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The Company #7
The Machine's Child
Kage Baker's trademark series of SF adventure continues now in a direct sequel to The Life of the World to Come . Mendoza was banished long ago, to a prison lost in time where rebellious immortals are "dealt with." Now her past Alec, Nicholas, and Bell-Fairfax, are determined to rescue her, but first they must learn how to live together, because all three happen to be sharing Alec's body. What they find when they discover Mendoza is even worse than what they could imagined, and enough for them to decide to finally fight back against the Company.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
9 people are currently reading
536 people want to read
About the author
Kage Baker
162 books355 followersBorn June 10, 1952, in Hollywood, California, and grew up there and in Pismo Beach, present home. Spent 12 years in assorted navy blue uniforms obtaining a good parochial school education and numerous emotional scars. Rapier wit developed as defense mechanism to deflect rage of larger and more powerful children who took offense at abrasive, condescending and arrogant personality in a sickly eight-year-old. Family: 2 parents, 6 siblings, 4 nieces, 2 nephews. Husbands: 0. Children: 0.
Prior occupations: graphic artist and mural painter, several lower clerical positions which could in no way be construed as a career, and (over a period of years for the Living History Centre) playwright, bit player, director, teacher of Elizabethan English for the stage, stage manager and educational program assistant coordinator. Presently reengaged in the above-listed capacities for the LHC's triumphant reincarnation, AS YOU LIKE IT PRODUCTIONS.
20 years of total immersion research in Elizabethan as well as other historical periods has paid off handsomely in a working knowledge of period speech and details.
In spare time (ha) reads: any old sea stories by Marryat, the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien, the Hornblower books, ANYTHING by Robert Louis Stevenson, Raymond Chandler, Thorne Smith, Herman Melville (except Pierre, or the Ambiguities, which stinks) Somerset Maugham, George MacDonald Frasier.
Now happily settled in beautiful Pismo Beach, Clam Capital of the World, in charming seaside flat which is unfortunately not haunted by ghost of dashing sea captain. Avid gardener, birdwatcher, spinster aunt and Jethro Tull fan.
http://www.sfwa.org/2010/01/rip-kage-...
Prior occupations: graphic artist and mural painter, several lower clerical positions which could in no way be construed as a career, and (over a period of years for the Living History Centre) playwright, bit player, director, teacher of Elizabethan English for the stage, stage manager and educational program assistant coordinator. Presently reengaged in the above-listed capacities for the LHC's triumphant reincarnation, AS YOU LIKE IT PRODUCTIONS.
20 years of total immersion research in Elizabethan as well as other historical periods has paid off handsomely in a working knowledge of period speech and details.
In spare time (ha) reads: any old sea stories by Marryat, the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien, the Hornblower books, ANYTHING by Robert Louis Stevenson, Raymond Chandler, Thorne Smith, Herman Melville (except Pierre, or the Ambiguities, which stinks) Somerset Maugham, George MacDonald Frasier.
Now happily settled in beautiful Pismo Beach, Clam Capital of the World, in charming seaside flat which is unfortunately not haunted by ghost of dashing sea captain. Avid gardener, birdwatcher, spinster aunt and Jethro Tull fan.
http://www.sfwa.org/2010/01/rip-kage-...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
July 7, 2022
Baker has taken this in a direction that I was not expecting, which is delightful. She is setting up a rival to Dr Zeus Company, right under their noses, but undetected. I'm very taken with the possibilities of these details. That balances with one thing that's making me grumpy, namely Mendoza's three men sharing one body, which they access sequentially. Baker has them squabbling over who gets to spend time with their lady-love and I find it annoying. It also bugs me that since Mendoza has been regenerated, no one is being straight with her. I think she should know about her three-in-one lover and more about their plans. Mind you, it seems to be Alec's artificial intelligence that is advocating keeping her in the dark and I'm not understanding his purposes just yet.
Baker keeps tantalizing us with the mysterious date of 2355, where the historical records seem to end and the Silence begins. The conspiracy theories abound about what will happen or what might be possible. I do hope Baker plans to reveal the result and I have no doubt that it will be unexpected. I think all the speculation must be designed to mislead, or at least I hope so. Mendoza and Alec/Edward/Nicholas have been planting vials of nanobots in all kinds of out-of-the-way spots, awaiting the signal from their crafty AI, Captain Morgan.
Although the Captain has been handed a new, complex problem to solve at the end of this book, but being artificial he should be able to handle several tasks at once. I'll return to Mendoza early next year (2023) to continue the tale. Oh, and just an idle observation, but these paperback covers are horrid!
Book Number 463 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
Baker keeps tantalizing us with the mysterious date of 2355, where the historical records seem to end and the Silence begins. The conspiracy theories abound about what will happen or what might be possible. I do hope Baker plans to reveal the result and I have no doubt that it will be unexpected. I think all the speculation must be designed to mislead, or at least I hope so. Mendoza and Alec/Edward/Nicholas have been planting vials of nanobots in all kinds of out-of-the-way spots, awaiting the signal from their crafty AI, Captain Morgan.
Although the Captain has been handed a new, complex problem to solve at the end of this book, but being artificial he should be able to handle several tasks at once. I'll return to Mendoza early next year (2023) to continue the tale. Oh, and just an idle observation, but these paperback covers are horrid!
Book Number 463 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
February 19, 2010
Well, this was the one I was waiting for, but I'm rather sorry it is. . . Plenty of plot happened, characters that had been sidelined got reactivated and moved into position, and there was actually enough time travel that I no longer feel guilty calling this a time travel series. (Though what happened to time travel being horrendously expensive? I guess only making the machines is expensive, because using them certainly didn't seem to be.)
Unfortunately, I absolutely hated Baker's rendition of the major characters. Mendoza as an amnesiac was fine, though without her memory she also lost the passionate ferocity that made her so winning. But in this book Alec became a caricature, nothing but the squeamish child of the future that he struggled so hard to rebel against in The Life of the World to Come; Nicholas Harpole's faith was broken and, while that's understandable, Baker's treatment of it wasn't particularly gripping; and Edward, who at the start of the book was the only man of the three worthy of Mendoza, maintaining both his adulthood and his faith in Reason, quickly degenerated into a single-minded fanatic. While I agreed with Joseph's assessment of Nicholas' type in Sky Coyote, I could understand Mendoza's love for him because he did cut a wonderfully romantic ideal -- but that ideal is totally lost in this book, and I was left wanting to consign all three of them to Options Research.
The worst tragedy for me, however, was that Joseph returned to the scene, and he got worked over far worse than Mendoza's loves did. He's been rogue since the end of The Graveyard Game, working on repairing Budu, and that time alone under Mount Tamalpais has apparently driven him insane. (How did his sanity hold up under 20,000 years of humanity's most horrifying acts, then break after only a couple of decades under the California coast?) The Joseph of The Machine's Child is a snivelling, whiny, twerp whose fixation on Mendoza is a bit creepy, and his father Budu doesn't seem like much of a prize either. I wanted to throw the book across the room every time a section from Joseph's perspective appeared.
In fact, many things made me want to throw this book across the room. There was a great deal of cheap conflict arising from characters not taking two seconds to talk to one another; Joseph appears to have completely forgotten about Lewis, who I thought was his friend; the Mars Two thing still just doesn't feel real enough for so many characters to harp on it (though to be fair, that's a problem with The Life of the World to Come, not this volume). It wasn't all bad -- I did giggle at Mendoza and Alec/Edward/Nicholas shopping in the supermarket, and in a couple other places -- but overall this was worst book in the series so far, and if it had come earlier on I don't know if I would have continued. But I have invested a lot of time in this series and these characters, and there's only one book left, so I just hope that the conclusion puts right the things that went horrible wrong here.
Unfortunately, I absolutely hated Baker's rendition of the major characters. Mendoza as an amnesiac was fine, though without her memory she also lost the passionate ferocity that made her so winning. But in this book Alec became a caricature, nothing but the squeamish child of the future that he struggled so hard to rebel against in The Life of the World to Come; Nicholas Harpole's faith was broken and, while that's understandable, Baker's treatment of it wasn't particularly gripping; and Edward, who at the start of the book was the only man of the three worthy of Mendoza, maintaining both his adulthood and his faith in Reason, quickly degenerated into a single-minded fanatic. While I agreed with Joseph's assessment of Nicholas' type in Sky Coyote, I could understand Mendoza's love for him because he did cut a wonderfully romantic ideal -- but that ideal is totally lost in this book, and I was left wanting to consign all three of them to Options Research.
The worst tragedy for me, however, was that Joseph returned to the scene, and he got worked over far worse than Mendoza's loves did. He's been rogue since the end of The Graveyard Game, working on repairing Budu, and that time alone under Mount Tamalpais has apparently driven him insane. (How did his sanity hold up under 20,000 years of humanity's most horrifying acts, then break after only a couple of decades under the California coast?) The Joseph of The Machine's Child is a snivelling, whiny, twerp whose fixation on Mendoza is a bit creepy, and his father Budu doesn't seem like much of a prize either. I wanted to throw the book across the room every time a section from Joseph's perspective appeared.
In fact, many things made me want to throw this book across the room. There was a great deal of cheap conflict arising from characters not taking two seconds to talk to one another; Joseph appears to have completely forgotten about Lewis, who I thought was his friend; the Mars Two thing still just doesn't feel real enough for so many characters to harp on it (though to be fair, that's a problem with The Life of the World to Come, not this volume). It wasn't all bad -- I did giggle at Mendoza and Alec/Edward/Nicholas shopping in the supermarket, and in a couple other places -- but overall this was worst book in the series so far, and if it had come earlier on I don't know if I would have continued. But I have invested a lot of time in this series and these characters, and there's only one book left, so I just hope that the conclusion puts right the things that went horrible wrong here.
January 19, 2010
Despite my earlier glowing review of Kage Baker, I've read three of her books in as many weeks, and I have a complaint to lodge.
Kage: you know I love the witty, well-realized worlds you create. The snappy dialogue. The varied, engaging characters. The compelling conflicts. All the ingredients are there; why can you not turn them into a story? Why does basic Aristotelean plot structure so totally elude you? My response to coming to end of each of your books has been "What? Am I missing pages?" That's lazy book-writing, Petey.
Kage: you know I love the witty, well-realized worlds you create. The snappy dialogue. The varied, engaging characters. The compelling conflicts. All the ingredients are there; why can you not turn them into a story? Why does basic Aristotelean plot structure so totally elude you? My response to coming to end of each of your books has been "What? Am I missing pages?" That's lazy book-writing, Petey.
April 6, 2010
This volume took me longer to get through than any of the other Company books because it was rather unfocused and unsatisfying. There didn't seem to be much happening; the characters spent the book transitioning and setting things up for the final showdown with Dr. Zeus.
Mendoza is a shadow of her former self, and I was really annoyed with how she's infantilized here. Nicholas/Edward/Alec taking advantage of her lack of memory just left me feeling ick over and over and over.
I also couldn't figure out Edward's and Alec's attachments to her. The author has satisfactorily explained the spiffy persuasion powers that they have that made Mendoza obsessed with them, I can buy that. I can also buy that Nicholas spent a significant enough amount of time with her in In the Garden of Iden to have fallen for her, too. But Edward and Alec both knew her only briefly, and yet this book is filled with their fierce desire to possess and protect her.
Joseph's character seemed off, especially after The Graveyard Game. I can't put my finger on what it is exactly, but he didn't seem like the same Joseph we've been reading about up to this point.
I do have to give the author props for managing to make Nicholas/Edward/Alec three very distinct personalities. Even with their situation, there was never any confusion about which one of them was talking, and each of their different motivations felt very authentic.
Mendoza is a shadow of her former self, and I was really annoyed with how she's infantilized here. Nicholas/Edward/Alec taking advantage of her lack of memory just left me feeling ick over and over and over.
I also couldn't figure out Edward's and Alec's attachments to her. The author has satisfactorily explained the spiffy persuasion powers that they have that made Mendoza obsessed with them, I can buy that. I can also buy that Nicholas spent a significant enough amount of time with her in In the Garden of Iden to have fallen for her, too. But Edward and Alec both knew her only briefly, and yet this book is filled with their fierce desire to possess and protect her.
Joseph's character seemed off, especially after The Graveyard Game. I can't put my finger on what it is exactly, but he didn't seem like the same Joseph we've been reading about up to this point.
I do have to give the author props for managing to make Nicholas/Edward/Alec three very distinct personalities. Even with their situation, there was never any confusion about which one of them was talking, and each of their different motivations felt very authentic.
February 22, 2015
November 11, 2006
Loved it. The series kicks over into serious goofiness, if you will, with three bickering lovers-of-Mendoza inhabiting a single body. Full-on robot screwball. With pontificating.
***
February 7, 2015
I have more issues this time with the issue of consent, but also much more pleasure from the screwball aspect. Time-traveling space pirates, oi! The covers still look like hell to me, though.
Library copy
Loved it. The series kicks over into serious goofiness, if you will, with three bickering lovers-of-Mendoza inhabiting a single body. Full-on robot screwball. With pontificating.
***
February 7, 2015
I have more issues this time with the issue of consent, but also much more pleasure from the screwball aspect. Time-traveling space pirates, oi! The covers still look like hell to me, though.
Library copy
June 26, 2010
While I love Kage Baker's "The Company" series, this installment is probably my least favorite.
Alec and Captain Morgan (his AI) are back and are on the hunt through time to rescue Mendoza from Options Research. Along for the ride are Nicholas Harpole and Edward Bell-Fairfax who are now integrated into Alec's brain and the three must fight for control of Alec's body. Three, under the guidance of Captain Morgan, soon realize the true horror of the company and swear to bring it to its knees. Step One: Rescue Mendoza. Step Two: Find out all they can about project Adonai. Step Three: Cripple the Company. A secondary plot also surrounds Joseph and Budu plotting for 2355. Suleyman and Latif also make a few appearances.
Enjoyable read but as I don't particularly like Alec, it was a lot tougher for me to get into the story over normal. More than anything this was a book bridging the gap between the two halves of the series and setting up for "Sons of Heaven".
Alec and Captain Morgan (his AI) are back and are on the hunt through time to rescue Mendoza from Options Research. Along for the ride are Nicholas Harpole and Edward Bell-Fairfax who are now integrated into Alec's brain and the three must fight for control of Alec's body. Three, under the guidance of Captain Morgan, soon realize the true horror of the company and swear to bring it to its knees. Step One: Rescue Mendoza. Step Two: Find out all they can about project Adonai. Step Three: Cripple the Company. A secondary plot also surrounds Joseph and Budu plotting for 2355. Suleyman and Latif also make a few appearances.
Enjoyable read but as I don't particularly like Alec, it was a lot tougher for me to get into the story over normal. More than anything this was a book bridging the gap between the two halves of the series and setting up for "Sons of Heaven".
March 10, 2010
It took me a while to figure out that the title is about parent/child relationships: Josephus and Budu's child, Mendoza and Josephus' child, and Alec as the Captain's child. As always, I enjoyed the Captain tremendously, but I do not like Edward or Nicholas, so the relationships with Mendoza got old, fast. In addition, romance with a brain-washed magical woman who is almost programmed to adore her jerk lover is not my thing.
December 8, 2021
I love this series. I did not LOVE this entry. I liked it well enough. I had some problems with the flow of it, mainly. It doesn't seem to have the same ability to give you resolution the way the other books do. This review is FILLED with spoilers.
Things I Liked:
All the fun of finally getting to see characters time traveling back and forth of their own free will and volition, opting to meet Shakespeare and Robert Louis Stevenson. Those parts were great.
Joseph trying to prevent Alec from ever being born was pretty funny. His failed revenge scheme in Jamaica was...bizarrely funny.
The weird guy at the other end of time and wondering what his deal was. I'm still wondering what his deal was...it wasn't really explained what the hell he was doing there.
Suleyman and Latif being fucking badasses and saving the imprisoned immortals who had been imprisoned along with Mendoza. I wish there was more backstory on how Nefer was Latif's adopted mother and raised him with Suleyman, because that sounds like it could have worked great as a chapter on its own.
Some of the more philosophical passages about Nicholas and Edward being disembodied programs who are now living parallel to Alec and he occasionally lets them have control. Some of the arguing and fighting could have been more interesting. It just came across as tedious after a while. I liked the process of them working together as a team.
Mendoza and Alec in the 1990s trudging around a supermarket and marveling at the time before it all went to hell gave me remarkable deja vu. Kage predicted correctly about how freedom of speech would go out the window and she saw the rise of vegetarianism as a political movement, which is increasingly making it into the news these days. The fact that she predicted the fall of America and civil war would occur by the 2030s is not far off from what could happen. She also posits that in Alec's time, all vices have been banned: alcohol, sugar, caffeine, tobacco, everything that costs money in a socialist medical system will be banned. And I have to wonder how far off her prediction will be in the coming years. It doesn't seem that unlikely at this point.
Things I Didn't Like:
The reconstruction of Mendoza's body resulting in her being physically 14 was...not comfortable for me. I decided not to picture this at all. I just kept picturing Mendoza at an immortal 18. Because otherwise it's just unfortunately gross.
I really wish I could like Captain Henry Morgan more. He starts to become less one-note near the end, but for the most part I really wanted him to give us more of what he was thinking in terms of the big picture regarding Mendoza.
I really didn't like him going along with the delusions Alec was feeding Mendoza. In fact, this really irritated me and kind of ruined both of their characters for me. They're lying to her about Alec being an immortal cyborg just like her when he was genetically created and therefore a unique Company experiment? How does that even make sense? Why do you need to protect her from that to begin with? What? This was a really stupid thing for both of these characters to do and one of them is supposed to be a remarkably brilliant AI. This plotline really doesn't bring anything to the overall story and we don't even get to see a major fight over it when she realizes he lied. It was a cop out not to have any consequences over that at all. The story didn't need that plot point because it barely resulted in conflict, and it should have. It just didn't fit. There was enough conflict going on over Edward, since his character went full insane evil scientist.
Which brings me to how gross it is that Edward plotted to be reincarnated as Mendoza's baby.
What.
Just.
I just...
No. Stop that. Amazingly, this was a plot that American Dad used at one point where Hayley gave birth to Jeff after he had been abducted by aliens. I haven't seen much of that show since I saw that episode. Because...ew.
Okay, apart from the absurdity of that, why wouldn't you just try and wait for the day that technology could give you a clone body or something. How about not leaping right to that as a solution. It's just very uncomfortable. The fact that he tries to convince her to give birth to a baby and she wouldn't even know it's Edward is beyond creepy.
So that brings us to the ending, which had one of the most unexpected scenes in all of literature.
So, they are wind up in the deep past again, but it's not that deep. The furthest back you can go is the research center Alec and company steal from, where the one human guy has been leading a very boring life with AIs. Is he brainwashed or does he not know that he's interacting with artificial intelligences? There's a "Lost" style mystery of him pushing a button in a room somewhere, and it's important for the Company...very important. But vague. I'm thinking it has something to do with keeping time travel possible for them later on?
Anyway, so at the end, it's very unexplained, but Mendoza downloads all of the Captain's information about the Company and she almost goes catatonic because it's way too much for her. Presumably she understands everything that we the readers understand and more. The Captain is somehow suddenly more than a hologram? I think?
Keep in mind, they are back in time maybe 300,000 years in the past. 500,000 is the absolute limit.
So then Alec gets hacked by Edward and he locks Alec's consciousness up inside a virtual prison along with Nicholas, betraying them both. Edward Bell Fairfax Alton is a cunt. He has a cunt name, and he's just a cunt of a disembodied clone spirit. So he takes over, and then...
Are you fucking ready for this one?
A fucking ichthyosaur jumps out of the water and bites his fucking leg off.
An ichthyosaur. They died out 65 million years ago, but Kage magically brings one up, and we are left with questions. How did the ichthyosaur not die off? Did we never find its remains from the age of the dinosaurs til now but it was there, swimming around? I mean, it defies logic, yes, but in a fun way. Because at this point, I really didn't want Alec to get hurt, but something had to stop Edward, so it may as well been the most random ever surprise "dinosaurs aren't actually extinct" scene I've ever read...and I did not see that coming...at all.
Sure it may be possible that ichthyosaurs were somehow around a few hundred thousand years ago and that they went extinct between then and now. Science fiction is goofy. Sometimes, you have scenes which are more out there than others. I know I'll never forget that scene.
I hate to give this book a 3 because I love the series as a whole. But it irritated me. I waded through parts of it and I'm definitely enjoying the last book in the series, Sons of Heaven, much more than I did this book. So I can report that it does get better. I am only 10% into SOH but so far so good.
Things I Liked:
All the fun of finally getting to see characters time traveling back and forth of their own free will and volition, opting to meet Shakespeare and Robert Louis Stevenson. Those parts were great.
Joseph trying to prevent Alec from ever being born was pretty funny. His failed revenge scheme in Jamaica was...bizarrely funny.
The weird guy at the other end of time and wondering what his deal was. I'm still wondering what his deal was...it wasn't really explained what the hell he was doing there.
Suleyman and Latif being fucking badasses and saving the imprisoned immortals who had been imprisoned along with Mendoza. I wish there was more backstory on how Nefer was Latif's adopted mother and raised him with Suleyman, because that sounds like it could have worked great as a chapter on its own.
Some of the more philosophical passages about Nicholas and Edward being disembodied programs who are now living parallel to Alec and he occasionally lets them have control. Some of the arguing and fighting could have been more interesting. It just came across as tedious after a while. I liked the process of them working together as a team.
Mendoza and Alec in the 1990s trudging around a supermarket and marveling at the time before it all went to hell gave me remarkable deja vu. Kage predicted correctly about how freedom of speech would go out the window and she saw the rise of vegetarianism as a political movement, which is increasingly making it into the news these days. The fact that she predicted the fall of America and civil war would occur by the 2030s is not far off from what could happen. She also posits that in Alec's time, all vices have been banned: alcohol, sugar, caffeine, tobacco, everything that costs money in a socialist medical system will be banned. And I have to wonder how far off her prediction will be in the coming years. It doesn't seem that unlikely at this point.
Things I Didn't Like:
The reconstruction of Mendoza's body resulting in her being physically 14 was...not comfortable for me. I decided not to picture this at all. I just kept picturing Mendoza at an immortal 18. Because otherwise it's just unfortunately gross.
I really wish I could like Captain Henry Morgan more. He starts to become less one-note near the end, but for the most part I really wanted him to give us more of what he was thinking in terms of the big picture regarding Mendoza.
I really didn't like him going along with the delusions Alec was feeding Mendoza. In fact, this really irritated me and kind of ruined both of their characters for me. They're lying to her about Alec being an immortal cyborg just like her when he was genetically created and therefore a unique Company experiment? How does that even make sense? Why do you need to protect her from that to begin with? What? This was a really stupid thing for both of these characters to do and one of them is supposed to be a remarkably brilliant AI. This plotline really doesn't bring anything to the overall story and we don't even get to see a major fight over it when she realizes he lied. It was a cop out not to have any consequences over that at all. The story didn't need that plot point because it barely resulted in conflict, and it should have. It just didn't fit. There was enough conflict going on over Edward, since his character went full insane evil scientist.
Which brings me to how gross it is that Edward plotted to be reincarnated as Mendoza's baby.
What.
Just.
I just...
No. Stop that. Amazingly, this was a plot that American Dad used at one point where Hayley gave birth to Jeff after he had been abducted by aliens. I haven't seen much of that show since I saw that episode. Because...ew.
Okay, apart from the absurdity of that, why wouldn't you just try and wait for the day that technology could give you a clone body or something. How about not leaping right to that as a solution. It's just very uncomfortable. The fact that he tries to convince her to give birth to a baby and she wouldn't even know it's Edward is beyond creepy.
So that brings us to the ending, which had one of the most unexpected scenes in all of literature.
So, they are wind up in the deep past again, but it's not that deep. The furthest back you can go is the research center Alec and company steal from, where the one human guy has been leading a very boring life with AIs. Is he brainwashed or does he not know that he's interacting with artificial intelligences? There's a "Lost" style mystery of him pushing a button in a room somewhere, and it's important for the Company...very important. But vague. I'm thinking it has something to do with keeping time travel possible for them later on?
Anyway, so at the end, it's very unexplained, but Mendoza downloads all of the Captain's information about the Company and she almost goes catatonic because it's way too much for her. Presumably she understands everything that we the readers understand and more. The Captain is somehow suddenly more than a hologram? I think?
Keep in mind, they are back in time maybe 300,000 years in the past. 500,000 is the absolute limit.
So then Alec gets hacked by Edward and he locks Alec's consciousness up inside a virtual prison along with Nicholas, betraying them both. Edward Bell Fairfax Alton is a cunt. He has a cunt name, and he's just a cunt of a disembodied clone spirit. So he takes over, and then...
Are you fucking ready for this one?
A fucking ichthyosaur jumps out of the water and bites his fucking leg off.
An ichthyosaur. They died out 65 million years ago, but Kage magically brings one up, and we are left with questions. How did the ichthyosaur not die off? Did we never find its remains from the age of the dinosaurs til now but it was there, swimming around? I mean, it defies logic, yes, but in a fun way. Because at this point, I really didn't want Alec to get hurt, but something had to stop Edward, so it may as well been the most random ever surprise "dinosaurs aren't actually extinct" scene I've ever read...and I did not see that coming...at all.
Sure it may be possible that ichthyosaurs were somehow around a few hundred thousand years ago and that they went extinct between then and now. Science fiction is goofy. Sometimes, you have scenes which are more out there than others. I know I'll never forget that scene.
I hate to give this book a 3 because I love the series as a whole. But it irritated me. I waded through parts of it and I'm definitely enjoying the last book in the series, Sons of Heaven, much more than I did this book. So I can report that it does get better. I am only 10% into SOH but so far so good.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 8, 2016
The Company series began with a strong first novel, "In the Garden of Iden." Baker's knowledge of Elizabethan England, plus some fairly strong characterization, made for a compelling read. At the end of that book, our Mary Sue heroine's lover dies a martyr's death. The second book, "Sky Coyote," shows a second immortal, Joseph, saving a primitive tribe from genocide. Again, this was a strong book, with convincing historical and anthropological details, and no love interest. Alas, beginning with the third book, "Mendoza in Hollywood," we return to Mary Sue Land, with the lover from book one somehow resurrected. He dies horribly, too, only to show up in later books in yet a third incarnation. By the current book, all three of these men cohabit the body of the third incarnation, Alec. How? Don't ask. This is fantasy pretending it's SF. "The Machine's Child" is an Anglophile Mary Sue's wet dream, with Englishmen from Elizabethan, Victorian, and the future all vying for a chance to inhabit the one body they share so they can jump Mary Sue's (Mendoza's) bones. They cruise the world and through time, shopping and having sex. Mendoza, once smart and sassy (and likable) has become a giggling bimbo. Joseph, too, bears little resemblance to the smart, competent Facilitator we saw in "Sky Coyote." And through it all, Alec's childhood AI play friend, Captain Morgan, continues to ramble on in his annoying Talk Like a Pirate Day shtick.
Ten years ago, these books seemed a lot of fun. They haven't held up very well. I signed on to re-read them, but getting through this one was a slog. I hope the final book is better, though I'm not holding my breath.
Ten years ago, these books seemed a lot of fun. They haven't held up very well. I signed on to re-read them, but getting through this one was a slog. I hope the final book is better, though I'm not holding my breath.
October 9, 2011
I've been working my way through this series slowly. (No rush now, since there's no more to come... :-( )
The last few entries into the series have been wildly divergent, focusing on different characters, times, and places - but with 'The Machine's Child,' the different strands of this time-travel story rejoin.
The botanist Mendoza's three true loves: the 23rd-century aristo Alec Checkerfield, the Elizabethan religious zealot Nicholas, and the Victorian assassin Edward, are all stuck in one body, sharing (and bickering over) control and consciousness.
Mendoza is (unfortunately) stuck in an amnesiac 14-yr-old body for the bulk of the novel. As the strongest character in the series, this creates a void where her forceful passions would have been...
Still, it was fascinating to see Baker bring elements of her epic together here, and lay more clues as to what horrific events may occur in 2355.
I've managed to avoid spoilers so far... on to the last two books, soon!
The last few entries into the series have been wildly divergent, focusing on different characters, times, and places - but with 'The Machine's Child,' the different strands of this time-travel story rejoin.
The botanist Mendoza's three true loves: the 23rd-century aristo Alec Checkerfield, the Elizabethan religious zealot Nicholas, and the Victorian assassin Edward, are all stuck in one body, sharing (and bickering over) control and consciousness.
Mendoza is (unfortunately) stuck in an amnesiac 14-yr-old body for the bulk of the novel. As the strongest character in the series, this creates a void where her forceful passions would have been...
Still, it was fascinating to see Baker bring elements of her epic together here, and lay more clues as to what horrific events may occur in 2355.
I've managed to avoid spoilers so far... on to the last two books, soon!
February 20, 2011
You can't kill an immortal cyborg, but you can spend eternity trying. This time Mendoza has been sentenced to Options Research, where they do just that. When her triune lover Nicholas/Edward/Alec rescue her and discover what has been done to her, they plot vengeance on the company--and their own incarnations--come the Silence of 2355. Meanwhile, Mendoza's father-figure Joseph is on a similar quest of his own--one that brings him into conflict with Alec. Very good, although for much of this book one gets the feeling that Baker is setting the scene for the next book--it has that sort of transitional feel.
November 4, 2012
I started the series greatly enjoying the contrasts between women's roles throughout the eras and the ability to overcome those boundaries, but ended up getting bored with what seemed more like magical flitting back and forth between events without any overarching direction except the desire to rule all the world all the time. The Russian doll concept of the Company ends up being trite, and the battle between the Immortals and the real Company, while I am sure is full of deep symbolism, struck me as being trite and too easily devolved into magic scenarios.I think the fact that I hate the laziness of just so stories (and it just happened!Magic!) probably accounts for my boredom.
May 5, 2008
Readable, much lighter tone, though this Company series installment indulges in some of the glib cheekiness that sometimes annoys me with Baker's books. But the story is fairly compelling, even if the seams in the "fix-up" (these later Company books were obviously assembled from short stories previously published in SF magazines) show a bit. Still, very readable as all Baker's Company books have been.
January 19, 2009
a great conceit, but irritating after a while. this is one of those books you flip through for plot alone.
November 24, 2024
Kage Baker passed the mortal coil on Jan 31, 2010. A brilliant author, who often frustrated her readers by her regular ways of thinking several stories ahead. She regularly sets readers up in obscure ways leaving small clues, like multiple-small easter-eggs, providing important clues to upcoming events. Many stories in The Company series in the first five-primary works cast a mist over the reader’s ability to grasp the context. Then we begin to get the first solid clues, particularly in Book 7. Even here, readers must get to Book 8 for the finale.
Children of the Machine ties the series plot lines together. Yet, some readers come away perplexed by the conditions and emotional turmoil her characters must reconcile themselves to. Here is an example:
Joseph has been fixated on botanist Mendoza. He is a Dr. Zeus, The Company, facilitator who decides not to report Mendoza’s capacity to generate mental waves that might affect time travel and perceptions. These chrom generators play important parts in her story. Joseph sees her as his protege, and like other Company field-operatives, may single out specific recruits as surrogate sons or daughters. Joseph himself referred to his recruiter and original trainer as his “father.” Emotional ties build over centuries or for some even over millennia. These growing subconscious shadows sometimes break through. When this happens to Joseph, he has to be allowed to get stuck and then begin the difficult process of resetting himself, getting his mind straight, with the patient, but not so-gentle guidance of his surrogate father. After all, they have known each other since the days when Joseph;s father painted the famous caves tens of millennia ago. That is a long time together shadows gather.
Another is the reference to Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax as an eighteenth-century James Bond, a prototype British hero incarnate—Mendoza in Hollywood. There is a sequel, Not Less Than Gods, that looks into Bell-Fairfax’s birth, conditioning, training, and development from his inception in 1824 as a creature of The Company. Be prepared for a paradox or at least a chicken or the egg scenario. We have not read this one yet, but will after Lynn and I read or rather listen to “The Sons of Heaven,” Book 8.
There was also an episode in an earlier novel where it seems each of the related versions of the Edward operative, the Tudor version, the Victorian, and the 24th-century version, each have their own physical bodies existing and working together in the 24th century. Book 8 should confirm this and explain other important plot elements. The point is for listeners and readers to watch for those Easter eggs ;)
A major theme in my reviews is to empower readers and provide broader context for both nonfiction and fiction books. I hope this helps…
With Children of the Machine, Book 7, we finally can comprehend most of what has been done to set up the final conflict for the next book. Every book, except one, which is more of a cozy romance, has aspects of a mystery story, so as noted above, Watch for clues. If this were an English class, it would be on the midterm and possibly the final. Yes, I was a supplementary instructor at De Anza College in California years ago :)
Baker’s brilliance is not always matched by recalling past clues. They needed a character like Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series or like Homes himself, to summarize those clues for the listeners or readers. Remember Peter Falk as Colombo?
This why I award three Stars *** for Choldren of the Machine, instead of four.
Children of the Machine ties the series plot lines together. Yet, some readers come away perplexed by the conditions and emotional turmoil her characters must reconcile themselves to. Here is an example:
Joseph has been fixated on botanist Mendoza. He is a Dr. Zeus, The Company, facilitator who decides not to report Mendoza’s capacity to generate mental waves that might affect time travel and perceptions. These chrom generators play important parts in her story. Joseph sees her as his protege, and like other Company field-operatives, may single out specific recruits as surrogate sons or daughters. Joseph himself referred to his recruiter and original trainer as his “father.” Emotional ties build over centuries or for some even over millennia. These growing subconscious shadows sometimes break through. When this happens to Joseph, he has to be allowed to get stuck and then begin the difficult process of resetting himself, getting his mind straight, with the patient, but not so-gentle guidance of his surrogate father. After all, they have known each other since the days when Joseph;s father painted the famous caves tens of millennia ago. That is a long time together shadows gather.
Another is the reference to Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax as an eighteenth-century James Bond, a prototype British hero incarnate—Mendoza in Hollywood. There is a sequel, Not Less Than Gods, that looks into Bell-Fairfax’s birth, conditioning, training, and development from his inception in 1824 as a creature of The Company. Be prepared for a paradox or at least a chicken or the egg scenario. We have not read this one yet, but will after Lynn and I read or rather listen to “The Sons of Heaven,” Book 8.
There was also an episode in an earlier novel where it seems each of the related versions of the Edward operative, the Tudor version, the Victorian, and the 24th-century version, each have their own physical bodies existing and working together in the 24th century. Book 8 should confirm this and explain other important plot elements. The point is for listeners and readers to watch for those Easter eggs ;)
A major theme in my reviews is to empower readers and provide broader context for both nonfiction and fiction books. I hope this helps…
With Children of the Machine, Book 7, we finally can comprehend most of what has been done to set up the final conflict for the next book. Every book, except one, which is more of a cozy romance, has aspects of a mystery story, so as noted above, Watch for clues. If this were an English class, it would be on the midterm and possibly the final. Yes, I was a supplementary instructor at De Anza College in California years ago :)
Baker’s brilliance is not always matched by recalling past clues. They needed a character like Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series or like Homes himself, to summarize those clues for the listeners or readers. Remember Peter Falk as Colombo?
This why I award three Stars *** for Choldren of the Machine, instead of four.
April 15, 2018
This was fun, but it’s not quite up to the standard of the first four books in this series.
So Mendoza has been rescued, which is great. And in this book, she and Alec sail all over (through time, as well as space) in his pirate ship, looking for bits of his DNA so they can make him immortal too. They have lots of adventures along the way, and I enjoy the world that Kage Baker has created, with its intricate layers of mortals and immortals, all interacting without always realizing it. But there aren’t any amazing plot twists in this one, and the ending seems rather inconclusive.
Inside Alec’s head there exist the personalities of his past two lifetimes – Nicholas and Edward – both of whom Mendoza fell in love with at various points in history. The three argue a lot, and try to wrest control of the body. For some reason, Alec never mentions this to Mendoza, who thinks he’s a bit brain-damaged, or perhaps a multiple personality.
In fact, quite a few things are kept from Mendoza, and her recent trauma has also induced some amnesia. So in this book, she doesn’t have her usual flash. She just goes along with all the things that Alec, or his alter egos, come up with, like a good little woman. So you have all this “great love” stuff, but the actual lovers seem bland, in spite of the glamor of their lifestyle.
Meanwhile, Captain Morgan, the electronic entity who controls the ship and protects Alec, communicates with all three of them and with Mendoza besides. He’s actually the most vivid character in this one. There are a lot of tussles for power between him and Alec’s alter egos, since each of them has his own agenda, and the Captain is trying to keep Alec alive and in command. Alec is traumatized from his recent (inadvertent) role in a mass murder, so he doesn’t have a lot of bounce in this book either.
So Mendoza has been rescued, which is great. And in this book, she and Alec sail all over (through time, as well as space) in his pirate ship, looking for bits of his DNA so they can make him immortal too. They have lots of adventures along the way, and I enjoy the world that Kage Baker has created, with its intricate layers of mortals and immortals, all interacting without always realizing it. But there aren’t any amazing plot twists in this one, and the ending seems rather inconclusive.
Inside Alec’s head there exist the personalities of his past two lifetimes – Nicholas and Edward – both of whom Mendoza fell in love with at various points in history. The three argue a lot, and try to wrest control of the body. For some reason, Alec never mentions this to Mendoza, who thinks he’s a bit brain-damaged, or perhaps a multiple personality.
In fact, quite a few things are kept from Mendoza, and her recent trauma has also induced some amnesia. So in this book, she doesn’t have her usual flash. She just goes along with all the things that Alec, or his alter egos, come up with, like a good little woman. So you have all this “great love” stuff, but the actual lovers seem bland, in spite of the glamor of their lifestyle.
Meanwhile, Captain Morgan, the electronic entity who controls the ship and protects Alec, communicates with all three of them and with Mendoza besides. He’s actually the most vivid character in this one. There are a lot of tussles for power between him and Alec’s alter egos, since each of them has his own agenda, and the Captain is trying to keep Alec alive and in command. Alec is traumatized from his recent (inadvertent) role in a mass murder, so he doesn’t have a lot of bounce in this book either.
September 23, 2019
I used to ask myself: "Self, why did you never finish the Company novels? You really loved that series."
Then I got to the 95% mark of this one, and remembered why. This is where Baker loses the plot.
The only worthwhile part of this book is Joseph, and the only scene that made me laugh was between Joseph and Mendoza. What a sad come-down for the series; but it only gets worse from here.
Then I got to the 95% mark of this one, and remembered why. This is where Baker loses the plot.
The only worthwhile part of this book is Joseph, and the only scene that made me laugh was between Joseph and Mendoza. What a sad come-down for the series; but it only gets worse from here.
May 8, 2018
All the layers that author Kage Baker has built up in her Company series are starting to unpeel, or maybe it’s better to say all the threads she has woven into the tapestry that is The Company series are finally making a complete scene—or else they are all unraveling. What with all the time travel and characters (mortal, immortal, and recombinant) going rogue, it’s a bit hard to tell sometimes. But really, the series is building to a climax and this installment moves the plot along smartly.
August 7, 2018
Mendoza’s Back in a fury of blue flame
Absolutely great Company novel. The intriguing search for Mendoza by Joseph and Alec flits through time and space and ends in a spectacular fight in the Caribbean, home to pirates. Lots of suspense and action in this one as we get closer and closer to the year of 2355 when the lights go out for The Company. The last few pages are quite exciting and surprising. Can’t wait to get to the next in the series.
Absolutely great Company novel. The intriguing search for Mendoza by Joseph and Alec flits through time and space and ends in a spectacular fight in the Caribbean, home to pirates. Lots of suspense and action in this one as we get closer and closer to the year of 2355 when the lights go out for The Company. The last few pages are quite exciting and surprising. Can’t wait to get to the next in the series.
January 12, 2020
I think I may have missed a few installments that are needed for a full understanding of this series.
I enjoy Kage Baker, and The Company Series, but this is the first time I feel like I should have read them in the correct order.
I've read bits and pieces of all of the characters stories, but not enough to put it all together here.
I enjoy Kage Baker, and The Company Series, but this is the first time I feel like I should have read them in the correct order.
I've read bits and pieces of all of the characters stories, but not enough to put it all together here.
August 4, 2020
https://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2020/0...
So a lot happens in this book, but also nothing really happens in this book? It goes to some frankly creepy places and I am really not sure I like where it landed. I am still invested in Mendoza, and the pirate AI, and Joseph, and Suleyman and Latif, but I am pretty worried about where things are heading. B.
So a lot happens in this book, but also nothing really happens in this book? It goes to some frankly creepy places and I am really not sure I like where it landed. I am still invested in Mendoza, and the pirate AI, and Joseph, and Suleyman and Latif, but I am pretty worried about where things are heading. B.
July 10, 2023
I have enjoyed The Company books in the past but this one was pretty convoluted, even if you know the characters and backstory (it would be completely impossible for anyone who had not read all the earlier books).
There's also a lot of plot points that haven't aged well and are now pretty cringey...
In the end, I couldn't get into it enough and ended up putting it aside.
There's also a lot of plot points that haven't aged well and are now pretty cringey...
In the end, I couldn't get into it enough and ended up putting it aside.
May 17, 2024
I loved all of the previous books, and then... this mess. First, why did the author decide to reincarnate Mendoza as a 14 year old who has a sexual relationship with the fully adult character? What a choice. I also didn't enjoy the constant arguing between three characters in one body; it grew very tiresome. Overall, it lacked all the charm of its predecessors.
December 25, 2018
I'll admit that these books are blending together, and I'm becoming impatient to find out what happens in the year 2355. The world keeps expanding, and I'm having trouble remembering what I need to, but still along for the ride.
July 24, 2019
This is brilliant as usual, but this series is very intricately plotted, and I had great difficulty remembering who all the characters were and what they had done and why. A plot synopsis of the previous books at the beginning would have been very useful.
October 18, 2020
The series comes to a head in this version. It's an interesting construction: in some ways the scope of the story shrinks in comparison to the other novels, but this volume's sweep through time the grandest of the lot. Well crafted.
July 6, 2017
Love the series as a whole, but this is a pretty weak installment.
December 27, 2017
love how everything is starting to tie back together
April 22, 2020
Rescued by Cyborg Captain Morgan, Mendoza joins with her psychically conjoined lovers Nicholas, Edward and Alex, to attack The Company.
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