Original review by Elaine Frei:
In The Garden of Iden, by Kage Baker, does a good job of masquerading as a romance novel set in the England of Bloody Mary Tudor. The reader who picks it up expecting that it is only that is in for quite a surprise. Yes, it takes place, for the most part, in Tudor England during the reign of Queen Mary. And there is a quite passionate romance involved. But there is also a time travel element to the story. And then there are those cyborgs... .
Botanist Mendoza was rescued from the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition by Facilitator Joseph when she was a small child. Joseph is in the employ of the Company, a twenty-fourth century firm that has developed both time travel and immortality. The small problem with the immortality procedure is that it can only be successfully performed on small children. As for time travel, well, there are some limitations there as well. For example, you can travel into your past and back to your present but not into your future. You can't bring anything from the past back with you when you return to your present. You can't change recorded history. There are some interesting loopholes, but the rules have dictated that in order to make any money from their discoveries, the Company has found it most convenient to send its experts back in time, create immortals there and then employ them to preserve bits of the past. Then, when the immortals and all they have collected have traveled through time the hard way, one minute at a time, the Company can exploit them in their present. Mendoza, for example, is trained to preserve samples of plants that history says will go extinct, so that they will be available once again in the twenty-fourth century. This is made possible by one of the aforementioned loopholes.
Mendoza's first field assignment after her education is complete is to travel to England along with Joseph and a small party of cyborgs to the country estate of Sir Walter Iden, a collector of botanical curiosities. She is to collect samples of a species of holly that will become extinct in another century or so. And all goes according to plan until Mendoza, unused to dealing with mortals, meets Nicholas Harpole. Harpole is Sir Walter's secretary. He is also a Protestant, not a terribly healthy thing to be in Mary's Catholic realm. Mendoza is smitten on the spot, suddenly finding mortals - or at least this one mortal - a lot more interesting. This is when things begin to go horribly wrong, at least partly because Mendoza has so little experience dealing with mortals.
Kage Baker tells Mendoza's story with wit and skill in this first in a series of novels about the Company and its employees. Her style is crisp and clear, and she moves the story along at a swift pace. Her characterizations are original, sharp, and insightful. She manages to balance the dark and light elements of the story in exactly the right proportions. She is a good writer, with a good story to tell, and she had me hooked from the first page. Do yourself a favor and read this book. But be warned: you will not be able to put it down, and you will probably not be happy until you've found the rest of the Company novels and read them as well.
In The Garden of Iden, by Kage Baker, does a good job of masquerading as a romance novel set in the England of Bloody Mary Tudor. The reader who picks it up expecting that it is only that is in for quite a surprise. Yes, it takes place, for the most part, in Tudor England during the reign of Queen Mary. And there is a quite passionate romance involved. But there is also a time travel element to the story. And then there are those cyborgs... .
Botanist Mendoza was rescued from the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition by Facilitator Joseph when she was a small child. Joseph is in the employ of the Company, a twenty-fourth century firm that has developed both time travel and immortality. The small problem with the immortality procedure is that it can only be successfully performed on small children. As for time travel, well, there are some limitations there as well. For example, you can travel into your past and back to your present but not into your future. You can't bring anything from the past back with you when you return to your present. You can't change recorded history. There are some interesting loopholes, but the rules have dictated that in order to make any money from their discoveries, the Company has found it most convenient to send its experts back in time, create immortals there and then employ them to preserve bits of the past. Then, when the immortals and all they have collected have traveled through time the hard way, one minute at a time, the Company can exploit them in their present. Mendoza, for example, is trained to preserve samples of plants that history says will go extinct, so that they will be available once again in the twenty-fourth century. This is made possible by one of the aforementioned loopholes.
Mendoza's first field assignment after her education is complete is to travel to England along with Joseph and a small party of cyborgs to the country estate of Sir Walter Iden, a collector of botanical curiosities. She is to collect samples of a species of holly that will become extinct in another century or so. And all goes according to plan until Mendoza, unused to dealing with mortals, meets Nicholas Harpole. Harpole is Sir Walter's secretary. He is also a Protestant, not a terribly healthy thing to be in Mary's Catholic realm. Mendoza is smitten on the spot, suddenly finding mortals - or at least this one mortal - a lot more interesting. This is when things begin to go horribly wrong, at least partly because Mendoza has so little experience dealing with mortals.
Kage Baker tells Mendoza's story with wit and skill in this first in a series of novels about the Company and its employees. Her style is crisp and clear, and she moves the story along at a swift pace. Her characterizations are original, sharp, and insightful. She manages to balance the dark and light elements of the story in exactly the right proportions. She is a good writer, with a good story to tell, and she had me hooked from the first page. Do yourself a favor and read this book. But be warned: you will not be able to put it down, and you will probably not be happy until you've found the rest of the Company novels and read them as well.
