FACT SF Reading Group

October 2000

October 3: Sky Coyote by Kage Baker

Nine people showed up to discuss Sky Coyote, the sequel to In the Garden of Iden. Sky Coyote is another adventure of The Company, a group of people recruited by visitors from the future to help save precious art before it is lost and natural resources before they are extinct. As compensation for the work, the historical recruits are turned immortal. The mission of this book involves saving the culture of a tribe of Native Americans in California before it is wiped out by the invasion of settlers from Europe.

This book was simply fun to read. Baker's wonderfully amusing prose style, combined with the fast-paced action and relatively short page count, had us all zipping through the book. Baker did a great job of filling us in on the events of the prior book, so that Sky Coyote can be read as a standalone novel. We learn a lot more about the immortals (eating chocolate gives them a buzz) and for the first time actually encounter people from the future (whose taste in food seems excessively boring). This novel introduces a lot of potential conflicts between the Dr. Zeus corporation and its recruits, which we assume will build up to major fireworks when we actually get to the time period where Dr. Zeus was founded.

Sky Coyote is filled with a host of diverse and interesting characters. Joseph, the narrator, is a pragmatic long-time employee of The Company who delights in posing as the coyote god to the Native Americans. Mendoza, the narrator of the previous book, is a botanist recently recruited by Joseph who is still not sure how much she likes her job. Their relationship and their attitudes toward immortality reminded some of us of the vampires Lestat and Louis in Anne Rice's books.

The encounters between the immortals and the Native Americans are great fun. In Joseph's coyote guise, he attracts a flock of female followers much like a modern-day rock star. The tribe's technology is not so primitive as first thought, which Joseph discovers when he sees them coping with an earthquake.

Once again Kage Baker provided us with a fun book that suited our reading moods perfectly. We look forward to her future work.

October 17: A Calculus of Angels by J. Gregory Keyes

The discussion of A Calculus of Angels drew a crowd of eight people. This book continues the story begun in Newton's Cannon, which we discussed last year. In this alternate historical science fantasy, young Benjamin Franklin has become the apprentice of Sir Isaac Newton. Newton and other scientists have made some powerful scientific discoveries that yielded powerful weapons of war, which are being used to destroy great European cities. Mysterious angels have manifested themselves on Earth as advisors to powerful rulers. And then Peter the Great and some French musketeers get involved in the story.

We found this to be a rousing adventure yarn. Benjamin Franklin makes for a great hero, and we appreciated his romantic adventures and clever escapes from diabolic enemies. When a delegation from America arrives that includes the pirate Blackbeard and a powerful Choctaw shaman, the action gets even more exciting. We get to witness Brits who've reverted to cannibalism after the fall of London, nautical battles in the Straits of Gibraltar, and wild chases through the streets and rivers of Prague. And then there are the two French women who develop unearthly powers…

About the only criticism we had is that this book can't be read by itself. It's really book two of a story to be told in four parts, and the reader must have read Newton's Cannon to understand and appreciate what's going on here.

This is a rich book that's hard to describe fully, but suffice it to say that we recommend it and plan to read the next book by J. Gregory Keyes.

-- A. T. Campbell, III