In The Garden of Iden (Company, volume 1) by Kage Baker

[james_davis_nicoll]

A timid immortal cyborg searches for valuable plants in a Tudor England torn between Anglicans and Catholics. What could possibly go wrong?

In The Garden of Iden (Company, volume 1) by Kage Baker

Comments

[patrick_morris_miller]

I tried reading this once back before I learned how interesting [1] this part of English history is and bounced off it. Maybe I'll try it again. My dance card is pretty full.

The Company has been creating super-intelligent cyborgs since Neanderthals were around. It seems likely that some of these immortals have devoted their long, long lives to considering how to best manage the inevitable crisis that is sure to arise between them and their bosses in the 24th century. I can see no way that could go horribly wrong for the Company.

For absolutely no reason, I am thinking of the djinn from The Thief of Bagdad.

[1] Awful but interesting.

[(Anonymous)]

" It seems likely that some of these immortals have devoted their long, long lives to considering how to best manage the inevitable crisis that is sure to arise between them and their bosses in the 24th century. I can see no way that could go horribly wrong for the Company."

So many ways...

[(Anonymous)]

PS: The Company seems very anglo-philic, seeing Elizabeth as one of the (few) good mortals, etc. Later books have similar suggestions of Britain-centred thinking.

(also there's a surprise (very brief) Heinlein reference)

[autopope]

My read on the Company is that it's a riff on the British East India Company, only colonial-extractive in time rather than territory.

[(Anonymous)]

That tracks.

[jreynoldsward]

Agreed--and it's not a casual connection, either. But I've also read the entire series. It becomes more explicit as time goes on and, well, since I live in a place where the Hudson's Bay Company was the first colonial presence, followed by miners and timber companies, it's pretty easy for me to see the connection.

(Here Before Christ deliberately set out to create a "fur desert" throughout what became eastern Oregon and Idaho in an attempt to thwart American fur trapping companies. And yes, that was the common epithet for HBC amongst US elements....)

[jreynolds197]

I first read this in the Mississauga Public Library. I'd read one of her Company short stories earlier.

I read all of her stuff after that. Such a shame she died so early.

[patrick_morris_miller]

Most people die either too early or too late.

[spiralsheep]

Whenever anyone claimed to me that they thought living on MuskCo Mars was a good idea, I used to suggest they read Empress of Mars* (preferably the full length novel, although the shorter original was available free online). People who never listened to a word I said seemed to find an author like Baker much more persuasive.

* Technically a Company novel but it works exactly as well as a standalone.

[oh6]

Back when, I missed some of Baker's books because I found the prospect of buying dozens which I would have to find space for or donate / sell irksome, but I read most of the novels involved in the overall story of the Company. Later on I found out about the utility of libraries.