The Return of Santiago

Santiago #2

by Mike Resnick

They say his father was a comet and his mother a cosmic wind, that he juggled planets as if they were feathers and wrestled with black holes just to work up an appetite. They say he never slept, that his eyes burned brighter than a nova, that his shout could level mountains. That he killed a thousand men, and saved a hundred worlds.They called him Santiago.Bandit, assassin, rebel, thief, he strode across the galactic rim, blazing a legend as rich and wild as the Inner Frontier itself. Then, at the height of his glory, he vanished, leaving behind a trail as elusive as starlight in the empty realms of space. Now, a century later, the name of Santiago is once again whispered along the Galactic Rim ....

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Audiobook

Audible Audio

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

Michael "Mike" Diamond Resnick, better known by his published name Mike Resnick, was a popular and prolific American science fiction author. He is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He was the winner of five Hugos, a Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Croatia and Poland. and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy and Australia. He was the author of 68 novels, over 250 stories, and 2 screenplays, and was the editor of 41 anthologies. His work has been translated into 25 languages. He was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon and can be found online as @ResnickMike on Twitter or at www.mikeresnick.com.

Reviews

[Lynn]

Today's post is 'The Return of Santiago' by Mike Resnick. It is 464 pages long and published by TOR. This is a sequel to Santiago also by Mike Resnick. If you have not read either Mike Resnick before or Santiago stop reading this right now and get to your library. Go get some of his stuff, read it and thank me later. I am going to be putting in some changes to my reviewing because I got a professional to read one of my reviews and give me some help. A very big thanks to Angela Leonard from http://darkfaerietales.com/ for taking the time to read and critique my review. So on to the review.

Santiago is a myth of the Far Future. In the year 3407 the democracy is as greedy as ever. More and more of people's rights are being taken in the name of safety. Danny Briggs is just a thief with a forgettable face. But he is on the run from the law. He takes refuge in an abandoned house. In the attic there a treasure just waiting for the universe to remember it. The poem by Black Orpheus the poet who wrote about everyone who was anyone in the Inner Frontier. Briggs grew up on his tales and legends and the biggest one of all was Santiago. As Briggs reads all of the poem he realizes that Santiago was more than just an outlaw he was a revolutionary, out in the darkness to make the democracy remember that it was to help people not just take from them. So Danny decides that it is time for Santiago to return to the Inner Frontier, time to give the people someone to believe in, someone to fear and more than anything something to hope for again.

Resnick's style is as always wonderful to read. He is a poet not just with the four lines that start each chapter but with the characters in the story. They all come alive as you read them. I loved watching Briggs become Alighieri then into more than he ever dreamed. He is the only one who really changes over the course of the story but he is main character so he is the only one who really needs to change. That said other characters do appear to change but as you read the story you will understand that they are not changing but just revealing parts of their personalities that we did not see before.

Rating five of five stars, ten out of ten, this is another wonderful story from Resnick. Please feel free to tell me what you think about the new review style, what you like, don't like and everything else.

[Ron]

“Look around the galaxy and you’d be hard-pressed to prove that intelligence is a survival trait.”

A hundred years after Santiago runs roughshod over the galaxy’s Mid Frontier, the need for him is just a great. No nearly as much fun as Myth. Too straightforward and linear. Everyone is who they seem; boring. It’s all too easy. Still, it’s good, clean fun.

“He’s out there somewhere. But he doesn’t know he’s Santiago.”

The closing plot twist is inevitable and foreshadowed long before. Some technical quibbles, but no worst than most modern science fiction. More typos than would be accounted for by sloppy optical character scanning.

“You’re absolutely sure you’re right?” “I’m absolutely certain that I hope I’m right.”

[Kirt]

This is a space western. Each chapter introduced a different bounty hunter/gunfighter/lawman, another strange alien, a different saloon, a different planet. It was the Star Wars cantina scene again and again and again. Creative and entertaining but ultimately predictable -- you see the end coming from 200 pages away.

[Randy]

Ugh.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Resnick is usually my go-to guy for escapist space-cowboy fantasy, but this book, sequel to the serviceable Santiago, is crap. I spent at least 200 pages thinking, "Because YOU ARE SANTIAGO!!!" How much farther in advance could Resnick have tipped his hand?

Not good. Pick a different Resnick book.

[Sublimacia]

Santiágo je srdcovka a aj keď sa druhá časť nedá kvalitatívne zrovnávať s prvou, aj tak som si to dobrodružstvo užil. Strieľa sa tam, takže to pre mňa nebolo také ťažké.

Santiágo je mŕtvy, nech žije Santiágo! ... aj keď tu je tých mŕtvych Santiágov nejako veľa. Možno sú ale jak Nutella a nikdy ich nie je dosť :-o

Jednotka určite stojí za to ... dvojka je skôr pre fanúšikov.

[Phaedrus]

Santiago, the sequel. Sometimes people just need a hero, and if one doesn't appear then you have to create him.

[Phil]

Fun read, with some humor. You kinda know where it is going to go from the start, but it is still a pleasure getting there. The first Santiago was better, but this is a decent sequel. 3.5 stars.

[Hugo]

While Resnick's Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future was about the search for the man behind the myth, here the focus is on deliberately recreating that myth (the intimation that the author struggled with returning to the well is wholly obvious, perhaps deliberately so). Sadly, this selection of chapters seems repetitive, the characters less likeable and interesting, far too many circuitous conversations, much telling and little showing, with an ending that can be seen by a mile away.

[Becky Beaman]

I felt like I was reading Paul Bunyan and Babe the Big Blue Ox. Tall tales of gunslingers in the old, lawless west, a hostile wilderness that our Hero had to overcome... Entertaining and enjoyable reading. Nice plot twists, too!











bunyan

[Jeff Crosby]

I have held off reading this book for a number of years, but Mike Resnick passed away recently so I decided it was time. Santiago was the first Resnick novel I read and it remains my favorite. This sequel was written decades later.

[Al Brown]

This book was ok, I don't think it was as good as the first one.

[David H.]

Why I didn't finish this: I loved Santiago, but this sequel takes a different tact that just didn't interest me enough to keep going past 50-75 pages.

[Alexander Theofanidis]

Sequel του αριστουργήματος Santiago.
Αν δεν έχετε διαβάσει το Santiago, πηγαίνετε να το κάνετε τώρα και επιστρέψτε αμέσως μετά για την επιστροφή του.

[Steve]

enjoyable

Good characters. Good story. Entertaining. But also not the best, not the deepest or most profound. But worth a read.

[Cynik]

Good follow up to Santiago. Not quite as good but enjoyable.

[D.L. Morrese]

This book is full of bigger than life egocentric antiheroes but none who are admirable. The main character, Danny Briggs, is a thief who concludes that the government is too oppressive and needs to be thwarted. To do so he decides to revitalize a legendary terrorist organization and he goes in search of a leader. He finds one but when they actually begin committing acts of terrorism, he feels they have gone too far. He recruits another. By the end of the book, Danny is indirectly responsible for several deaths but seems to suffer little remorse and never questions if terrorism is the best way to enact social change.
The bad science, flawed characters and even more flawed premise make this a less than satisfying book. The reader ends up feeling that the government, oppressive as it is said to be, can’t be as bad as the terrorists who are supposed to be the heroes. I could find no redeeming value in either the terrorists or the government they oppose (but don’t want to overthrow) so I really didn’t care which of them ultimately triumphed. I almost walked out on this book two-thirds of the way in but mainly kept reading to see if the author had some insight to share or a point he was trying to make. There wasn’t.

[Myridian]

Now Resnick is my favorite escapist sci fi author, and I just adore his space age, bounty hunter, cowboy universe. It was Cowboy Bebop before there was a Cowboy Bebop. This book was as vivid and campy and real as I'd wanted it to be, but I was left feeling a bit less than satisfied. It's the story of the return of one of the greatest outlaws/revolutionaries on the Inner Frontier. The problem was that I started anticipating the ending a few chapters before it actually happened, and then there was no bang to create closure for me. For some reason, the main character also lacked the charismatic pull that I'm used to associating with Resnick's heroes. I hope there is a sequel somewhere in the works.

[Avani]

This wasn't a bad book. There was a lot of space cowboy action, hilarious and sometimes gratuitous deaths, and lots of fun dialogue. What it lacked, however, was all of the interesting political undercurrent of Santiago. The plot was completely silly, and the ending was, well, terrible. I'd recommend this if you liked Santiago, but this could have been much stronger.

[Brian Allen]

I love this book, its basically Firefly meets Robinhood. Santiago was a revolutionary, an idea that was used by five different individuals of various professions. And Dante the poet wants to bring Santiago back to put pressure on the Democracy, the book does have a couple of f bombs and very graphic and sometimes shocking violence, but it is worth reading.

[Craig]

This is a very good novel with larger-than-life mythic characters, settings, and events, that was a bit of a let-down simply because the first Santiago novel was so very, very good and there just wasn't much left to add to it.

[Ian]

A disappointing sequel that was predictable from a plot standpoint. The characterization makes up for a lot, but there wasn't the element of mystery that was present in the first Santiago book.

[Michael]

Not as good as the first Santiago book but still a good read for fans of Mike Resnick.

[Ian]

Great fun. Resnick! storey is no great surprise, but soberly entertaining.

[Thomas S]

As escapist Fiction it was fair. not quite good but better than fair, so 3 stars. The imagined characters were a lot of fun, great imagery and very diverse troup of characters. The plot danced entertainingly among all the sets, the characters lived, breathed and died very well, but none of them were ones to actually love, thankfully none to loathe either. So we follow the plot with our sense of reality diverted by the universe of humans in display. Easily read.