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Cowboy Angels
America, 1984 - not our version of America, but an America that calls itself the Real, an America in which the invention of Turing Gates has allowed it access to sheaves of alternate histories. For ten years, in the name of democracy, the Real has been waging clandestine wars and fomenting revolution, freeing versions of America from communist or fascist rule, and extending its influence across a wide variety of alternate realities. But the human and political costs have proven too high, and new President Jimmy Carter has called an end to war, and is bringing troops and secret agents home. Adam Stone is called out of retirement when his former comrade, Tom Waverly, begins to murder different versions of the same person, mathematician Eileen Barrie. Aided by Waverly's daughter, Linda, Adam hunts for his old friend across different sheaves, but when they finally catch up with Waverly, they discover that they have stumbled into the middle of an audicious conspiracy that plans to exploite a new property of the Turing it will change not only the history of the Real, but that of every other sheaf, including our own. COWBOY ANGELS combines the high-octane action and convoluted plots of the TV series 24 in a satirical, multi-layered alternate reality thriller.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Paul McAuley
229 books417 followersSince about 2000, book jackets have given his name as just Paul McAuley.
A biologist by training, UK science fiction author McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction, dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternate history/alternate reality, and space travel.
McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings.
Since 2001, he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.
Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel.
A biologist by training, UK science fiction author McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction, dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternate history/alternate reality, and space travel.
McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings.
Since 2001, he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.
Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
January 31, 2011
I started this sort of randomly. I mean, I certainly intended to read it next, but I was on my way to the bathroom (tmi?) and saw it sitting there on my desk and just sort of brought it along. Then we had more than a foot of snow dumped on us so I kept reading. I don’t know what it is about the novel that prompted me to keep reading. I think that it had something to do with the sort-of wearied spy/two old soldiers talking dialogue early in the novel. There is a certain undeniable attraction to the “I’m too old for this.” mentality in protagonists that I sometimes find hard to resist.
Cowboy Angels is sort of like Sliders but instead of dumb graduate student it was spies that had discovered a way to hop realities. These spies don’t get lost but instead became part of an initiative to create an alliance of America’s across multiple realities. Of course, all of that happened before Cowboy Angels started. The novel opens with a regime change predicated on the desire to end the violence and resource drain caused by the active pursuit the so-called Pan-American Alliance. Agreements are broken and those original spies, the Cowboy Angels, are more-or-less hung out to dry. Fast forward several years later and retired CIA Agent Stone is living out his retirement in a prehistoric sheaf (alternate reality) running a hunting lodge when he is called back in by The Company to track down his former partner who has apparently been on a murder spree targeting the dopel’s (alternate reality versions) of a mathematician. Almost against his will Stone is dragged back into the field.
What unfolds is, in many ways, a by-the-numbers thriller with the added flair of reality hopping. Where your old-school Cold War type story featured covert operations in other countries to help advance American needs and goals Cowboy Angels instead transplants those covert operations to alternate versions of America. Rather than exploit foreign countries we are instead exploiting alternate versions of ourselves. As Stone returns into the fold to seek out his former partner the Company is current dealing with the fallout from those covert ops, no longer actively pursuing new alliances but rather looking to improve conditions with pre-existing “client sheaves.” It is a fascinating take on a sort of a not-quite post Cold War landscape. It provides a similar type of tension but with a neat twist.
Of course Stone’s partner, Tom, has his own secrets and once we learn that our characters are stuck inside a temporal loop things become a bit more interesting. Bizarrely, Cowboy Angels is the second novel involving time-travel I’ve read this month. Even more bizarre after having listened to a presentation on Archon, a time-travel RTS, in the same month. I sort-of feel like I should embrace this serendipity and seek out some more time-travel stories to read. McAuley though doesn’t focus too much on the how or the why of time-travel in Cowboy Angels. This is a decidedly action-oriented sci-fi adventure more concerned with how our characters deal with this new monkey wrench. There is a bit hand-waving involved with that lack of explanation, but it is a decidedly creative hand-waving that reminded me (in a very very tangential way) of the first season of Babylon 5.
Like McAuley’s The Quiet War, Cowboy Angels, is a novel with a big idea whose existence is the axis upon which society turns. While The Quiet War featured a slower pace Cowboy Angels takes out of the gate a full on sprint and never lets up. I found Cowboy Angels a difficult book to put down and could probably read about trips through alternate America’s all day long. There is enough backstory and sidestory in Cowboy Angels to fill a whole series of novels; though neither ever detract from the plot or the action and are only used to provide context. While I was underwhelmed somewhat by The Quiet War I had such a great time reading Cowboy Angels that I’ll certainly be looking forward to what McAuley comes out with next (or, you know, what he has come out with already but which has been decidedly ignored by dumb American publishers).
Cowboy Angels is sort of like Sliders but instead of dumb graduate student it was spies that had discovered a way to hop realities. These spies don’t get lost but instead became part of an initiative to create an alliance of America’s across multiple realities. Of course, all of that happened before Cowboy Angels started. The novel opens with a regime change predicated on the desire to end the violence and resource drain caused by the active pursuit the so-called Pan-American Alliance. Agreements are broken and those original spies, the Cowboy Angels, are more-or-less hung out to dry. Fast forward several years later and retired CIA Agent Stone is living out his retirement in a prehistoric sheaf (alternate reality) running a hunting lodge when he is called back in by The Company to track down his former partner who has apparently been on a murder spree targeting the dopel’s (alternate reality versions) of a mathematician. Almost against his will Stone is dragged back into the field.
What unfolds is, in many ways, a by-the-numbers thriller with the added flair of reality hopping. Where your old-school Cold War type story featured covert operations in other countries to help advance American needs and goals Cowboy Angels instead transplants those covert operations to alternate versions of America. Rather than exploit foreign countries we are instead exploiting alternate versions of ourselves. As Stone returns into the fold to seek out his former partner the Company is current dealing with the fallout from those covert ops, no longer actively pursuing new alliances but rather looking to improve conditions with pre-existing “client sheaves.” It is a fascinating take on a sort of a not-quite post Cold War landscape. It provides a similar type of tension but with a neat twist.
Of course Stone’s partner, Tom, has his own secrets and once we learn that our characters are stuck inside a temporal loop things become a bit more interesting. Bizarrely, Cowboy Angels is the second novel involving time-travel I’ve read this month. Even more bizarre after having listened to a presentation on Archon, a time-travel RTS, in the same month. I sort-of feel like I should embrace this serendipity and seek out some more time-travel stories to read. McAuley though doesn’t focus too much on the how or the why of time-travel in Cowboy Angels. This is a decidedly action-oriented sci-fi adventure more concerned with how our characters deal with this new monkey wrench. There is a bit hand-waving involved with that lack of explanation, but it is a decidedly creative hand-waving that reminded me (in a very very tangential way) of the first season of Babylon 5.
Like McAuley’s The Quiet War, Cowboy Angels, is a novel with a big idea whose existence is the axis upon which society turns. While The Quiet War featured a slower pace Cowboy Angels takes out of the gate a full on sprint and never lets up. I found Cowboy Angels a difficult book to put down and could probably read about trips through alternate America’s all day long. There is enough backstory and sidestory in Cowboy Angels to fill a whole series of novels; though neither ever detract from the plot or the action and are only used to provide context. While I was underwhelmed somewhat by The Quiet War I had such a great time reading Cowboy Angels that I’ll certainly be looking forward to what McAuley comes out with next (or, you know, what he has come out with already but which has been decidedly ignored by dumb American publishers).
July 25, 2018
This is a pretty good parallel-universes novel that seems to be a standalone (note 1). It opens with a fast-moving murder-mystery plus chase-scenes cum buddy-movie stuff between two former Company wet-work agents, one of whom is on a mass-murder spree (with an sfnal twist). This ends badly for the murderer, and the protag's bosses aren't likable either. And. So, kind of a violent, bloody, chaotic mess.
I'm not at all sure this is a story I really want to stick around for. OK, let's see....
Alan Zendell calls it "an orgy of chaotic nonsense. I found it impossible to follow either the logic or the thread of the story, if, in fact, either actually exists." https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...?
And Walter Underwood laments, "I almost put it down a couple of times in mid-book but didn't. Bad decision." https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So. Closing out as DNF. 2.5 stars, to where I stalled out, rounded down for, well, see above. Too bad, as I like good McAuley.
--
Note 1) The main town of the rural world where the tale opens is First Foot -- which is also the name of the first of the Jackaroo "gift" planets settled in that series, https://oikofuge.com/paul-mcauley-jac... There's no other connection, sfaict..
I'm not at all sure this is a story I really want to stick around for. OK, let's see....
Alan Zendell calls it "an orgy of chaotic nonsense. I found it impossible to follow either the logic or the thread of the story, if, in fact, either actually exists." https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...?
And Walter Underwood laments, "I almost put it down a couple of times in mid-book but didn't. Bad decision." https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So. Closing out as DNF. 2.5 stars, to where I stalled out, rounded down for, well, see above. Too bad, as I like good McAuley.
--
Note 1) The main town of the rural world where the tale opens is First Foot -- which is also the name of the first of the Jackaroo "gift" planets settled in that series, https://oikofuge.com/paul-mcauley-jac... There's no other connection, sfaict..
November 2, 2011
At a recent science fiction writers panel someone asked why we avoid discussing alternate universes. The answer, as exemplified in spades by this book, was that it's almost impossible to tell a coherent, interesting story once you open that door. "Cowboy Angels" is an orgy of chaotic nonsense. I found it impossible to follow either the logic or the thread of the story, if, in fact, either actually exists. And the physics of quantum theory? Let's not even go there.
What's worse, the characters are as wooden as they can be. The style comes out of a military operations manual -- some people like that, but I'm not one of them. The chief protagonist leaves a wake of blood and destruction wherever and whenever he goes while managing to remain as emotionless as a robot. He professes to feel grief occasionally, but that only serves to throw his emotions into an even deeper freeze.
If that's not enough, the author has some truly annoying quirks, like continually referring to principal characters by both their first and last names, long after we know who they are. The plot seems to loop around in dizzying circles, and every action scene sounds like every other action scene. And one last affront to my sensibilities: among the various alternate Americas that populate this book, one of them (not the primary one in the book) is clearly supposed to be ours. For no apparent reason, the author calls it the Nixon sheaf. Seriously? Is the name Nixon the single keyword with which we want our country associated?
What's worse, the characters are as wooden as they can be. The style comes out of a military operations manual -- some people like that, but I'm not one of them. The chief protagonist leaves a wake of blood and destruction wherever and whenever he goes while managing to remain as emotionless as a robot. He professes to feel grief occasionally, but that only serves to throw his emotions into an even deeper freeze.
If that's not enough, the author has some truly annoying quirks, like continually referring to principal characters by both their first and last names, long after we know who they are. The plot seems to loop around in dizzying circles, and every action scene sounds like every other action scene. And one last affront to my sensibilities: among the various alternate Americas that populate this book, one of them (not the primary one in the book) is clearly supposed to be ours. For no apparent reason, the author calls it the Nixon sheaf. Seriously? Is the name Nixon the single keyword with which we want our country associated?
January 31, 2011
Cowboy Angels by Paul McAuley.
Cowboy Angels by Paul McAuley combines the genre of alternate history with thriller writing. The Real is an America where Alan Turing created the theories which led to gates to alternate histories called Turing gates. There are some wonderfully dry thoughts on Schrodinger's Cat in association with the Turing gates.
This is Paul McAuley's best book. I like the main character Adam Stone, an orphan who is recruited into the CIA to change the course of different alternate histories preventing fascism, communism, and rebuillding where there is nuclear war. The descriptions of the visits to alternate America's are wonderful.
Paul McAuley successfully creates a sense of different Americas. There are descriptions of the art of The American Bund where for a short time the "Dear Leader" created monumental art, or the space where an atom bomb fell devastating areas of Manhattan.
I also like that the story starts in the past in 1983 when Carter is elected in the Real. This makes it feel like both a historical novel and an alternate history novel. The novel touches on so many different styles of writing.
Adam Stone is a very hardcore character. He shoots, interrogates, suffers beatings, and keeps on going. He is after a secret plot to change the alternate histories timeline. His actions are extreme, violent, and polemical. This may turn some people off, but I found it interesting.
Most of the technology is todays technology. The money is similar, the guns are similar, the art and culture are different. The differences are often philosophical. Adam Stone describing his past actions as an agent of the "Real" is describing a form of imperialism which can be hard to stomach. He kills for his countries beliefs.
The novel hinges on many philosophical and political ideals. Is it right to create one America under many skies? Is it manifest destiny to push your will in different worlds?
This is a fantastic story. It is full of constant surprises, strongly opposed ideals, and constant tension. It does not end they way you might expect it would. This book will create strong opinions for and against the story.
Cowboy Angels by Paul McAuley combines the genre of alternate history with thriller writing. The Real is an America where Alan Turing created the theories which led to gates to alternate histories called Turing gates. There are some wonderfully dry thoughts on Schrodinger's Cat in association with the Turing gates.
This is Paul McAuley's best book. I like the main character Adam Stone, an orphan who is recruited into the CIA to change the course of different alternate histories preventing fascism, communism, and rebuillding where there is nuclear war. The descriptions of the visits to alternate America's are wonderful.
Paul McAuley successfully creates a sense of different Americas. There are descriptions of the art of The American Bund where for a short time the "Dear Leader" created monumental art, or the space where an atom bomb fell devastating areas of Manhattan.
I also like that the story starts in the past in 1983 when Carter is elected in the Real. This makes it feel like both a historical novel and an alternate history novel. The novel touches on so many different styles of writing.
Adam Stone is a very hardcore character. He shoots, interrogates, suffers beatings, and keeps on going. He is after a secret plot to change the alternate histories timeline. His actions are extreme, violent, and polemical. This may turn some people off, but I found it interesting.
Most of the technology is todays technology. The money is similar, the guns are similar, the art and culture are different. The differences are often philosophical. Adam Stone describing his past actions as an agent of the "Real" is describing a form of imperialism which can be hard to stomach. He kills for his countries beliefs.
The novel hinges on many philosophical and political ideals. Is it right to create one America under many skies? Is it manifest destiny to push your will in different worlds?
This is a fantastic story. It is full of constant surprises, strongly opposed ideals, and constant tension. It does not end they way you might expect it would. This book will create strong opinions for and against the story.
February 19, 2012
Parallel Universes - Good.
Time Travel - Also Good.
Time Travel between Parallel Universes - More beer please.
McAuley's novel pulls a Reece's two great tastes that taste great together. Its an unusual pairing considering the paradoxes involved with each and the narrative problems that they create, but the problems are handled well and woven into the story naturally enough not to be boringly expository.
The multiverse he creates is original enough to be distinct without being pointlessly, flippantly 'different'.
The only quibble I have is with the number of 'bad guys' - I'm not sure if there are a few to many or if they are not fleshed out enough, but to me they seemed to blend together and cause some confusion - altogether a minor problem with an enjoyable tale.
Time Travel - Also Good.
Time Travel between Parallel Universes - More beer please.
McAuley's novel pulls a Reece's two great tastes that taste great together. Its an unusual pairing considering the paradoxes involved with each and the narrative problems that they create, but the problems are handled well and woven into the story naturally enough not to be boringly expository.
The multiverse he creates is original enough to be distinct without being pointlessly, flippantly 'different'.
The only quibble I have is with the number of 'bad guys' - I'm not sure if there are a few to many or if they are not fleshed out enough, but to me they seemed to blend together and cause some confusion - altogether a minor problem with an enjoyable tale.
December 27, 2012
Kind of Tom Clancy meets the quantum multiverse with a jab at US imperialism. But if you are going to write about multiple universes, you have to get the little facts right because those are the clues to the differences. And there is no universe where Canadian bacon is crispy and where the IHOP syrup is in aluminum carafes. Those are stainless steel or glass.
I think the intention was to explore the whims and uncontrollability of chance, but it turned out to be mostly about clandestine ops, torture, and assassination. I almost put it down a couple of times in mid-book but didn't. Bad decision.
I think the intention was to explore the whims and uncontrollability of chance, but it turned out to be mostly about clandestine ops, torture, and assassination. I almost put it down a couple of times in mid-book but didn't. Bad decision.
February 2, 2025
Cowboy Angels is a pulp fiction action thriller with a heavy dose of science fiction.
The basic plot is that in an alternate-history United States, the government discovered technology that allowed travel between different versions of contemporary history, AKA "sheaves." Example- in one sheaf, modern humans never developed and the Earth existed in a totally undeveloped state. In another, communists successfully took over the US government around the time of WWII. You get the idea.
In the early 1980s, Adam Stone, the Main Character, is a retired "cowboy angel" who worked for the government. Adam comes from the "Real" sheaf. Beginning in the 1960s, the US Gov. of the Real decided that it was "the best of all possible worlds" and shaped events in other sheaves so that they, too, would be just like the Real. Think- CIA involvement in South America, but expanded across the Multiverse.
Adam has had enough, and now lives on a wild sheaf away from all the political intrigue. He's pulled back into the government for one last operation because his former partner, Tom Waverly, has gone rogue and started murdering people.
When Adam catches Tom (not a spoiler, happens early), Tom drops hints about a great conspiracy that stretches far and wide.
Who are the real bad guys? Read the book.
Is Tom crazy? Read the book.
Does Adam succeed and stop the bad guys? Read the book.
I didn't like Cowboy Angels for two reasons, one minor, one major.
The minor reason: The author uses a very descriptive visual style for setting scenes and narrating action. I got the feeling that he had a very specific vision for how things were supposed to look. I couldn't quite see what he saw, and many of his descriptions confused me. I found I could skip the majority of the descriptions and just follow the dialogue, so this one was minor.
The major reason: contemporary politics. A big part of the main plot revolves around former President Jimmy Carter. Carter is repeatedly described as "ineffectual" and a "peacenik appeaser." Cowboy Angels was first published in 2007, well before President Carter's passing, but even so, the depiction of Carter doesn't sit well with me. Also, the bad guys' motivation when it's finally revealed comes across as... quaint. I wanted to reach backward across time to pat the author on the shoulder and say, "Oh sweet summer child. God bless you for thinking that was the worst someone could do using portals to the Multiverse."
So no, I didn't like the book. It was written well enough. It's just not the book for me.
The basic plot is that in an alternate-history United States, the government discovered technology that allowed travel between different versions of contemporary history, AKA "sheaves." Example- in one sheaf, modern humans never developed and the Earth existed in a totally undeveloped state. In another, communists successfully took over the US government around the time of WWII. You get the idea.
In the early 1980s, Adam Stone, the Main Character, is a retired "cowboy angel" who worked for the government. Adam comes from the "Real" sheaf. Beginning in the 1960s, the US Gov. of the Real decided that it was "the best of all possible worlds" and shaped events in other sheaves so that they, too, would be just like the Real. Think- CIA involvement in South America, but expanded across the Multiverse.
Adam has had enough, and now lives on a wild sheaf away from all the political intrigue. He's pulled back into the government for one last operation because his former partner, Tom Waverly, has gone rogue and started murdering people.
When Adam catches Tom (not a spoiler, happens early), Tom drops hints about a great conspiracy that stretches far and wide.
Who are the real bad guys? Read the book.
Is Tom crazy? Read the book.
Does Adam succeed and stop the bad guys? Read the book.
I didn't like Cowboy Angels for two reasons, one minor, one major.
The minor reason: The author uses a very descriptive visual style for setting scenes and narrating action. I got the feeling that he had a very specific vision for how things were supposed to look. I couldn't quite see what he saw, and many of his descriptions confused me. I found I could skip the majority of the descriptions and just follow the dialogue, so this one was minor.
The major reason: contemporary politics. A big part of the main plot revolves around former President Jimmy Carter. Carter is repeatedly described as "ineffectual" and a "peacenik appeaser." Cowboy Angels was first published in 2007, well before President Carter's passing, but even so, the depiction of Carter doesn't sit well with me. Also, the bad guys' motivation when it's finally revealed comes across as... quaint. I wanted to reach backward across time to pat the author on the shoulder and say, "Oh sweet summer child. God bless you for thinking that was the worst someone could do using portals to the Multiverse."
So no, I didn't like the book. It was written well enough. It's just not the book for me.
March 19, 2012
I had high hopes for this book - I was expecting a deep and interesting exploration of foreign intervention and how it affects the intervening and the intervened-upon, through the book's conceit that one version of America is intervening in the affairs of various alternate Americas. The fact that the version that does the intervening called itself "The Real" seemed like a good sign for the book, but the book was instead a lengthy (and violent) spy-chase thriller, with only a few moments of interest (a 'reality' tv show in "The Real" introduces famous people to their less accomplished 'alternates'). If you want a better treatment of this theme see http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14... or http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...
February 23, 2011
I am a sucker for the cynical special forces agent who has realized that the government they have killed for has gone too far or the deadly-man-who-regrets-killing. Richard K. Morgan rocks this archetype in the Takeshi Kovacs novels and hits it again in Black Man.
Cowboy Angels has a rocking premise with all kinds of fun alternate history toys to play with but it drags on and takes too long to solve the damned mystery. I wanted that moment when the protagonist has all of the pieces and its time to see what he does with them to come much sooner.
Cowboy Angels has a rocking premise with all kinds of fun alternate history toys to play with but it drags on and takes too long to solve the damned mystery. I wanted that moment when the protagonist has all of the pieces and its time to see what he does with them to come much sooner.
March 29, 2019
It felt like it dragged on forever. Some really interesting characters and settings that never really amounted to much. It was a very interesting premise. It just felt slow, even in the action scenes. There was also a couple threads that had potential and went nowhere.
March 28, 2011
Man, this thing was like crack cocaine to me—a fast, hard hit that I could hardly put down, over too soon and, in retrospect, probably not all that good for me.
In this fast-paced novel, alternate universes are real—and in this one, the "Real" (so-called) got there first, opening the first Turing Gate (named after Alan Turing, natch, after he defected to the States) in 1969.
Unfortunately, the Real's crosstime operations are run by the Company, an outfit made up of those same unimaginative gung-ho types who give the orders in every techno-thriller you've ever read or seen on-screen, endlessly enamored of the same old gunboat diplomacy that's screwed up so much about the timeline we live in. Gunplay and bombs, screeching car chases and unstoppable square-jawed heroes who can take torture (of which there's a lot) with gritted teeth. They have a multiverse to play with and this is all they can think of to do with it? Bah.
But Cowboy Angels does move quickly, it does, and it does scratch that same itch for adrenaline that a summer popcorn thriller does. The movie would be effin' awesome, dude. And that's not altogether a bad thing.
In this fast-paced novel, alternate universes are real—and in this one, the "Real" (so-called) got there first, opening the first Turing Gate (named after Alan Turing, natch, after he defected to the States) in 1969.
Unfortunately, the Real's crosstime operations are run by the Company, an outfit made up of those same unimaginative gung-ho types who give the orders in every techno-thriller you've ever read or seen on-screen, endlessly enamored of the same old gunboat diplomacy that's screwed up so much about the timeline we live in. Gunplay and bombs, screeching car chases and unstoppable square-jawed heroes who can take torture (of which there's a lot) with gritted teeth. They have a multiverse to play with and this is all they can think of to do with it? Bah.
But Cowboy Angels does move quickly, it does, and it does scratch that same itch for adrenaline that a summer popcorn thriller does. The movie would be effin' awesome, dude. And that's not altogether a bad thing.
June 8, 2011
NOTE: This review first appeared at
The King of Elfland's 2nd Cousin
on June 7, 2011. If you enjoy it, please check out the blog!
I first came across Paul McAuley's work sometime in the mid-to-late '90s with his genetic cyberpunk (genepunk? I've always thought this should be a term) masterpiece Fairyland . Since then, I've always kept my eyes open for new McAuley novels and have found far more hits than misses among them. While his books span a variety of sub-genres (space opera, alternate history, genepunk, etc.), they share that high-concept imagination that underpins the best in science fiction. It was that same high-concept approach to alternate history which attracted me to his new novel, Cowboy Angels .
Books employing the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics are a dime-a-dozen, and so that on its own isn't really enough to grab me. However, in Cowboy Angels , McAuley asks a question: what if the United States had found a way to travel between alternate versions of Earth at the height of the Cold War? In our real history, the Cold War was characterized by the domino theory, containment, détente, and proxy wars fought all over the world (Central America, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, South Asia, etc.). A downright fascinating time period in history, with the all-too-real primacy of the CIA, KGB, Mossad and other espionage agencies. McAuley's brilliant concept is to introduce parallel worlds as a new front in this Cold War, which to my history-loving mind made me sit up and say: "Right on, this is going to be awesome!"
Cowboy Angels follows one Adam Stone, a retired special operations agent for the CIG (Central Intelligence Group). He has made his career as a spy working to spread US-style democracy across alternate versions of America. We first meet Adam Stone at the end of an era: American policy is changing with the election of the "peacenik" President Carter, and the nature of the Company's missions is evolving. Adam Stone is comfortable with this change, having grown disillusioned by the manifest destiny ideology that had put him in moral quandaries in alternate Americas. But not all of his fellow agents are as comfortable with their country's shifting values, and the book's plot explores the lengths some people will go to in service of their ideology.
The novel's plot is structured like a spy thriller, with Stone being called out of retirement to track down his friend and former partner, Tom Waverly. Waverly has gone on a killing spree across multiple alternate realities - killing the exact same woman over and over again. Neither the local authorities in those realities nor the Company know why. And so Stone gets reactivated to try and bring his friend in. What follows is a spy-thriller, but rather than have us jet off to exotic locales, McAuley takes us to exotic versions of the United States. Stone's hunt for Waverly takes us to a kleptocratic New York decimated by nuclear war, to a United States that had been leveled in an apocalyptic World War III, and to a version of history very much like our own.
This is not a James Bond-style spy caper, where our hero gets to enjoy the good life in sunny Macao, Monaco, or other fancy places that begin with the letter "M". While some of the alternate realities our hero visits seem bucolic, even pastoral "untouched" realities have their gritty undersides. And McAuley artfully exposes us to that, using blood and sinew to temper the novel's escapism.
In terms of general concept, Cowboy Angels gets ten out of ten points for me. The idea of Kennedy-era expansionist/messianical foreign policy applying across alternate worlds practically begs to be written. Once again, McAuley's ability to identify and execute on a particular concept is compelling.
However, for me, the book relied too heavily on this (admittedly awesome) concept to carry it. There were three weaknesses that detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Successful execution of both the novel's concept as well as its spy-thriller plot structure requires distinctive settings, and the concept enables for some fascinating alternate versions of our world. While we get tantalizing glances into some fascinating settings (Nuclear Winter America, an American government-in-exile in Cuba, etc.), the majority of the book takes place in settings only slightly different from what we know. The settings we explore are different enough to remain distinct, but I think there was a wasted opportunity to explore some really interesting alternate versions of America. With so much of the book's backstory dealing with the Cold War and the fight against Communism, it struck me as particularly odd that at no time did our hero venture into a Communist version of the USA.
The second, less significant, issue I found lay in some aspects of McAuley's characterization. In particular, Stone's romantic interest (which serves as a significant motivator through much of the book) struck me as particularly under-developed. Overall, I bought the character: I felt Stone was believable, and engaging. But I was unable to shake that arms-length disconnect and engage enough with the character enough to lose myself in his world(s). It was close - almost nailed just right - but I found that I just didn't feel enough of Stone's motivation. The solid plotting and awesome concept were enough to carry me over this weakness, but I wasn't close enough to the character for McAuley's gears and cogs at work to disappear.
The third, and least significant, problem I came across lay in the book's pacing. Please don't get me wrong, this is a fast-paced book, and it reads very quickly. However, the pacing is relatively unvaried throughout the text. This is an issue I often find in spy-thrillers: too often, I suspect their authors and editors believe readers equate escalating, no-respite events with being a page-turner. This leads to a go-go-go pacing which can be tiring if not offset and balanced against the emotional arc of the story. Just yesterday, Ursula K. Le Guin posted a great essay on this very subject. By giving his character - and the reader - room to catch one's breath, McAuley could have deepened my emotional connection to the character and the story. By slowing down the story in a couple of places, the overall result would have been more emotionally powerful.
Visually, the PYR edition is attractive and stands out nicely. The cover was designed by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke and features an illustration by Sparth (aka nicolas bouvier). The cover really communicates the novel's feel, contrasting futuristic Turing Gates against the decidedly-less-futuristic trains emerging from them.
Much as I enjoyed Stone's adventure, my own personal tastes would likely have preferred to see the book's backstory moved to the front. The transition from "manifest destiny" to "peace and reconciliation" and how that transition unfolds amongst the Company's agents would be a really fascinating story, and one particularly relevant in today's geopolitical environment. McAuley has set up a fascinating universe with infinite potential for clever, high-concept, and emotionally powerful stories. I would love to see a prequel set in this same universe exploring the Church Committee's investigations into the Company's clandestine operations.
Cowboy Angels is a very enjoyable book. The underlying concept is strong enough to overcome the minor weaknesses in setting, characterization, and pacing. That concept was enough to get my imagination firing, and often that's exactly what I look for in SF. If you enjoy a good spy thriller, or get a kick out of playing with alternate histories, this book is definitely worth your time.
I first came across Paul McAuley's work sometime in the mid-to-late '90s with his genetic cyberpunk (genepunk? I've always thought this should be a term) masterpiece Fairyland . Since then, I've always kept my eyes open for new McAuley novels and have found far more hits than misses among them. While his books span a variety of sub-genres (space opera, alternate history, genepunk, etc.), they share that high-concept imagination that underpins the best in science fiction. It was that same high-concept approach to alternate history which attracted me to his new novel, Cowboy Angels .
Books employing the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics are a dime-a-dozen, and so that on its own isn't really enough to grab me. However, in Cowboy Angels , McAuley asks a question: what if the United States had found a way to travel between alternate versions of Earth at the height of the Cold War? In our real history, the Cold War was characterized by the domino theory, containment, détente, and proxy wars fought all over the world (Central America, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, South Asia, etc.). A downright fascinating time period in history, with the all-too-real primacy of the CIA, KGB, Mossad and other espionage agencies. McAuley's brilliant concept is to introduce parallel worlds as a new front in this Cold War, which to my history-loving mind made me sit up and say: "Right on, this is going to be awesome!"
Cowboy Angels follows one Adam Stone, a retired special operations agent for the CIG (Central Intelligence Group). He has made his career as a spy working to spread US-style democracy across alternate versions of America. We first meet Adam Stone at the end of an era: American policy is changing with the election of the "peacenik" President Carter, and the nature of the Company's missions is evolving. Adam Stone is comfortable with this change, having grown disillusioned by the manifest destiny ideology that had put him in moral quandaries in alternate Americas. But not all of his fellow agents are as comfortable with their country's shifting values, and the book's plot explores the lengths some people will go to in service of their ideology.
The novel's plot is structured like a spy thriller, with Stone being called out of retirement to track down his friend and former partner, Tom Waverly. Waverly has gone on a killing spree across multiple alternate realities - killing the exact same woman over and over again. Neither the local authorities in those realities nor the Company know why. And so Stone gets reactivated to try and bring his friend in. What follows is a spy-thriller, but rather than have us jet off to exotic locales, McAuley takes us to exotic versions of the United States. Stone's hunt for Waverly takes us to a kleptocratic New York decimated by nuclear war, to a United States that had been leveled in an apocalyptic World War III, and to a version of history very much like our own.
This is not a James Bond-style spy caper, where our hero gets to enjoy the good life in sunny Macao, Monaco, or other fancy places that begin with the letter "M". While some of the alternate realities our hero visits seem bucolic, even pastoral "untouched" realities have their gritty undersides. And McAuley artfully exposes us to that, using blood and sinew to temper the novel's escapism.
In terms of general concept, Cowboy Angels gets ten out of ten points for me. The idea of Kennedy-era expansionist/messianical foreign policy applying across alternate worlds practically begs to be written. Once again, McAuley's ability to identify and execute on a particular concept is compelling.
However, for me, the book relied too heavily on this (admittedly awesome) concept to carry it. There were three weaknesses that detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Successful execution of both the novel's concept as well as its spy-thriller plot structure requires distinctive settings, and the concept enables for some fascinating alternate versions of our world. While we get tantalizing glances into some fascinating settings (Nuclear Winter America, an American government-in-exile in Cuba, etc.), the majority of the book takes place in settings only slightly different from what we know. The settings we explore are different enough to remain distinct, but I think there was a wasted opportunity to explore some really interesting alternate versions of America. With so much of the book's backstory dealing with the Cold War and the fight against Communism, it struck me as particularly odd that at no time did our hero venture into a Communist version of the USA.
The second, less significant, issue I found lay in some aspects of McAuley's characterization. In particular, Stone's romantic interest (which serves as a significant motivator through much of the book) struck me as particularly under-developed. Overall, I bought the character: I felt Stone was believable, and engaging. But I was unable to shake that arms-length disconnect and engage enough with the character enough to lose myself in his world(s). It was close - almost nailed just right - but I found that I just didn't feel enough of Stone's motivation. The solid plotting and awesome concept were enough to carry me over this weakness, but I wasn't close enough to the character for McAuley's gears and cogs at work to disappear.
The third, and least significant, problem I came across lay in the book's pacing. Please don't get me wrong, this is a fast-paced book, and it reads very quickly. However, the pacing is relatively unvaried throughout the text. This is an issue I often find in spy-thrillers: too often, I suspect their authors and editors believe readers equate escalating, no-respite events with being a page-turner. This leads to a go-go-go pacing which can be tiring if not offset and balanced against the emotional arc of the story. Just yesterday, Ursula K. Le Guin posted a great essay on this very subject. By giving his character - and the reader - room to catch one's breath, McAuley could have deepened my emotional connection to the character and the story. By slowing down the story in a couple of places, the overall result would have been more emotionally powerful.
Visually, the PYR edition is attractive and stands out nicely. The cover was designed by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke and features an illustration by Sparth (aka nicolas bouvier). The cover really communicates the novel's feel, contrasting futuristic Turing Gates against the decidedly-less-futuristic trains emerging from them.
Much as I enjoyed Stone's adventure, my own personal tastes would likely have preferred to see the book's backstory moved to the front. The transition from "manifest destiny" to "peace and reconciliation" and how that transition unfolds amongst the Company's agents would be a really fascinating story, and one particularly relevant in today's geopolitical environment. McAuley has set up a fascinating universe with infinite potential for clever, high-concept, and emotionally powerful stories. I would love to see a prequel set in this same universe exploring the Church Committee's investigations into the Company's clandestine operations.
Cowboy Angels is a very enjoyable book. The underlying concept is strong enough to overcome the minor weaknesses in setting, characterization, and pacing. That concept was enough to get my imagination firing, and often that's exactly what I look for in SF. If you enjoy a good spy thriller, or get a kick out of playing with alternate histories, this book is definitely worth your time.
April 23, 2015
Cowboy Angels
Author: Paul McAuley
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published In: Amherst, NY
Date: 2011
Pgs: 363
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
Alternate worlds. Alternate Americas. Just a gate crossing away. Turing Gates opened the multiverse to America. The Real, the first America to open the gates, has used the technology to infiltrate a variety of Americas, rebuilding nuclear wracked ones, freeing the communist or fascist ruled, and creating a Pan-American Alliance bringing alternate Americas together. Trains run through the stable gates. Invasions and individual crossing through others. Since 1963, America has not been alone. But endless wars have exhausted the country. Jimmy Carter comes to the White House with election promises of reconstruction, reconciliation, and an end to alternate wars and CIA adventurism across the multiverse. The CIA’s Cowboy Angels, those agents specializing in multiversal intervention, assassination, and covert action have been retired. Adam Stone has found a universe where America is largely pastoral. New York is a bunch of farms and ranches. His retirement is interrupted when he is drawn back in because an old friend and fellow Angel has gone on a killing spree across multiple alternate worlds, on each one he is killing a woman, the same woman, her alternate counterparts, anyway. A secret about the Turing Gates lays at the center of the plot against this woman. And he is being drawn back into the life of the Cowboy Angel because retired Angels don’t always get to put away their wings.
Genre:
Adventure
Alternate History
Espionage
Fiction
Military
Multiverse
Science fiction
War
Why this book:
Alternate worlds.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
Jack Walker, warlord in the McBride sheaf, alternate world, leading his people in a bastardized version of the Pueblo Indian lifestyle. Crazy and monstrous, but a well defined character.
Susan Nichols, country girl, farmer in the First Foot Sheaf. The widow that Adam Stone loved but they hadn’t had the talk yet. They both knew. Who gave an accounting of herself that the two agents sent after her never expected.
Funny how, sometimes, my favorite characters in some of the books I read only appear for a handful of pages.
Adam Stone is a good character. He’s a retired James Bond tired of the grind, a Bond who has done his business across multiple sheafs. He’s overthrown governments, fomented revolution, and carried out assassinations. He found a life beyond The Company...before it sucked him back in for “one more mission.” And, then, that life reached back and destroyed the retired life that he was looking forward to. He’s a tragic figure with a hand cannon hanging in his shoulder holster.
Character I Most Identified With:
Adam Stone, the man...not the universe hopping, super spy. He’s normal. He wants to do the right thing by his friends. He wants to get back to his real life. He wants revenge on those who have screwed him and his friends over.
The Feel:
This has that really good sci fi buzz in the background. Maybe it’s just the other sheafs vibrating in the pages of the book trying to impinge on your world through your imagination.
Favorite Scene:
The almost Bondian elements of Stone’s actions when he is brought back from Waverly’s hometown. His methodical preparations to return to the Real for debriefing. His coldly adrenal reactions to the news about Susan.
The failed snatch and distraction on the train platform in the Johnson sheaf with the apemen and the fight on the train. Nice stuff.
Pacing:
The pace of the story is great. There is flow and movement to the story.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The replay of Stone’s going after Waverly in the book’s open and him having to do it again hits a sour note. My take is that Stone wouldn’t have gone after him a second time. He would have taken the debt from Waverly’s saving his life paid by his having pulled his fat out of the fire at gunpoint the time before and left him to his own devices. Unless we play the card that Stone wants back into the life, wants one more throw of the dice, even though he seemed happy in his pastoral idyll of a life in the First Foot sheaf. In any event, Stone is much too trusting of Waverly considering that he had to shoot him to rescue him from himself in their previous encounter.
Hmm Moments:
Finding a sheaf, alternate world, populated by the survivors of a full scale nuclear war and then, because a computer said so, declaring some douche President because he is “next in line of succession”, like 577th in line of succession, and then standing by him as he loses his mind and his men go on rampages against refugees; stealing, raping, killing, struck me as horrible but in the time frame of the novel, it is probably what America would have done in the 60s and 70s. Picked who we thought could hold things together regardless of morality and backed them to the hilt, even though they were all warlords and petty tyrants fighting over the corpse of a radioactive wasteland that used to be the breadbasket of America.
The explanation that all the sheafs that had been contacted were close in nature and convergence to the Real history. The Real being the America that originated the Turing Gates. The idea that the wilder sheafs would be further afield and that eventually those would begin to be contacted as the network spread. But topologically, the sheafs closest together would be those with the most in common having separated in recent, comparative, history. Hence, no Americas that are still British colonies or part of a Pan Roman Empire that survives to the present day, but multiple Soviet or Nazi or nuclear devastated versions.
No explanation on where the white furred apemen on the train platform came from, but it’s amazing what you will accept in an alternate reality novel, especially when you are given an infinity of possibilities spread over an infinity of worlds….sheafs.
When I started the book, I thought that the Real was us, the real world. Now, I’m beginning to suspect that the Nixon Sheaf may be us...or we may not be anywhere in the book. The real world could be one of those undiscovered worlds that are close enough to be reflected in the sheafs that they have discovered beyond their Turing Gates, but not actually touched by one of the gates.
The squiggle in the middle of the story is a confusing piece. I didn’t see that coming.
Whenever the time key is switched on and Stone starts describing its effects on him, I think of Cthulhu. :/ Not sure why. Alternate worlds and time travel...why not Cthulhu.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
Could make a helluva movie or a Syfy series.
Casting call:
Hayden Christensen would make a helluva Cowboy Angel. I could see him as Adam Stone.
For Linda Waverly...maybe Lily Collins. I liked her in Priest and The Blind Side. Emma Watson would be great too.
Joe Pantoliano as Walter Lipscombe, gangster in the American Bund Sheaf, revolutionary, player in the post Nazi America that exists after the revolution.
Woody Harrelson could play the crazy that comes off of Tom Waverly in a really good way.
Dennis Hopper would have been great as Dick Knightly, CIA heavy hitter and big shot...and traitor. He could absolutely have chewed this role up.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
Great final line. If it were a movie, the screen would go black, you’d hear the gun go off, and a song by Rage Against the Machine would come blasting through the theater speakers.
Author Assessment:
I like the way this book is written. The text flows well. I’d definitely read more by Paul McAuley..
Editorial Assessment:
The title is odd and probably caused more than a few potential readers to glance, make a snap judgement and move on. Glad I didn’t. Seems an editor would have brought that up to the author. Though as you read deeper into the book and see Adam Stone and Tom Waverly in action, Cowboy Angels makes sense.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
instant classic, real classic, real genre classic, really good book, glad I read it, it’s alright, meh!, why did I read this, not as good as I was lead to believe
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library - South Campus
Irving, TX
Would recommend to:
friends, family, kids, colleagues, everyone, genre fans, no one
______________________________________________________________________________
Errata:
I loved Sliders and Fringe. I love alternate history, parallel earths, multiverses, counterparts, doppelgangers, the whole smear.
The sheafs, alternate worlds, seem to be named after the major players when they are discovered, usually whoever the American President is. Though considering that there would be multiples sheafs where the same person is President when they are discovered, I wonder what that would do to the naming convention.
Author: Paul McAuley
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published In: Amherst, NY
Date: 2011
Pgs: 363
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
Alternate worlds. Alternate Americas. Just a gate crossing away. Turing Gates opened the multiverse to America. The Real, the first America to open the gates, has used the technology to infiltrate a variety of Americas, rebuilding nuclear wracked ones, freeing the communist or fascist ruled, and creating a Pan-American Alliance bringing alternate Americas together. Trains run through the stable gates. Invasions and individual crossing through others. Since 1963, America has not been alone. But endless wars have exhausted the country. Jimmy Carter comes to the White House with election promises of reconstruction, reconciliation, and an end to alternate wars and CIA adventurism across the multiverse. The CIA’s Cowboy Angels, those agents specializing in multiversal intervention, assassination, and covert action have been retired. Adam Stone has found a universe where America is largely pastoral. New York is a bunch of farms and ranches. His retirement is interrupted when he is drawn back in because an old friend and fellow Angel has gone on a killing spree across multiple alternate worlds, on each one he is killing a woman, the same woman, her alternate counterparts, anyway. A secret about the Turing Gates lays at the center of the plot against this woman. And he is being drawn back into the life of the Cowboy Angel because retired Angels don’t always get to put away their wings.
Genre:
Adventure
Alternate History
Espionage
Fiction
Military
Multiverse
Science fiction
War
Why this book:
Alternate worlds.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
Jack Walker, warlord in the McBride sheaf, alternate world, leading his people in a bastardized version of the Pueblo Indian lifestyle. Crazy and monstrous, but a well defined character.
Susan Nichols, country girl, farmer in the First Foot Sheaf. The widow that Adam Stone loved but they hadn’t had the talk yet. They both knew. Who gave an accounting of herself that the two agents sent after her never expected.
Funny how, sometimes, my favorite characters in some of the books I read only appear for a handful of pages.
Adam Stone is a good character. He’s a retired James Bond tired of the grind, a Bond who has done his business across multiple sheafs. He’s overthrown governments, fomented revolution, and carried out assassinations. He found a life beyond The Company...before it sucked him back in for “one more mission.” And, then, that life reached back and destroyed the retired life that he was looking forward to. He’s a tragic figure with a hand cannon hanging in his shoulder holster.
Character I Most Identified With:
Adam Stone, the man...not the universe hopping, super spy. He’s normal. He wants to do the right thing by his friends. He wants to get back to his real life. He wants revenge on those who have screwed him and his friends over.
The Feel:
This has that really good sci fi buzz in the background. Maybe it’s just the other sheafs vibrating in the pages of the book trying to impinge on your world through your imagination.
Favorite Scene:
The almost Bondian elements of Stone’s actions when he is brought back from Waverly’s hometown. His methodical preparations to return to the Real for debriefing. His coldly adrenal reactions to the news about Susan.
The failed snatch and distraction on the train platform in the Johnson sheaf with the apemen and the fight on the train. Nice stuff.
Pacing:
The pace of the story is great. There is flow and movement to the story.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The replay of Stone’s going after Waverly in the book’s open and him having to do it again hits a sour note. My take is that Stone wouldn’t have gone after him a second time. He would have taken the debt from Waverly’s saving his life paid by his having pulled his fat out of the fire at gunpoint the time before and left him to his own devices. Unless we play the card that Stone wants back into the life, wants one more throw of the dice, even though he seemed happy in his pastoral idyll of a life in the First Foot sheaf. In any event, Stone is much too trusting of Waverly considering that he had to shoot him to rescue him from himself in their previous encounter.
Hmm Moments:
Finding a sheaf, alternate world, populated by the survivors of a full scale nuclear war and then, because a computer said so, declaring some douche President because he is “next in line of succession”, like 577th in line of succession, and then standing by him as he loses his mind and his men go on rampages against refugees; stealing, raping, killing, struck me as horrible but in the time frame of the novel, it is probably what America would have done in the 60s and 70s. Picked who we thought could hold things together regardless of morality and backed them to the hilt, even though they were all warlords and petty tyrants fighting over the corpse of a radioactive wasteland that used to be the breadbasket of America.
The explanation that all the sheafs that had been contacted were close in nature and convergence to the Real history. The Real being the America that originated the Turing Gates. The idea that the wilder sheafs would be further afield and that eventually those would begin to be contacted as the network spread. But topologically, the sheafs closest together would be those with the most in common having separated in recent, comparative, history. Hence, no Americas that are still British colonies or part of a Pan Roman Empire that survives to the present day, but multiple Soviet or Nazi or nuclear devastated versions.
No explanation on where the white furred apemen on the train platform came from, but it’s amazing what you will accept in an alternate reality novel, especially when you are given an infinity of possibilities spread over an infinity of worlds….sheafs.
When I started the book, I thought that the Real was us, the real world. Now, I’m beginning to suspect that the Nixon Sheaf may be us...or we may not be anywhere in the book. The real world could be one of those undiscovered worlds that are close enough to be reflected in the sheafs that they have discovered beyond their Turing Gates, but not actually touched by one of the gates.
The squiggle in the middle of the story is a confusing piece. I didn’t see that coming.
Whenever the time key is switched on and Stone starts describing its effects on him, I think of Cthulhu. :/ Not sure why. Alternate worlds and time travel...why not Cthulhu.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
Could make a helluva movie or a Syfy series.
Casting call:
Hayden Christensen would make a helluva Cowboy Angel. I could see him as Adam Stone.
For Linda Waverly...maybe Lily Collins. I liked her in Priest and The Blind Side. Emma Watson would be great too.
Joe Pantoliano as Walter Lipscombe, gangster in the American Bund Sheaf, revolutionary, player in the post Nazi America that exists after the revolution.
Woody Harrelson could play the crazy that comes off of Tom Waverly in a really good way.
Dennis Hopper would have been great as Dick Knightly, CIA heavy hitter and big shot...and traitor. He could absolutely have chewed this role up.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
Great final line. If it were a movie, the screen would go black, you’d hear the gun go off, and a song by Rage Against the Machine would come blasting through the theater speakers.
Author Assessment:
I like the way this book is written. The text flows well. I’d definitely read more by Paul McAuley..
Editorial Assessment:
The title is odd and probably caused more than a few potential readers to glance, make a snap judgement and move on. Glad I didn’t. Seems an editor would have brought that up to the author. Though as you read deeper into the book and see Adam Stone and Tom Waverly in action, Cowboy Angels makes sense.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
instant classic, real classic, real genre classic, really good book, glad I read it, it’s alright, meh!, why did I read this, not as good as I was lead to believe
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library - South Campus
Irving, TX
Would recommend to:
friends, family, kids, colleagues, everyone, genre fans, no one
______________________________________________________________________________
Errata:
I loved Sliders and Fringe. I love alternate history, parallel earths, multiverses, counterparts, doppelgangers, the whole smear.
The sheafs, alternate worlds, seem to be named after the major players when they are discovered, usually whoever the American President is. Though considering that there would be multiples sheafs where the same person is President when they are discovered, I wonder what that would do to the naming convention.
October 26, 2023
This was a read that kept me entertained throughout the entirety of it. Not once during its entire run-time was I bored, never was my mind wandering, the suspsense having me drilled in.
Filled with the ideas and understanding of a great mind, it felt as though it held true to real ideals; the truth of history and science mingling into social truths. Paul McAuley knows how to create and hold together characters, never letting them unravel or waver, their actions making a constant sense in terms of their backgrounds and notions.
The travel between worlds and strong secret-spy type main, as well as the hidden strongholds of return to the regular world, kept me harking back on Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds, another one of the novels that quickly became my favorite, it's characters as memorable as that of Tom Waverly and Adam Stone and Linda Waverly.
All in all, this was unforgettable novel, one in which the truth was never, in no chapter, fully revealed, everything always uncertain, as this quote that resonated with me states: "Every individual was only a single drop in the infinite ocean, but every drop sparked with particularly. This moment was never quite the same as any moment before it or since, in any of the multitude of sheaves. He was the sum of millions of such unique moments."
Filled with the ideas and understanding of a great mind, it felt as though it held true to real ideals; the truth of history and science mingling into social truths. Paul McAuley knows how to create and hold together characters, never letting them unravel or waver, their actions making a constant sense in terms of their backgrounds and notions.
The travel between worlds and strong secret-spy type main, as well as the hidden strongholds of return to the regular world, kept me harking back on Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds, another one of the novels that quickly became my favorite, it's characters as memorable as that of Tom Waverly and Adam Stone and Linda Waverly.
All in all, this was unforgettable novel, one in which the truth was never, in no chapter, fully revealed, everything always uncertain, as this quote that resonated with me states: "Every individual was only a single drop in the infinite ocean, but every drop sparked with particularly. This moment was never quite the same as any moment before it or since, in any of the multitude of sheaves. He was the sum of millions of such unique moments."
October 18, 2011
I must admit that I am not a fan of alternative history novels. There is first the problem how alternative history differs from fiction in general. The answer usually turns on a single event turning out differently that is in fact the case. To look a recent and painful incident, authorities might have connected the proverbial dots and foiled the 9/11 plot. Going back further, image that on August 23, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. came down with laryngitis, or more happily that he did not go out on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in 1968. One wonders what would things be like today. Unfortunately, such all-to-human counterfactuals, being unmoored from any covering laws, are such that almost any any alternative seems plausible, so that any such story we choose to tell says far more about ourselves now than how we might have been.
One might reply that this is exactly what fiction is suppose to do, that an alternative history is simply a devise that allows us to suspend disbelief that what is placed before is fiction and yet feels real. And if simply providing the illusion rather than reality, one might set aside any misgivings, but there is a more serious indulgence. For while the historian might stray and ask how things might have been different as if we could learn from our mistakes beforehand and so gather up some lesson from history with the hope that things could have been better and will having now been chasten, it is the conceit of alternative history that this is the best of all possible worlds. Fiction by its nature almost demands that this be so since it thrives on tension. A world better than the one we inhabit may be more pleasant to live in, but would make for dull reading. Our attention is lost at “happily ever after.” At best, such fiction is skewed to providing an inflated view of ourselves.
After such a scree, one would be forgiven if I summarily dismissed McAuley's Cowboy Angels as being no more than historical fiction on stilts. This particular work includes not one but a couple dozen alternative histories readily at hand and a handful that we actually visit. Such pardon is unnecessary. The main alternative history (which following McAuley we will call “the Real”) avoided World War II, and the entire Cold War (this includes not having a Korean or Vietnam War) and in most ways is at least twenty years more advanced than are we and has at least one bit of technological far outside our grasp. People of the Real seem happier, wealthier, healthier, than we do, and it would appear that everyone that lived through the 1960's remembered them.
For all that, Cowboy Angels is still engaging. What the America of the Real discovered was how to travel to alternative universes. Each of these alternate Americas are is a sheaf that has branched of the Real. What this Real America also discovered was it would seem that it was the best of all possible Americas. The conceit would seem to be vindicated. Faced with this, the America of the Real engages in clandestine operations and regional conflicts to liberate these alter-Americas into the image of the Real. The agency of the Real in charge of trans-universal liberation is—not surprisingly—the CIA. The parallels to this sheaf (which look almost but not quite like the Nixon sheaf of the book) are evident and in time such operations are shutdown following the Church commission (it is remarkable how parallel universes converge when space isn't flat).
If you are afraid that I've just given away the plot, you are dead wrong. I've only given up the background. The real action involves the a retired agent, Adam Stone, and his travels across several sheaves to rescue a former colleague, Tom Waverly. Tom, incidentally, was presumed dead for three years before any of this action took place and manages to kill himself off at least once more before it is all over. That McAuley is having fun is evident. Adam Stone is rock-solid, Tom Waverly is, well, not, and the Real—counter to its “Its a Wonderful Life” pretensions—includes a Pottersville, New York. More than fun, McAuley provides a steady stream of action and the sort of spy-craft intrigue one would expect of a novel that involves the CIA in this, or any other possible world. Moreover, each sheaf Adam and Tom find themselves in is a case study in the merits of intervening in the affairs of others we judge less fortunate. To complicate matters, there may also be a plot by a splinter group of the CIA that want to revive the glory days with . . . time travel. You guessed that, didn't you. Part of the fun, and part of what makes Stone's job so difficult in accepting this possibility, is that it is hard to tell whether you are meeting a past or future self or simply a self from an alternative universe. Speaking of alternative selves, some are more constant than others. One of the more constant would be Elvis (but alas, not Bob Dylan). Apparently he is a performer in most alternative universes. The Real has imported several for themselves (and you thought ours died in 1974). Time travel and calculated intervention have dangers that go beyond the parallels with alternative universes, but McAuley does not really go beyond the confines he has already appointed and as such really doesn't pursue any moral implications beyond what Issac Asimov did in the 1950's with The End of Eternity.
That glitch aside, McAuley pulls off a masterful tale that until the very end takes the reader to the very edge of some sort resolution, sense, or even sanity, only to be pulled deeper into action where neither time nor space should make any sense at all and yet must. Presuming that this is the best of all possible worlds damns all other possibilities.
One might reply that this is exactly what fiction is suppose to do, that an alternative history is simply a devise that allows us to suspend disbelief that what is placed before is fiction and yet feels real. And if simply providing the illusion rather than reality, one might set aside any misgivings, but there is a more serious indulgence. For while the historian might stray and ask how things might have been different as if we could learn from our mistakes beforehand and so gather up some lesson from history with the hope that things could have been better and will having now been chasten, it is the conceit of alternative history that this is the best of all possible worlds. Fiction by its nature almost demands that this be so since it thrives on tension. A world better than the one we inhabit may be more pleasant to live in, but would make for dull reading. Our attention is lost at “happily ever after.” At best, such fiction is skewed to providing an inflated view of ourselves.
After such a scree, one would be forgiven if I summarily dismissed McAuley's Cowboy Angels as being no more than historical fiction on stilts. This particular work includes not one but a couple dozen alternative histories readily at hand and a handful that we actually visit. Such pardon is unnecessary. The main alternative history (which following McAuley we will call “the Real”) avoided World War II, and the entire Cold War (this includes not having a Korean or Vietnam War) and in most ways is at least twenty years more advanced than are we and has at least one bit of technological far outside our grasp. People of the Real seem happier, wealthier, healthier, than we do, and it would appear that everyone that lived through the 1960's remembered them.
For all that, Cowboy Angels is still engaging. What the America of the Real discovered was how to travel to alternative universes. Each of these alternate Americas are is a sheaf that has branched of the Real. What this Real America also discovered was it would seem that it was the best of all possible Americas. The conceit would seem to be vindicated. Faced with this, the America of the Real engages in clandestine operations and regional conflicts to liberate these alter-Americas into the image of the Real. The agency of the Real in charge of trans-universal liberation is—not surprisingly—the CIA. The parallels to this sheaf (which look almost but not quite like the Nixon sheaf of the book) are evident and in time such operations are shutdown following the Church commission (it is remarkable how parallel universes converge when space isn't flat).
If you are afraid that I've just given away the plot, you are dead wrong. I've only given up the background. The real action involves the a retired agent, Adam Stone, and his travels across several sheaves to rescue a former colleague, Tom Waverly. Tom, incidentally, was presumed dead for three years before any of this action took place and manages to kill himself off at least once more before it is all over. That McAuley is having fun is evident. Adam Stone is rock-solid, Tom Waverly is, well, not, and the Real—counter to its “Its a Wonderful Life” pretensions—includes a Pottersville, New York. More than fun, McAuley provides a steady stream of action and the sort of spy-craft intrigue one would expect of a novel that involves the CIA in this, or any other possible world. Moreover, each sheaf Adam and Tom find themselves in is a case study in the merits of intervening in the affairs of others we judge less fortunate. To complicate matters, there may also be a plot by a splinter group of the CIA that want to revive the glory days with . . . time travel. You guessed that, didn't you. Part of the fun, and part of what makes Stone's job so difficult in accepting this possibility, is that it is hard to tell whether you are meeting a past or future self or simply a self from an alternative universe. Speaking of alternative selves, some are more constant than others. One of the more constant would be Elvis (but alas, not Bob Dylan). Apparently he is a performer in most alternative universes. The Real has imported several for themselves (and you thought ours died in 1974). Time travel and calculated intervention have dangers that go beyond the parallels with alternative universes, but McAuley does not really go beyond the confines he has already appointed and as such really doesn't pursue any moral implications beyond what Issac Asimov did in the 1950's with The End of Eternity.
That glitch aside, McAuley pulls off a masterful tale that until the very end takes the reader to the very edge of some sort resolution, sense, or even sanity, only to be pulled deeper into action where neither time nor space should make any sense at all and yet must. Presuming that this is the best of all possible worlds damns all other possibilities.
October 19, 2024
An interesting techno thriller that presents a smorgasbord of ideas with regards to the alternate Americas that might have evolved from variations in recent history. The action is good but majority of the cast are pretty one-note with the exception of the mercurial Tom Waverley who is both charismatic and incredibly frustrating. Halfway through the book a whole new concept is introduced and it would have been better if we focussed on the initial "parallel worlds" concept instead as this was really novel and gets lost following the new concept's introduction.
June 14, 2020
McAuley's book uses the association of America as a place for awe inspiring science with American propensity for war as a paintbrush for his story. His story is not about alternate worlds but America and its appetite for destruction, played out using these characters. The story is somewhat convoluted but the atmosphere of an almost-noir story set among alternate worlds keeps you entertained.
March 24, 2024
"Universes waiting to be born." That's how it ends?
We could have had less backstabbing between friends, and at certain points even I wanted to punch Tom myself, but I love a good multiverse story with a dash of time travel.
Just one correction for the proof readers. Its magazine or mag, not clips.
We could have had less backstabbing between friends, and at certain points even I wanted to punch Tom myself, but I love a good multiverse story with a dash of time travel.
Just one correction for the proof readers. Its magazine or mag, not clips.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2019
2 1/2 stars.
December 1, 2019
Didn't keep me captivated
June 6, 2021
Not my favourite Paul McAuley book. I loved the premise of the story but I didn't really care about any of the characters.
September 10, 2022
Disappointing. Lots of potential. Never really hits its stride. Confusing.
June 14, 2015
Cowboy Angels has as its background a United States which, having gained access through the development of quantum computing in the 1960s to various alternative versions of its own history, proceeds to infiltrate, ally, fund and destabilise in time-honoured fashion until by the 1980s it has its own empire of client USAs, all dominating their respective globes but subservient to their political masters in "the Real".
This could be a fascinating story, but unfortunately we only get glimpses of it. Published by Gollancz S.F., is nonetheless packaged and marketed as a thriller, and written in the hardboiled, action-intense style of a Tom Clancy or a Dan Brown. This has been a recent trend in McAuley's fiction. His early space operas and quirkier SF high-concept stories (some of which are very good indeed -- I love Red Dust and Pasquale's Angel, as well as his Doctor Who novella The Eye of the Tyger) have given way recently to a string of would-be-bestsellers where an SF device in a near-contemporary setting is subservient to a war, espionage or crime plot. (It's a trend I'm pleased to see being reversed in his Quiet War novels, which I've not as yet read.)
To be honest, though, if you want to read an account of a global superpower extending its hegemony into multiple alternative realities as an allegory for contemporary US imperialism, I'd recommend (McAuley's fellow Doctor Who and Telos author) Lance Parkin's take on the same theme in Faction Paradox: Warlords of Utopia. Aside from the chutzpah of encoding a liberal message in a generally right-wing mass-media form, Cowboy Angels really doesn't accomplish anything that Parkin's book didn't do better.
In a direct comparison with Warlords, Angels comes off worse in several ways.
It's less subtle: where Warlords critiques the US in terms of the Roman Empire (giving it a tranche of ascendant Nazi histories as its anti-democratic enemy), McAuley's evil empire is run by an alternative version of the 1980s CIA.
It's less imaginative: where Parkin has enormous fun with his variant Romes, McAuley deliberately confines his alternative histories (presumably on the basis of his target audience's imaginative limitations) to variants in 20th-century history (fascist and communist revolutions in the 1920s and '30s, nuclear war in the '60s) or unpopulated Americas where settlers can re-enact the frontier dream. A rival metauniversal superpower based around, say, a Confederate, Spanish or Aztec North America could have livened the whole thing up no end.
(The climax takes the mundanity even further, with a nuclear showdown taking place in our universe -- known here as "the Nixon sheaf", after the President at the time of first contact. Parkin's book credits the reader with understanding that danger is danger, and suffering suffering, no matter which history the characters are living in.)
Finally, it's far, far less interestingly written. In both books, the author encourages the questioning of neoconservative positions by using a viewpoint character who initially espouses them... but whereas Parkin's conceit of using as a Roman historian as his narrator allows him to write like Robert Graves, McAuley is obliged to write like, at best, Michael Crichton.
His change of direction may well be enabling McAuley to sell more books, but it's hampering him as a writer.
This could be a fascinating story, but unfortunately we only get glimpses of it. Published by Gollancz S.F., is nonetheless packaged and marketed as a thriller, and written in the hardboiled, action-intense style of a Tom Clancy or a Dan Brown. This has been a recent trend in McAuley's fiction. His early space operas and quirkier SF high-concept stories (some of which are very good indeed -- I love Red Dust and Pasquale's Angel, as well as his Doctor Who novella The Eye of the Tyger) have given way recently to a string of would-be-bestsellers where an SF device in a near-contemporary setting is subservient to a war, espionage or crime plot. (It's a trend I'm pleased to see being reversed in his Quiet War novels, which I've not as yet read.)
To be honest, though, if you want to read an account of a global superpower extending its hegemony into multiple alternative realities as an allegory for contemporary US imperialism, I'd recommend (McAuley's fellow Doctor Who and Telos author) Lance Parkin's take on the same theme in Faction Paradox: Warlords of Utopia. Aside from the chutzpah of encoding a liberal message in a generally right-wing mass-media form, Cowboy Angels really doesn't accomplish anything that Parkin's book didn't do better.
In a direct comparison with Warlords, Angels comes off worse in several ways.
It's less subtle: where Warlords critiques the US in terms of the Roman Empire (giving it a tranche of ascendant Nazi histories as its anti-democratic enemy), McAuley's evil empire is run by an alternative version of the 1980s CIA.
It's less imaginative: where Parkin has enormous fun with his variant Romes, McAuley deliberately confines his alternative histories (presumably on the basis of his target audience's imaginative limitations) to variants in 20th-century history (fascist and communist revolutions in the 1920s and '30s, nuclear war in the '60s) or unpopulated Americas where settlers can re-enact the frontier dream. A rival metauniversal superpower based around, say, a Confederate, Spanish or Aztec North America could have livened the whole thing up no end.
(The climax takes the mundanity even further, with a nuclear showdown taking place in our universe -- known here as "the Nixon sheaf", after the President at the time of first contact. Parkin's book credits the reader with understanding that danger is danger, and suffering suffering, no matter which history the characters are living in.)
Finally, it's far, far less interestingly written. In both books, the author encourages the questioning of neoconservative positions by using a viewpoint character who initially espouses them... but whereas Parkin's conceit of using as a Roman historian as his narrator allows him to write like Robert Graves, McAuley is obliged to write like, at best, Michael Crichton.
His change of direction may well be enabling McAuley to sell more books, but it's hampering him as a writer.
January 12, 2016
Imaginem que existiam portais que nos permitiam “viajar” para realidades alternativas do nosso país. De momento, dava um grande jeito viajar para um Portugal alternativo, onde não houvesse crise económica, não dava? Pois é com esta realidade que se deparam as personagens deste livro. A descoberta dos portais Turing, em 1963, permitiu que fossem encontradas várias outras Américas alternativas, para além da Real, que divergiram da mesma em determinado ponto do tempo, durante o último século. O desejo de que esses feixes fossem tão poderosos como o Real, e não sociedades subjugadas ao comunismo ou ao anarquismo, faz com que seja criada uma força especial, por uma organização similiar à CIA , conhecidos como Anjos Pistoleiros, que tinham como missão ajudar a aproximar essas Américas da sua. A subida ao poder de Jimmy Carter, no início dos anos 80, traz consigo promessas de paz e, ao mesmo tempo, ameaça os interesses da Companhia nas Américas alternativas.
Adam Stone e Tom Waverly são dois ex-Anjos Pistoleiros. O primeiro encontra-se a viver pacatamente numa das Américas alternativas, até que é chamado pela Companhia porque o segundo assassinou os duplos da mesma mulher, em vários feixes. Stone inicia assim a busca pelo seu amigo, juntamente com a filha deste, para tentar descobrir quais as intenções de Tom.
Este acontecimento é apenas o início de uma história cheia de acção e reviravoltas, que raramente dão espaço a que possamos respirar. O enredo decorre em vários feixes, e essas várias visitas permitem-nos conhecer detalhes muito curiosos dos mesmos. Desde o feixe Nixon, curiosamente semelhante à realidade que conhecemos, até outros feixes onde existem reality shows, onde celebridades são confrontadas com os seus duplos de outras realidades, onde não são famosos.
Foi uma leitura que me agradou, principalmente pelas possibilidades proporcionadas pela existência de mundos paralelos. Acredito que não seja um elemento propriamente original, mas como para mim era quase novidade, acabei por achar bastante interessante. A história inclui ainda elementos de thriller e policial, que acabam por, a certa altura, sobrepor-se à componente de ficção científica. De resto, a história é cativante q.b., acabando por falhar um pouco, na minha opinião, no que respeita ao desenvolvimento das personagens. No entanto, fica a curiosidade por ler mais deste autor no futuro.
Adam Stone e Tom Waverly são dois ex-Anjos Pistoleiros. O primeiro encontra-se a viver pacatamente numa das Américas alternativas, até que é chamado pela Companhia porque o segundo assassinou os duplos da mesma mulher, em vários feixes. Stone inicia assim a busca pelo seu amigo, juntamente com a filha deste, para tentar descobrir quais as intenções de Tom.
Este acontecimento é apenas o início de uma história cheia de acção e reviravoltas, que raramente dão espaço a que possamos respirar. O enredo decorre em vários feixes, e essas várias visitas permitem-nos conhecer detalhes muito curiosos dos mesmos. Desde o feixe Nixon, curiosamente semelhante à realidade que conhecemos, até outros feixes onde existem reality shows, onde celebridades são confrontadas com os seus duplos de outras realidades, onde não são famosos.
Foi uma leitura que me agradou, principalmente pelas possibilidades proporcionadas pela existência de mundos paralelos. Acredito que não seja um elemento propriamente original, mas como para mim era quase novidade, acabei por achar bastante interessante. A história inclui ainda elementos de thriller e policial, que acabam por, a certa altura, sobrepor-se à componente de ficção científica. De resto, a história é cativante q.b., acabando por falhar um pouco, na minha opinião, no que respeita ao desenvolvimento das personagens. No entanto, fica a curiosidade por ler mais deste autor no futuro.
October 23, 2014
In the first chapter of this book, I found the incredibly hawkish "Go 'Murica" neo-con politics so off-putting that I almost put the book down. For the author, apparently the rest of the world doesn't exist except as shadowy opponents. Given enormous military resources and access to other timelines, America chooses to "free" other Americas in as many timelines as possible--and only other Americas. Cuba is mentioned once, as a temporary refuge for democratic Americans in a despotic scenario; Europe mentioned a handful of times as financial overlord in another. If America is a terrible place but other countries have more sympathetic politics in a sheaf, the world-walking America (called the Real) has no interest in the other countries. If America is fine and the other countries despotic--eh, who cares about them. If America is just different, well, it needs to be remade into the Real's image.
Fortunately, the author sets this up for the sake of challenging it later. It gradually becomes clear that things are more complex and characters question the morality of their government's choices. But you know what? The author still has the blinders on without realizing it. Where is the Real's Europe in all this? Or Real China? Surely after more than a decade of sheaf-walking, other countries have discovered how to access other worlds--America isn't subtle about what they're doing. Why isn't the Real's political battles being fought out across the multiverse? McAuley is still so America-centric that his premise makes little sense.
Equally annoying, the protagonist has a girlfriend that, a paragraph after her introduction I pegged as a fridge-magnet. Sure enough, she gets fridged. Killed off simply to give the protagonist suitable motivation.
The catalyst, a rogue agent, also never quite works for me. His motivations are opaque--he seems to exist mostly to do the most daredevil action at any moment. The killing rampage that kicks off the book never makes a whole lot of sense, either.
There are a lot of really interesting ideas here. But they're unevenly developed in favor of action set pieces that never quite jell.
Fortunately, the author sets this up for the sake of challenging it later. It gradually becomes clear that things are more complex and characters question the morality of their government's choices. But you know what? The author still has the blinders on without realizing it. Where is the Real's Europe in all this? Or Real China? Surely after more than a decade of sheaf-walking, other countries have discovered how to access other worlds--America isn't subtle about what they're doing. Why isn't the Real's political battles being fought out across the multiverse? McAuley is still so America-centric that his premise makes little sense.
Equally annoying, the protagonist has a girlfriend that, a paragraph after her introduction I pegged as a fridge-magnet. Sure enough, she gets fridged. Killed off simply to give the protagonist suitable motivation.
The catalyst, a rogue agent, also never quite works for me. His motivations are opaque--he seems to exist mostly to do the most daredevil action at any moment. The killing rampage that kicks off the book never makes a whole lot of sense, either.
There are a lot of really interesting ideas here. But they're unevenly developed in favor of action set pieces that never quite jell.
May 2, 2013
I first read this book before I began doing my reviews, so when I signed up for Goodreads, I merely gave it a rating and left it at that. However, this book is forever coming back to my mind, and whenever I see it on my shelf, I am struck with a certain urge to drop everything and read it again, despite the fact that I said to myself I'd never read a sequel (were there ever to be one), nor another book by Paul McAuley. I feel I need to adjust my rating a bit, and write a proper review.
This book has one of the most interesting premises I've ever come across: imperial rightwing America discovers interdimensional travel and uses it for American promulgation across different versions of America in the 1970s. Peacenik Jimmy Carter comes to office and shuts down the cowboy angel program.
However, instead of exploring this properly, this is covered in the prologue. Much of the rest of this premise is loosely passed by during the plot. The plot, sadly, gets into a convoluted and, ultimately, rather cheap time travel scheme. The final line of the book does tie things together as best as can be done, but ultimately, the story isn't much, and diverges too far from the premise for the premise to be valid.
Moreover, the prose is poor. Adam Stone doesn't come off as stoic, he comes off as flat. It moves from high action to a funeral scene without any tonal transition. Despite the fact that this takes place exclusively in the United States, the term used is “programme” with the superfluous E. Linda Waverly, after being stripped naked at gunpoint so Stone can check her clothes for bugs, replies rather angrily, “Are you sure you don't want to check my vagina?” Would a woman really use the word “vagina” here? Honestly? Pussy. Cunt. Twat. Inside me. There are many better choices than a medical term.
The McBride Sheaf was the most interesting part of this book. I would have done away with the time travel and Dick Knightley's convoluted scheme, and gone through a series of sheaves, ultimately climaxing in the McBride Sheaf, building on the politics between Knightley the peaceniks.
I do want to read this book again. I remember it fondly, despite it's botching.
This book has one of the most interesting premises I've ever come across: imperial rightwing America discovers interdimensional travel and uses it for American promulgation across different versions of America in the 1970s. Peacenik Jimmy Carter comes to office and shuts down the cowboy angel program.
However, instead of exploring this properly, this is covered in the prologue. Much of the rest of this premise is loosely passed by during the plot. The plot, sadly, gets into a convoluted and, ultimately, rather cheap time travel scheme. The final line of the book does tie things together as best as can be done, but ultimately, the story isn't much, and diverges too far from the premise for the premise to be valid.
Moreover, the prose is poor. Adam Stone doesn't come off as stoic, he comes off as flat. It moves from high action to a funeral scene without any tonal transition. Despite the fact that this takes place exclusively in the United States, the term used is “programme” with the superfluous E. Linda Waverly, after being stripped naked at gunpoint so Stone can check her clothes for bugs, replies rather angrily, “Are you sure you don't want to check my vagina?” Would a woman really use the word “vagina” here? Honestly? Pussy. Cunt. Twat. Inside me. There are many better choices than a medical term.
The McBride Sheaf was the most interesting part of this book. I would have done away with the time travel and Dick Knightley's convoluted scheme, and gone through a series of sheaves, ultimately climaxing in the McBride Sheaf, building on the politics between Knightley the peaceniks.
I do want to read this book again. I remember it fondly, despite it's botching.
March 3, 2011
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
This is my third book now by science-fiction veteran Paul McAuley (all of them courtesy of our friends at Pyr); and like the other two, this latest is based on a really great if not overly familiar premise -- basically, that humans invent a "quantum gate" that lets them travel between infinite sets of alternative Earths (called "sheafs" in their particular parlance), which for years was used by the "Real US" military in order to liberate various occupied and fascist and communist Americas out there in the multiverse, but with the entire black-ops program now under threat by that tree-hugging hippie Jimmy Carter. (And in an interesting twist, the world that you and I live in isn't the "Earth Prime" of McAuley's universe, but rather one of the hundreds of alt-Earths they've been dealing with, ours known as the "Nixon Sheaf" because of his 1968 Presidential win being the first major historical schism between their reality and ours.) But alas, also just like the other two books of his I've read, despite being well-written the novel tends to deflate towards the end, with me sorta quickly skimming through the last 75 pages for the third time now in a row, just to confirm that the story ends in the way I suspected it would. Maybe this is a case of McAuley overexplaining his plot-heavy thrillers? Of not having a full command over the three-act structure? I'm not sure, to tell you the truth -- and I feel a bit bad even bringing it up, because of the first three-quarters of his books always being good solid genre pieces, even if nothing too groundbreaking -- but the fact is that I always find myself a little disappointed by the time I reach the end of one of his novels, with this one being no exception. A good choice for existing heavy readers of SF, but easily skippable if you're not.
Out of 10: 8.3
This is my third book now by science-fiction veteran Paul McAuley (all of them courtesy of our friends at Pyr); and like the other two, this latest is based on a really great if not overly familiar premise -- basically, that humans invent a "quantum gate" that lets them travel between infinite sets of alternative Earths (called "sheafs" in their particular parlance), which for years was used by the "Real US" military in order to liberate various occupied and fascist and communist Americas out there in the multiverse, but with the entire black-ops program now under threat by that tree-hugging hippie Jimmy Carter. (And in an interesting twist, the world that you and I live in isn't the "Earth Prime" of McAuley's universe, but rather one of the hundreds of alt-Earths they've been dealing with, ours known as the "Nixon Sheaf" because of his 1968 Presidential win being the first major historical schism between their reality and ours.) But alas, also just like the other two books of his I've read, despite being well-written the novel tends to deflate towards the end, with me sorta quickly skimming through the last 75 pages for the third time now in a row, just to confirm that the story ends in the way I suspected it would. Maybe this is a case of McAuley overexplaining his plot-heavy thrillers? Of not having a full command over the three-act structure? I'm not sure, to tell you the truth -- and I feel a bit bad even bringing it up, because of the first three-quarters of his books always being good solid genre pieces, even if nothing too groundbreaking -- but the fact is that I always find myself a little disappointed by the time I reach the end of one of his novels, with this one being no exception. A good choice for existing heavy readers of SF, but easily skippable if you're not.
Out of 10: 8.3
November 29, 2016
'Cowboy Angels' is an exciting combination of crime noir, spy thriller, and science fiction. The idea is that Turing Gates, or portals into parallel worlds, have been discovered. Because they were discovered in America, the government decided to use them to create a pan-American empire. The thread of imperialism that runs through the world-building in the novel is distasteful but strikingly convincing. Only America has access to the Turing Gate technology, unlikely as this seems twenty years after its discovery, and the rest of the world is referred to only in terms of being their enemy or ally.
The plot is probably more noir mystery than anything else, despite most of the main characters being former or current spies. It centres around two main characters, Adam Stone and Tom Waverly, who are former colleagues, apparently still friends, and intermittent adversaries. Both of them are hard-boiled types, violent at the slightest provocation, protective of women, fond of liquor, and with a clipped style of speech. Their relationship reminded me somewhat of Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder in the TV show 'Justified'. I thought Tom's daughter Linda was used rather well in the plot, but otherwise there was rather a dearth of female characters. This echoes noir tropes and reinforces the masculine atmosphere of the parallel-world empire. The body count seemed notably high, about equivalent to that in Richard Morgan’s novels. I guess this demonstrated the lack of value the characters placed on human life, but it was still rather unrelenting.
I enjoyed 'Cowboy Angels' more for the world-building than the plot, which was convoluted in the extreme, or the characters, who remained close to cyphers. The ways in which history diverged were interestingly shown, and it was fun to guess which reality was closest to our own. The dialogue became most interesting when the characters discussed politics. I liked some of the little details, like the Elvises. What I really took from it, though, is that America is too macho for its own good in every parallel reality that has transpired.
The plot is probably more noir mystery than anything else, despite most of the main characters being former or current spies. It centres around two main characters, Adam Stone and Tom Waverly, who are former colleagues, apparently still friends, and intermittent adversaries. Both of them are hard-boiled types, violent at the slightest provocation, protective of women, fond of liquor, and with a clipped style of speech. Their relationship reminded me somewhat of Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder in the TV show 'Justified'. I thought Tom's daughter Linda was used rather well in the plot, but otherwise there was rather a dearth of female characters. This echoes noir tropes and reinforces the masculine atmosphere of the parallel-world empire. The body count seemed notably high, about equivalent to that in Richard Morgan’s novels. I guess this demonstrated the lack of value the characters placed on human life, but it was still rather unrelenting.
I enjoyed 'Cowboy Angels' more for the world-building than the plot, which was convoluted in the extreme, or the characters, who remained close to cyphers. The ways in which history diverged were interestingly shown, and it was fun to guess which reality was closest to our own. The dialogue became most interesting when the characters discussed politics. I liked some of the little details, like the Elvises. What I really took from it, though, is that America is too macho for its own good in every parallel reality that has transpired.
March 19, 2011
Paul McAuley takes the concept of United States domination and occupation to a whole new level in his latest and excellently titled Cowboy Angels. In 1963 the first Turing gate was opened; three years later a gate was made large enough to allow the first person to travel into another world: an alternate history to the one we know. Thus begun a series of events under different presidents that led to our United States playing a supposed importantly role in helping shaping these alternate histories to be more like ours; essentially for the betterment of their unique society. The goal is to establish a Pan-American alliance.
Fifteen years later, Jimmy Carter is elected president with the goal of scaling back and putting a stop to these controlling and dominating tactics, winding down the CIA’s covert missions and operations. These now former CIA agents were colloquially known as “Cowboy Angels.” There are those who disagree wholeheartedly with this and have their own plans to change the way things are going. One of these former Cowboy Angels, Adam Stone, is summoned back from his quiet, pleasant alternate world to track down a friend who has gone on a killing spree, killing the same woman in each of the worlds. As Stone gets close to his former friend, he begins to find out the secrets, secrets that affect the whole Turing Gate program. The question is what is he going to do about it?
Cowboy Angels is a great example of thrilling science fiction, combining an adventurous chase with travels throughout alternate worlds, as well as playing on the idea that there may in fact be a big conspiracy behind the whole program. Readers will have to make it to the end of the book to find out just what exactly is going on.
Originally written on March 4, 2011 ©Alex C. Telander.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 50 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
Fifteen years later, Jimmy Carter is elected president with the goal of scaling back and putting a stop to these controlling and dominating tactics, winding down the CIA’s covert missions and operations. These now former CIA agents were colloquially known as “Cowboy Angels.” There are those who disagree wholeheartedly with this and have their own plans to change the way things are going. One of these former Cowboy Angels, Adam Stone, is summoned back from his quiet, pleasant alternate world to track down a friend who has gone on a killing spree, killing the same woman in each of the worlds. As Stone gets close to his former friend, he begins to find out the secrets, secrets that affect the whole Turing Gate program. The question is what is he going to do about it?
Cowboy Angels is a great example of thrilling science fiction, combining an adventurous chase with travels throughout alternate worlds, as well as playing on the idea that there may in fact be a big conspiracy behind the whole program. Readers will have to make it to the end of the book to find out just what exactly is going on.
Originally written on March 4, 2011 ©Alex C. Telander.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 50 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
June 6, 2011
If you aren’t paying attention, you might forget that Paul McAuley’s new novel, Cowboy Angels, is science fiction. Don’t get me wrong: there’s no doubt that it is science fiction. But McAuley has written a clever, quick, and fast moving novel that has all the elements of a great spy thriller, too. It’s a blend of genres that McAuley pulls off brilliantly, and it makes for an exciting and fast ride, a page turner perfect for a summer vacation or a rainy weekend indoors.
Before I found science fiction as a teenager, I read cold war thrillers and spy novels. John le Carre, Tom Clancy, and Robert Ludlum were standard fare, my favorite scenes included dead drops, femme fatales, secret codes, and high speed car chases. There were few things I enjoyed more than watching a frantic Jason Bourne lethally and methodically evade assassins or Jack Ryan foil an international plot to destroy the President. I like my spies smart, decisive, and one step ahead of the chase.
Adam Stone, McAuley’s lead spy, is just that kind of spy. He lives in a parallel universe to our own, and he is one of the “cowboy angels” CIA officers that are sent to the Americas in parallel universes to help promote democracy and “the American way.” But now, Stone has retired, moved to an unpopulated version of the island Manhattan in one of the many parallel universes he has access to, and lives a rural life hunting prehistoric saber tooth tigers and giant sloths. He’s even fallen in love. Then, in a day, his past comes back to haunt him, suddenly he is on the run, hunting rogue agents, and being hunted by deadly assassins. It’s spy-versus-spy at its best. I loved it.
Nary a page passes without the action building, the plot twisting, and complications mounting. As another review put it, it’s helter-skelter, and our heroes have no chance to stop. The pages almost turn themselves. It’s great fiction, it’s exciting fiction, and I loved every moment of it.
Before I found science fiction as a teenager, I read cold war thrillers and spy novels. John le Carre, Tom Clancy, and Robert Ludlum were standard fare, my favorite scenes included dead drops, femme fatales, secret codes, and high speed car chases. There were few things I enjoyed more than watching a frantic Jason Bourne lethally and methodically evade assassins or Jack Ryan foil an international plot to destroy the President. I like my spies smart, decisive, and one step ahead of the chase.
Adam Stone, McAuley’s lead spy, is just that kind of spy. He lives in a parallel universe to our own, and he is one of the “cowboy angels” CIA officers that are sent to the Americas in parallel universes to help promote democracy and “the American way.” But now, Stone has retired, moved to an unpopulated version of the island Manhattan in one of the many parallel universes he has access to, and lives a rural life hunting prehistoric saber tooth tigers and giant sloths. He’s even fallen in love. Then, in a day, his past comes back to haunt him, suddenly he is on the run, hunting rogue agents, and being hunted by deadly assassins. It’s spy-versus-spy at its best. I loved it.
Nary a page passes without the action building, the plot twisting, and complications mounting. As another review put it, it’s helter-skelter, and our heroes have no chance to stop. The pages almost turn themselves. It’s great fiction, it’s exciting fiction, and I loved every moment of it.
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