body and describes himself as "perky" and "bouncy" and he likes to "trot trot trot". The word Froo Froo and fluffy comes to my mind. Some of the scenes are just precious. I mean that in the most sarcastic way. The portrayal of the Indians is so idiotic. They talk like valley girls. "Oh, like for real", "Oh, for sure" are some of the common phrases that they use. They are organized like 20th century white people. They argue about supply and demand, exporting and importing, money, unionizing industry, capitalism, and so on. It's just so stupid. The attempt at satirizing modern society is moronic. This author is not in the league of really going after the soul of 21st century America. There is no depth in the writing. There is nothing underneath it. Baker doesn't have the wit or intellect to pull off what she attempted here. Look to Pahliniuk or Auster or films such as Ghost World or American Beauty to get critiques of society. Baker needs to stay with what she's good at. Froo Froo. I will never read her again. It will take me a few months to rid myself of the awful stench of this book. This novel is everything that is wrong with science fiction. Awful. Good night. I cannot end this review without the real capper of the book. I mean the incident that really just sealed the horribleness of the novel. As the tribe gets ready to leave their home, they are understandably nervous about what their future will be like. In an effort to assuage their fears Joseph shows them roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons and all their fears dissipate. Their is this long soul searching passage where Joseph compares himself to different Warner Brothers cartoon characters such as Elmer Fudd and Yosimite Sam. While not quite on the par with Shakespeare's "to be or not to be", that passage has changed my life. You could start a whole other craze similar to The Prayer of Jabez if you could get someone to analyze that passage and comment on it and place it in Walmarts across the country. Oh, the humanity!
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