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: 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: 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!
Rating:
Summary: A letdown from the first book
Review: I was expecting a wonderful story after the first book in the series, but was not satisfied with the book. I felt it lacked much of the emotion of the first book, and Joseph was not nearly as interesting a protagonist as Mendoza. This book also seemed to have a bit of a problem taking itself seriously. Not a bad read, but not a great one either
Rating: 
Summary: If only the series had started with this book!
Review: In The Garden of Iden, Baker's first novel in the "Company" series, gave us a tantalizing glimpse of a future company, Dr. Zeus, manipulating the strands of unrecorded history for its own benefit. Unfortunately, it was too wrapped up in its dreary tale of misbegotten love in 16th-century England to serve up much meat about this intriguing concept, resulting in a depressing and disappointing novel. But I'm happy to say that its sequel Sky Coyote follows through on everything that Iden promised, and is a rollicking good read, to boot! Narrator Joseph has a rare view of the world, being one of the company's oldest Immortals, and his wry commentary on his peers, and on the mortals he interacts with to carry out his missions for Dr. Zeus. After a lively prologue in which he and Mendoza (dislikeable as ever, but more fun as a foil for Joseph-as-protagonist) are reunited, they head off to California in 1700 to "save" a city of Chumash indians. Joseph's interaction with the Chumash is priceless: Augmented to look like their god Sky Coyote, he makes proclamations interspersed with peculiar reasoning, and works to convince the natives that he and his "spirits" are working to save them from a grisly fate. What makes it work is the light touch that Baker gives the Chumash, as they use modern slang and have true business savvy. They're not dumb, even if they are wrapped up in a religious system that seems peculiar to us. Baker always treats them with respect, which more than anything else makes them come alive as believable characters. But best of all, we learn about Joseph's own history dating back to prehistory, and how Dr. Zeus has slyly been handling the Immortals over the last 2000 years, revealing some dark shadows which our heroes will have to grapple with in books to come. On the other hand, all of this is starkly contrasted with the bumbling, snivelling, pampered company mortals sent back from 2355 to oversee the Chumash operation. Which is the real Dr. Zeus, if any? There's a lot for Joseph and the reader to think on and look forward to, here. The book is still somewhat flawed in that the Immortals are still basically an unlikeable lot, and Joseph seems like the only one of them with any character. Still, this complaint is small potatoes; Joseph's narration makes up for a lot. Sky Coyote pays off handsomely, and has me looking forward to reading the next book in the series (even if the series could have a less bland title than "The Company"). It took me a long time to get around to reading this, after the disappointment of Iden, but I'm glad I did, and you will be, too.
Rating:
Summary: If only the series had started with this book!
Review: In The Garden of Iden, Baker's first novel in the "Company" series, gave us a tantalizing glimpse of a future company, Dr. Zeus, manipulating the strands of unrecorded history for its own benefit. Unfortunately, it was too wrapped up in its dreary tale of misbegotten love in 16th-century England to serve up much meat about this intriguing concept, resulting in a depressing and disappointing novel. But I'm happy to say that its sequel Sky Coyote follows through on everything that Iden promised, and is a rollicking good read, to boot! Narrator Joseph has a rare view of the world, being one of the company's oldest Immortals, and his wry commentary on his peers, and on the mortals he interacts with to carry out his missions for Dr. Zeus. After a lively prologue in which he and Mendoza (dislikeable as ever, but more fun as a foil for Joseph-as-protagonist) are reunited, they head off to California in 1700 to "save" a city of Chumash indians. Joseph's interaction with the Chumash is priceless: Augmented to look like their god Sky Coyote, he makes proclamations interspersed with peculiar reasoning, and works to convince the natives that he and his "spirits" are working to save them from a grisly fate. What makes it work is the light touch that Baker gives the Chumash, as they use modern slang and have true business savvy. They're not dumb, even if they are wrapped up in a religious system that seems peculiar to us. Baker always treats them with respect, which more than anything else makes them come alive as believable characters. But best of all, we learn about Joseph's own history dating back to prehistory, and how Dr. Zeus has slyly been handling the Immortals over the last 2000 years, revealing some dark shadows which our heroes will have to grapple with in books to come. On the other hand, all of this is starkly contrasted with the bumbling, snivelling, pampered company mortals sent back from 2355 to oversee the Chumash operation. Which is the real Dr. Zeus, if any? There's a lot for Joseph and the reader to think on and look forward to, here. The book is still somewhat flawed in that the Immortals are still basically an unlikeable lot, and Joseph seems like the only one of them with any character. Still, this complaint is small potatoes; Joseph's narration makes up for a lot. Sky Coyote pays off handsomely, and has me looking forward to reading the next book in the series (even if the series could have a less bland title than "The Company"). It took me a long time to get around to reading this, after the disappointment of Iden, but I'm glad I did, and you will be, too.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Garden
Review: See, I don't get it. Everyone says that Sky Coyote is their least favourite of Baker's books. Why? Is it because Joseph is the narrator? Is it because it doesn't deal with European-based history? Is it because somehow Baker wrote less beautifully than she usually does? I don't know. I thought it much better than Garden of Iden. In Sky Coyote, Joseph and Mendoza are sent to California to retrieve an entire tribe of people before white men can get at them with land grabs and smallpox. Baker knows California well: she lives there, so everything in the book has that touch of authenticity. Although she can't give the Chumash language that same kind of twist she gave Elizabethan English, she doesn't fall into the trap that most authors do with American Indians: namely, overly-simplify the language they speak. Of the three factions in the book (future mortals, immortals, and the Chumash), the Chumash come out most human, and that is a feat in itself when the book is narrated by an immortal. And speaking of immortals, I like Joseph so much better than Mendoza! She's stubborn, straightforward, and believes in one thing and one thing only. Fairly one-dimensional, even after having read Garden. Joseph ponders things, has faults and fears, and is much older and remembers far back to the Stone Age of Europe, whence he came. Yet he's able to work despite his fears. Admittedly, he largely ignores them. But isn't that what we do most of the time? I suppose what I liked best about the book, though, is the fact that it deals with the fallibility of Dr. Zeus and pokes fun at modern society in a way Garden did not. Introduced is the fact that Dr. Zeus has only provided the immortals with historical information up until a certain year in the future, where supposedly paradise on earth will have been achieved and the immortals can rest from their labours. Also added are the concept of the Enforcers, immortals who were recruited to kill raging hoardes during the Stone Age, but then lost their necessity and slowly vanished somehow. The idea is that Dr. Zeus can make mistakes. I loved it. Here is a company that saves you from certain death in the past and makes you immortal. You're trained to believe it's a wise and benevolent power. What happens when you begin to doubt? It's great stuff. Better than that are the future mortals who come to the past to oversee the Chumash tribe's excavation. They are like stretched-thin overly-exaggerated people of today. They play video games all of the time. Their vocabulary is extremely limited. They frown on controlled substances, are afraid of the Chumash "savages", and don't want to harm anything, even grass. They are each super-specialists, a genius in his own field but a doddering idiot about anything else. They have no sense of the history they are trying to preserve. It's just vindicating for a historian to see, as it feels that way today. Few now care about what happened before-- they are willfully ignorant, perpetuating the same mistakes and thinking they are original. Oh, I liked that. There is, of course, Baker's perpetual theme of single crazy zealots perpetuating murders for a jealous God. She has the Chumash encounter a new monotheistic cult which is, of course, villainous, persuasive, and stops at nothing to gain converts. Much like in Garden's Spain. Or in any of her books. No redeeming qualities, oh no. To be honest, the only way I can get through these parts is that she isn't altogether blatant about them. The story still functions in the characters' minds, and they are believable. So I can still think that God is trying to say something to Joseph, that there is more than the Company. Sometimes I wonder what Kage Baker really thinks.
Rating: 
Summary: Terry Pratchett Does Time Travel
Review: Sky Coyote continues the story of Joseph and Mendoza, immortal Company agents who travel through history by living it. This book is similar to her others in that it is a strange mix of fascinating ideas and uneven storytelling. I enjoy the characters and concepts, am intrigued by the overarching plot about the ultimate goals of the company, but Baker definately has problems with pacing and plot structure. Some events which could be given much more attention are blown off with a few words, others (like the huge chapter describing a festival play -- not quite as bad as the interminable scene-by-scene descriptions of movies in "Mendoza in Hollywood") go into painfully dull detail for long periods of time. Main problem with this installment: Nothing really HAPPENS! However, it's a quick read, has some great funny scenes (the whole Roadrunner/Coyote scene made the novel worth it!), and a really interesting premise... that's what keeps me coming back.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, irreverent, tantalizing
Review: Sky Coyote is one of those unusual sequels which surpasses the original. In fact, reading the precursor, In the Garden of Iden, is entirely unnecessary for the enjoyment of this book. Kage Baker's intriguing premise of immortal beings laboring for the good of a future world they have never seen takes off in Sky Coyote. While the first book could be viewed as historical fiction with a science-fiction touch -- Sky Coyote explores the full promise of the idea behind the plot: Why would these powerful beings continue to work for the Company with very little reward? What is the future like? Who is really in charge of the Company -- the humans or the immortals? Sky Coyote telescopes backwards and forwards through time. In the main plot, Joseph endeavors to save a unique Native American culture from certain extinction. Meanwhile, flashbacks give us insight into Joseph's impressive past, while interludes at a Company base manned by humans from the future give us a frightening glimpse of the twenty-fourth century. And readers who enjoyed In the Garden of Iden will be interested in understanding the whole Mendoza-Harpole fiasco from Joseph's point of view. (No, she hasn't forgiven him.)
Rating:
Summary: Not only a fake god, but a useless one too?
Review: Sky Coyote is the second in "The Company" series of science fiction novels. This time, the viewpoint changes from Mendoza, child of the Spanish Inquisition, to Joseph, her rescuer and recruiter. Unfortunately, Baker is hit with a bit of the "sophomore jinx," and her second effort feels lacking compared to the first. Still a fun read, it could have been so much more. Sky Coyote almost seems like a placeholder instead of a proper novel. It does have a plot, and one that could have been very interesting. Unfortunately, Baker misses the opportunity and instead provides us with a group of natives who seem much too modern for what they are supposed to be. Remember, the year is 1700. Baker has them talking in very modern language which just spoils the mood. In the Garden of Iden was enhanced by the way Baker had the characters talk the way the English spoke at the time, and it contrasted nicely with the modern English used by the operatives when they weren't interacting with the locals. This time, though, there is no difference, and it is jarring. A case could be made that this is a translation of what they said into modern English, but it loses its impact that way. The tribe just feels out of place. Another problem is the pacing of the book. Once Joseph has ingratiated himself with the locals, they put on a show for him and the other operatives (masquerading as agents of the Sky Kingdom and the Coyote's helpers). This show brings the book to a screeching halt for ten pages with a performance that isn't even that funny. It lacks Baker's characteristic wit and charm and seems superfluous. Baker may have been trying to illustrate something with this, but it fails miserably. At 310 pages (small pages with fairly large type and lots of dialogue), the book is already short. The ten pages taken up by this show make it seem even shorter and really could have been used elsewhere. It feels like nothing much of consequence happens in the book because of this problem. The mission seems very easy, with only a couple of roadblocks thrown up to add any suspense into whether or not the mission will succeed. To me, this implies that the point of the book is not the mission itself, but what it means to the Company and the operatives. This is where the book shines, and I wish Baker would have given us more of this and less of the mission. For the first time, we meet the mortals who created these people, and we are less than impressed. They are, basically, dweebs. Afraid of germs, afraid of violence, afraid of any sort of religious ceremonies, they paint a picture of the future that looks horrible. This is not only to the readers, but to the Company operatives as well. A number of them are meeting their creators for the first time, and a crisis of conscience springs up. These immortals have been living for centuries, all of them working toward the goal of reaching a year in the 2300s where the fruits of their labors will finally bear fruit. But is this what they're waiting for? Might it not be better if they took over and set the world on the proper course? This is dangerous thinking, and it provides the heart and soul of the book, along with setting up some wonderful future possibilities for future books. The relationship between Joseph and Mendoza takes a further step as Mendoza walks further and further away from her humanity. She still blames Joseph for what happened with her lover in England, and she's allowed those events to push her further away from the humanity she once held when Joseph recruited her. Joseph, meanwhile, has had centuries to learn techniques to keep that humanity vibrant. The interaction between the two of them is crackling, and you really start to wonder if Mendoza agrees with the potential rebels or not. While this is Joseph's book, Mendoza is the one who is truly developed. We never see any of the events from Mendoza's point of view, but that actually adds to her mystique. Thus, I give a guarded recommendation to Sky Coyote. There are so many interesting events going on, that you can't really miss it. It's just too bad the native story couldn't be included in that description. This will probably be a vital link in the series, so it will be worth your time. Besides, it is short so you won't have that much trouble getting through it. David Roy
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