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Coyote Trilogy #2
Coyote Rising
The continuing epic of Earth's first space colonists--and their fight against a repressive government to reclaim their world in the name of freedom.
432 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 7, 2004
33 people are currently reading
580 people want to read
About the author
Allen M. Steele
235 books420 followersBefore becoming a science fiction writer, Allen Steele was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Missouri, and his home state of Tennessee. But science fiction was his first love, so he eventually ditched journalism and began producing that which had made him decide to become a writer in the first place.
Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.
Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.
Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.
Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.
Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews
September 3, 2022
The second installment in the Coyote Trilogy possesses a similar format to the first-- a series of linked stories regarding events on Coyote. The theme this time, however, is resistance. From the ashes of the fascist USA arose the Union, basically a communist state. Six of one and half a dozen of the other as far as the folks on Coyote are concerned. The union announced its presence on Coyote about 5 years after the Alabama arrived. Due to new almost as fast as light drives, it only took 48 years to make the journey. Hence, while the Union starship arrived just a few years after Alabama, almost 200 years passed on Earth.
The Union claims Coyote and starts landing settlers-- 1000 at a time-- with five starships arriving year after year. The Alabama crew abandons their settlement of Liberty and founds Defiance on another island, vowing that Coyote is theirs. Most of the stories involve politics and resistance, as the old settlers just wish the Union would go away, but maybe it will take some persuasion...
To steal a phrase from another reviewer, Steele's Coyote Trilogy is like comfort food for scifi fans. Yes, it relies on old tropes, but Steele manages to breath some fresh air into them, along with a frontier spirit. Fun stuff, and on to the next!
The Union claims Coyote and starts landing settlers-- 1000 at a time-- with five starships arriving year after year. The Alabama crew abandons their settlement of Liberty and founds Defiance on another island, vowing that Coyote is theirs. Most of the stories involve politics and resistance, as the old settlers just wish the Union would go away, but maybe it will take some persuasion...
To steal a phrase from another reviewer, Steele's Coyote Trilogy is like comfort food for scifi fans. Yes, it relies on old tropes, but Steele manages to breath some fresh air into them, along with a frontier spirit. Fun stuff, and on to the next!
October 12, 2024
This series borrows from the development history of American colonization of the Americas, but in a sci-fi format, telling the story of immigrating to a new planet - Coyote.
The main character, a captain and later a rebel leader, is named after a general from the American Civil War. The epigraph at the beginning of each book clearly states that the theme of the novel is inspired by American history and culture.
The series tells the story of a future version of American history in a different way. Not all the stories in the book are based on representative historical events in American history. Some even require careful examination to find clues.
For example, “Benjamin the Unbeliever” tells the story of a group of believers immigrating to Coyote. The leader of these believers is a man who has been severely disfigured by a perverted doctor, resembling a devil. Perhaps due to this disfigurement, he has become severely psychologically distorted and considers himself a god. After arriving on Coyote, he leads his followers to find their own territory and is eventually trapped in a snowy mountain, forced to resort to cannibalism to survive.
This story is inspired by a real event in American history: the Donner Party.
In the 19th century, the United States only had a dozen states in the east, and the west was completely unclaimed land. Hastings was an American pioneer and land developer who wanted to make a fortune in California, but first, he needed people to settle there.
In 1845, he printed "The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California," which was essentially a real estate agent's advertisement. There was a shorter route to Oregon and California, known as the Hastings Cutoff. However, Hastings himself had never taken this route. In 1846, a wagon train set out for the west to settle in California. George Donner was elected as the leader, but this old man had no experience in wilderness survival and was simply more popular. With the continuous addition of people, the Donner Party consisted of 87 people in total. Their navigation map was Hastings' little advertisement. The only problem was that they set off a little late. They should have crossed the Sierra Nevada in the summer, but they missed that window, so in order to save time, Donner left the main road and chose the Hastings Cutoff. In fact, this road was a dry salt lake, a desert, with no water or grass, and even the draft animals could not survive.
Having no choice, the Donner Party had to turn back to find the other immigrants on the main road. But the other immigrants had already crossed the mountains, and only their small group was left on this road.
When they climbed the Sierra Nevada, winter arrived, and that year's snow was particularly heavy. They were trapped in the mountains and could only find a place to build a makeshift shelter and wait to die. But as they ran out of food and supplies, they finally sent a few people as a death squad to cross the mountain to find help. Those who reached California found some immigrants to come back to the rescue, and it took another two months to go back and forth. When the rescue team arrived, many people had already died, and the remaining survivors had survived by eating those who had died. Either you die, or you eat the dead to survive, what would you choose?
In the end, 48 people from the Donner Party survived and reached California. There is a monument erected at the place where they arrived.
However, there was no "god" in the real historical event of the Donner Party. They were simply fighting for survival.
The most beautiful part of the book, “The Garcia Bridge,” is also based on a real historical event. Similar stories may remind people of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," and a more similar story is the Yugoslav film Bridge, both of which tell the story of having to destroy the bridge that one has built.
However, the real historical event that is most closely related to "The Garcia Bridge" actually happened in China.
In the 1930s, the first generation of Chinese bridge-building masters, Mo Yisheng, designed and built the Qiantang River Bridge. The river was very turbulent, and the technical conditions at that time were also very backward, making the construction process extremely difficult. When it was about to be completed, the Anti-Japanese War broke out in 1937, and the Japanese army was approaching aggressively. It was estimated that they would soon invade the south. If the bridge was occupied by the Japanese army, it would inevitably become an important channel for them to invade China. Therefore, Mo Yisheng had modified the design drawings during the construction process, leaving a cavity in an important pier.
After the bridge was completed, refugees and military personnel from the north, as well as materials, used the bridge to evacuate quickly to the south of the Yangtze River. A few months later, the Japanese army approached the Qiantang River Bridge, and Mo Yisheng had already arranged for people to plant hundreds of kilograms of explosives in the cavity pre-prepared in the pier. Without waiting for the Japanese army to come, he completely blew up the bridge. It was less than three months since the completion. And Japan's technology at that time could not repair it.
After the Anti-Japanese War, Mo Yisheng personally repaired the Qiantang River Bridge, which is still in use today.
I don't know if Steele was really inspired by Mo Yisheng's story, but I think it definitely was.
3.2 / 5 stars
The main character, a captain and later a rebel leader, is named after a general from the American Civil War. The epigraph at the beginning of each book clearly states that the theme of the novel is inspired by American history and culture.
The series tells the story of a future version of American history in a different way. Not all the stories in the book are based on representative historical events in American history. Some even require careful examination to find clues.
For example, “Benjamin the Unbeliever” tells the story of a group of believers immigrating to Coyote. The leader of these believers is a man who has been severely disfigured by a perverted doctor, resembling a devil. Perhaps due to this disfigurement, he has become severely psychologically distorted and considers himself a god. After arriving on Coyote, he leads his followers to find their own territory and is eventually trapped in a snowy mountain, forced to resort to cannibalism to survive.
This story is inspired by a real event in American history: the Donner Party.
In the 19th century, the United States only had a dozen states in the east, and the west was completely unclaimed land. Hastings was an American pioneer and land developer who wanted to make a fortune in California, but first, he needed people to settle there.
In 1845, he printed "The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California," which was essentially a real estate agent's advertisement. There was a shorter route to Oregon and California, known as the Hastings Cutoff. However, Hastings himself had never taken this route. In 1846, a wagon train set out for the west to settle in California. George Donner was elected as the leader, but this old man had no experience in wilderness survival and was simply more popular. With the continuous addition of people, the Donner Party consisted of 87 people in total. Their navigation map was Hastings' little advertisement. The only problem was that they set off a little late. They should have crossed the Sierra Nevada in the summer, but they missed that window, so in order to save time, Donner left the main road and chose the Hastings Cutoff. In fact, this road was a dry salt lake, a desert, with no water or grass, and even the draft animals could not survive.
Having no choice, the Donner Party had to turn back to find the other immigrants on the main road. But the other immigrants had already crossed the mountains, and only their small group was left on this road.
When they climbed the Sierra Nevada, winter arrived, and that year's snow was particularly heavy. They were trapped in the mountains and could only find a place to build a makeshift shelter and wait to die. But as they ran out of food and supplies, they finally sent a few people as a death squad to cross the mountain to find help. Those who reached California found some immigrants to come back to the rescue, and it took another two months to go back and forth. When the rescue team arrived, many people had already died, and the remaining survivors had survived by eating those who had died. Either you die, or you eat the dead to survive, what would you choose?
In the end, 48 people from the Donner Party survived and reached California. There is a monument erected at the place where they arrived.
However, there was no "god" in the real historical event of the Donner Party. They were simply fighting for survival.
The most beautiful part of the book, “The Garcia Bridge,” is also based on a real historical event. Similar stories may remind people of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," and a more similar story is the Yugoslav film Bridge, both of which tell the story of having to destroy the bridge that one has built.
However, the real historical event that is most closely related to "The Garcia Bridge" actually happened in China.
In the 1930s, the first generation of Chinese bridge-building masters, Mo Yisheng, designed and built the Qiantang River Bridge. The river was very turbulent, and the technical conditions at that time were also very backward, making the construction process extremely difficult. When it was about to be completed, the Anti-Japanese War broke out in 1937, and the Japanese army was approaching aggressively. It was estimated that they would soon invade the south. If the bridge was occupied by the Japanese army, it would inevitably become an important channel for them to invade China. Therefore, Mo Yisheng had modified the design drawings during the construction process, leaving a cavity in an important pier.
After the bridge was completed, refugees and military personnel from the north, as well as materials, used the bridge to evacuate quickly to the south of the Yangtze River. A few months later, the Japanese army approached the Qiantang River Bridge, and Mo Yisheng had already arranged for people to plant hundreds of kilograms of explosives in the cavity pre-prepared in the pier. Without waiting for the Japanese army to come, he completely blew up the bridge. It was less than three months since the completion. And Japan's technology at that time could not repair it.
After the Anti-Japanese War, Mo Yisheng personally repaired the Qiantang River Bridge, which is still in use today.
I don't know if Steele was really inspired by Mo Yisheng's story, but I think it definitely was.
3.2 / 5 stars
July 31, 2009
I'd like to love Coyote Rising more; Allen Steele has created a very original tale of interstellar colonization. Unfortunately, I found the plot and the characters lacking the substance required to truly distinguish a novel, no matter how original its premise.
The first book in the series, Coyote, depicted a fantastic new world, Earth-like in so many ways yet also devastatingly alien. Even as the original colonists began to settle the planet, more ships from Earth arrived, bringing with them a social collectivist philosophy that threatened to undermine the existing colony's stability. Thus, Steele sets the stage for Coyote Rising, tagged as "a novel of interstellar revolution."
Therein lies the problem: Coyote was interesting by virtue of the world the colonists were exploring and the challenges they had to face; Coyote Rising is almost purely driven by plot, and I enjoyed that far less. There are still some environmental elements to the conflicts faced by our protagonists, most notably a volcanic eruption that cools Coyote's climate, but they seem secondary to Steele's need for the original colonists to revolt against the tyrannical administration of the "Western Hemisphere Union," personified by the irrational Luisa Hernandez.
In the first book, we meet Hernandez only briefly toward the end. As the leader of the second wave of colonists, she seems to honestly believe that social collectivism is the best form of government, and Robert Lee's decision to abandon the original colony and take the original colonists into hiding is prudent. Yet in Coyote Rising, any hint of depth in Hernandez's character is gone. She's a scheming, shallow antagonist whose only desire is total oppression and control. Where's my complex villain who agonizes over her actions, questions whether her morals are correct, then decides her course of action is the only just one?
The antagonists also suffer from an unfortunate tendency to go rogue. Over the course of Coyote Rising, a significant number of people in positions of power with the WHU colony switch sides and join the original colonists (this doesn't count the droves of people fleeing to the original colony because the new colony is a slum). On the surface, this makes sense. Steele's emphasizing how collectivism has failed the colony in the face of the challenges of settling Coyote. Yet the very fact that the collectivist stance seems so indefensible has two unfortunate consequences: firstly, it makes the actions of die-hard antagonists, like Hernandez, even more unconvincing; secondly, it undermines the threat of the antagonists. Steele's trying to make a big point about how humans will fight for freedom, even if it means death, but his protagonist's easy philosophical success undermines his efforts to advance this theme.
If I seem overly negative, it's only because Coyote Rising was so good that it could have been so much better. The book isn't beyond redemption: it has great action scenes, as well as truly moving ones. My favourite scene, the most touching one, occurs near the end of the book, as Robert Lee confronts Luisa Hernandez. I read it as if it were in slow motion, knowing what would happen, and it still moved me. That's why I'm critical of this book: it had potential. Here's hoping Coyote Frontier improves my opinion of this series' literary merits.
The first book in the series, Coyote, depicted a fantastic new world, Earth-like in so many ways yet also devastatingly alien. Even as the original colonists began to settle the planet, more ships from Earth arrived, bringing with them a social collectivist philosophy that threatened to undermine the existing colony's stability. Thus, Steele sets the stage for Coyote Rising, tagged as "a novel of interstellar revolution."
Therein lies the problem: Coyote was interesting by virtue of the world the colonists were exploring and the challenges they had to face; Coyote Rising is almost purely driven by plot, and I enjoyed that far less. There are still some environmental elements to the conflicts faced by our protagonists, most notably a volcanic eruption that cools Coyote's climate, but they seem secondary to Steele's need for the original colonists to revolt against the tyrannical administration of the "Western Hemisphere Union," personified by the irrational Luisa Hernandez.
In the first book, we meet Hernandez only briefly toward the end. As the leader of the second wave of colonists, she seems to honestly believe that social collectivism is the best form of government, and Robert Lee's decision to abandon the original colony and take the original colonists into hiding is prudent. Yet in Coyote Rising, any hint of depth in Hernandez's character is gone. She's a scheming, shallow antagonist whose only desire is total oppression and control. Where's my complex villain who agonizes over her actions, questions whether her morals are correct, then decides her course of action is the only just one?
The antagonists also suffer from an unfortunate tendency to go rogue. Over the course of Coyote Rising, a significant number of people in positions of power with the WHU colony switch sides and join the original colonists (this doesn't count the droves of people fleeing to the original colony because the new colony is a slum). On the surface, this makes sense. Steele's emphasizing how collectivism has failed the colony in the face of the challenges of settling Coyote. Yet the very fact that the collectivist stance seems so indefensible has two unfortunate consequences: firstly, it makes the actions of die-hard antagonists, like Hernandez, even more unconvincing; secondly, it undermines the threat of the antagonists. Steele's trying to make a big point about how humans will fight for freedom, even if it means death, but his protagonist's easy philosophical success undermines his efforts to advance this theme.
If I seem overly negative, it's only because Coyote Rising was so good that it could have been so much better. The book isn't beyond redemption: it has great action scenes, as well as truly moving ones. My favourite scene, the most touching one, occurs near the end of the book, as Robert Lee confronts Luisa Hernandez. I read it as if it were in slow motion, knowing what would happen, and it still moved me. That's why I'm critical of this book: it had potential. Here's hoping Coyote Frontier improves my opinion of this series' literary merits.
December 28, 2009
4.0 stars. A satisfying sequel to the original Coyote. While not quite as spectacular as its predecessor, this is an excellent novel and puts the series as a whole among the top colonization works in science fiction (in my opinion). Excellent characters, terrrific world-building and a healthy does of politics. Recommended!
September 12, 2019
At least 3 Stars and a sigh of relief as this trilogy turns a bit better in the second book. A collection of stories starting with Earth as the catchily-named Spirit of Social Collectivism Carried to the Stars starship is preparing to transport a few colonists and many socialist stormtroopers to Coyote to put down the forecast rebellion against the enlightened socialist overlords. A number of socialist colony ships are on the way or have landed on Coyote. The first book, "Coyote", featured the escape of the starship "Alabama" from a fascist government. The colonists' freedom is threatened in "Coyote Rising" by the arrival of democratic socialists on the great starships:
Seeking Glorious Destiny Among the Stars for the Greater Good of Social Collectivism
Traveling Forth to Spread Social Collectivism to New Frontiers
Long Journey to the Galaxy in the Spirit of Social Collectivism
Many colonists just don't understand the loving embrace of the socialist matriarch who just wants what's best for everyone by conscripting labor for her expansionist plans and sending troops to crush any outposts that are trying to survive outside the main settlement. No spoilers so you will have to read and see if freedom is crushed or not.
The first two thirds of the book really could take place anywhere and are not necessarily Scifi. The last third is great.
Seeking Glorious Destiny Among the Stars for the Greater Good of Social Collectivism
Traveling Forth to Spread Social Collectivism to New Frontiers
Long Journey to the Galaxy in the Spirit of Social Collectivism
Many colonists just don't understand the loving embrace of the socialist matriarch who just wants what's best for everyone by conscripting labor for her expansionist plans and sending troops to crush any outposts that are trying to survive outside the main settlement. No spoilers so you will have to read and see if freedom is crushed or not.
The first two thirds of the book really could take place anywhere and are not necessarily Scifi. The last third is great.
May 26, 2017
I had to stop. Allen Steele lost all signal integrity to his neocortex. I'm willing to forgive many things, even minor character mistakes, but authors MUST write believable characters.
First: An android that cannot see a rainbow!? Now I suspect in the 23rd century we won't be relying on CCD or CMOS cameras for robotic eyes, but given the current technology used in robotics and believing they would not be improved up and exceptionally kick-ass by the time we can create androids... well.... that makes no sense whatsoever. If one wants to argue artistic preference, well, yes it is artistic preference to write stupid things, but don't be upset when your audience calls you out.
Next, the "good guys" decide to dispose of the android by tying him up and dumping him into the river. OK, really? REALLY!? These guys are so stupid that they don't realize this android is coming back? How could they, on the one hand, be so clever as to master the wilderness, and on the other be so stupid as to think dumping an android in a river will take it out of play? For that matter, having subdued the android, what is gained by dumping the android? There was no reason that that decision needed to be made.... really really really bad writing.
Finally, I had to just stop. I couldn't go any further in this book. The "good guys" are about to have a shoot-out; out-numbered 6 to 5. Good guys have the element of surprise and can initiate the commencement of the fire-fight. All of the sudden the protagonist has a thoughtful moment of reflection about killing the enemy... So, point one in this passage. Element of surprise: choose long range sniper-like fire to remove your enemies. You don't get to argue better tactics and complex plans. In war, you don't get to make up complex plans. You don't surround an enemy at close range (yes, bullets tend to continue past a target if missed, and if your ally is across from you missing your enemy might result in shooting your ally... so nobody makes those kinds of plans). Furthermore, it is far too late in the story to set up moments of moral reflections about killing one's enemy -especially an invading enemy. I can only imagine what followed was botched raid on the bad guys where some good guys got captured (possibly the protagonist) to prolong this out of control drivel. But I don't know because I had to stop reading this book. It was an assault to common sense.
Advice to authors of the world: When you create characters, you cannot arbitrarily make them do stupid things. Adult characters don't get to arbitrarily make juvenile mistakes. Stupid characters die. That is how life works. There is a fundamental limit to the number of times you be stupid in life threatening decisions. When you plot that curve you see the limit is 1. So if you want to have your character do something stupid, remember you are creating a character whose IQ is at best 70. So don't make great plans for such a character. Or you could always make your characters teenagers. But not middle-aged men and women; the stupid ones are already dead in whatever world you are creating. (Or if you are creating some reality where evolution isn't happening... but then you're writing to a very particular audience). So have some respect for your audience. We can forgive a lot, but there is a threshold. If you want to write science fiction then you really need to get your stuff together. We already know that if humanity survives another century our baseline intelligence will be at least an order of magnitude greater than it is today. The gene-pool will be ejecting the unfit swiftly and without mercy. Remember this when you create characters in such a world and quit pretending your readers will just suck down whatever tripe you serve.
First: An android that cannot see a rainbow!? Now I suspect in the 23rd century we won't be relying on CCD or CMOS cameras for robotic eyes, but given the current technology used in robotics and believing they would not be improved up and exceptionally kick-ass by the time we can create androids... well.... that makes no sense whatsoever. If one wants to argue artistic preference, well, yes it is artistic preference to write stupid things, but don't be upset when your audience calls you out.
Next, the "good guys" decide to dispose of the android by tying him up and dumping him into the river. OK, really? REALLY!? These guys are so stupid that they don't realize this android is coming back? How could they, on the one hand, be so clever as to master the wilderness, and on the other be so stupid as to think dumping an android in a river will take it out of play? For that matter, having subdued the android, what is gained by dumping the android? There was no reason that that decision needed to be made.... really really really bad writing.
Finally, I had to just stop. I couldn't go any further in this book. The "good guys" are about to have a shoot-out; out-numbered 6 to 5. Good guys have the element of surprise and can initiate the commencement of the fire-fight. All of the sudden the protagonist has a thoughtful moment of reflection about killing the enemy... So, point one in this passage. Element of surprise: choose long range sniper-like fire to remove your enemies. You don't get to argue better tactics and complex plans. In war, you don't get to make up complex plans. You don't surround an enemy at close range (yes, bullets tend to continue past a target if missed, and if your ally is across from you missing your enemy might result in shooting your ally... so nobody makes those kinds of plans). Furthermore, it is far too late in the story to set up moments of moral reflections about killing one's enemy -especially an invading enemy. I can only imagine what followed was botched raid on the bad guys where some good guys got captured (possibly the protagonist) to prolong this out of control drivel. But I don't know because I had to stop reading this book. It was an assault to common sense.
Advice to authors of the world: When you create characters, you cannot arbitrarily make them do stupid things. Adult characters don't get to arbitrarily make juvenile mistakes. Stupid characters die. That is how life works. There is a fundamental limit to the number of times you be stupid in life threatening decisions. When you plot that curve you see the limit is 1. So if you want to have your character do something stupid, remember you are creating a character whose IQ is at best 70. So don't make great plans for such a character. Or you could always make your characters teenagers. But not middle-aged men and women; the stupid ones are already dead in whatever world you are creating. (Or if you are creating some reality where evolution isn't happening... but then you're writing to a very particular audience). So have some respect for your audience. We can forgive a lot, but there is a threshold. If you want to write science fiction then you really need to get your stuff together. We already know that if humanity survives another century our baseline intelligence will be at least an order of magnitude greater than it is today. The gene-pool will be ejecting the unfit swiftly and without mercy. Remember this when you create characters in such a world and quit pretending your readers will just suck down whatever tripe you serve.
September 21, 2017
An okay read, worthwhile for people who particularly like colonization sci-fi. Like the first book, this is a collection of short stories and novellas pieced together to make a novel. I think the writing is a little improved this time, but the stories are not as interesting. What the hell is with that story about the worshipers following a crazy man who found God after he was kidnapped and mutilated into the form of a giant bat?
There is surprisingly little politics in the book, considering that the plot pits the original settlers, who arrived on a spaceship named Alabama captained by Robert Lee, against the newly arrived Matriarch, whose spaceship is named Seeking Glorious Destiny Among the Stars for the Greater Good of Social Collectivism. The colonists rebel against the Matriarch’s oppressive authority, but mostly she’s just tyrannical and corrupt. There’s not much political discussion about it.
There is surprisingly little politics in the book, considering that the plot pits the original settlers, who arrived on a spaceship named Alabama captained by Robert Lee, against the newly arrived Matriarch, whose spaceship is named Seeking Glorious Destiny Among the Stars for the Greater Good of Social Collectivism. The colonists rebel against the Matriarch’s oppressive authority, but mostly she’s just tyrannical and corrupt. There’s not much political discussion about it.
November 23, 2022
Overall 3.5.
While not a bad book, I feel that it divulges from the Sci-Fi genre for the majority of the book which ends up detracting from it in the long run. I believe the author has a very particular mindest and themes they wanted to explore in regards to the American revolution, and instead of putting in the effort to do a retelling or adjustment, they just put everyone on a different planet to circumvent some issues and make it easier in the long run.
The first 3/4 are certainly readable, I just feel they could have been written differently or within a different period/place.
The last 100 or so pages are more intriguing and fall back into Sci-Fi a bit better, enough to make me at least curious for the third book.
I will say however that once again the author is predictable and uses the same conventions within short story arcs, and it becomes increasingly obvious as the books goes on.
While not a bad book, I feel that it divulges from the Sci-Fi genre for the majority of the book which ends up detracting from it in the long run. I believe the author has a very particular mindest and themes they wanted to explore in regards to the American revolution, and instead of putting in the effort to do a retelling or adjustment, they just put everyone on a different planet to circumvent some issues and make it easier in the long run.
The first 3/4 are certainly readable, I just feel they could have been written differently or within a different period/place.
The last 100 or so pages are more intriguing and fall back into Sci-Fi a bit better, enough to make me at least curious for the third book.
I will say however that once again the author is predictable and uses the same conventions within short story arcs, and it becomes increasingly obvious as the books goes on.
April 28, 2020
An amazing follow up to the first volume that explores the diverging politics, religious beliefs, and other issues of Coyote's growing population of colonists. Steele continues with the format of a series of novellas each depicting a separate point of view, giving us a varied look at the events of a new earth quickly falling into war. A must read if you enjoyed the first. This is well written intriguing SF.
November 30, 2012
I think that coyote rising is a really good book. Like I said in my other review, this series is really cool because of the idea and that all this could possibly happen. I think coyote rising is cool because they used the newest technology to travel that far, and they now have to use very primitive ways to survive on a new planet like coyote. I personally think that the war was a waste of resources, including when the Alabama blew up fort Lopez, killing thousands of people and many new technology aircraft. I think the war was necessary for freedom, but they could have saved resources they would need later.
September 1, 2016
A more than good follow up to the first.
So many great stories to be told here on Coyote now that it is being settled. Governments to be built and challenged. The planet itself throwing things at the colonists. New, interesting, and weird characters which make you want to come back for more.
His sophmoric follow up to Coyote was more than adequate. Again, my only true criticism is that he could have made the book a bit longer and more comprehensive, but that is personal taste I guess.
If you read the first one, you will be hard pressed not to read several more.
So many great stories to be told here on Coyote now that it is being settled. Governments to be built and challenged. The planet itself throwing things at the colonists. New, interesting, and weird characters which make you want to come back for more.
His sophmoric follow up to Coyote was more than adequate. Again, my only true criticism is that he could have made the book a bit longer and more comprehensive, but that is personal taste I guess.
If you read the first one, you will be hard pressed not to read several more.
February 15, 2024
Continuing hard-ish science fiction interstellar colonization/political thriller in which Earth’s first interstellar colony founded by libertarian American dissidents rebels against the imposed control of the home world’s socialist government. Second book in a series.
My dead tree version was 407-pages long. It had a US 2004 copyright. The book included: a Dramatis Personae, maps, a diagram, and a (now dated) Sources list of non-fiction on planetology.
Allen Steele is an American journalist and science fiction writer. He is the author of more than 20 science fiction novels in several series, and many short stories. This is the second book in an eight (8) book series. I’ve read a few books by the author in the past. The most recent being Coyote (Coyote Trilogy, #1) (my review).
I found all three of the Coyote Trilogy books with their spines unbroken in a box. These were the first books in the series, which eventually grew to be eight books total. They had been there forgotten for about 15-years. I’ve been reading this 20-year old science fiction as pop-corn reads when the spirit has moved me.
Like with all Serial Fiction, its strongly recommended that Coyote be read before reading this. While there is some backstory given, without having read the first book the characters and plotlines started in that first book would not be easily grasped without it.
The libertarian American dissidents that hijacked the first Earth star ship had settled a habitable planet in the 47 Ursae Majoris system 50-light years away after a 250-year, cold sleep voyage. While in transit, their authoritarian America had fallen. It had been amalgamated into a socialist Western Hemisphere political union (The Union). The Union sent its own starship with better tech and a much larger passenger complement, which arrived after only a 50-year voyage. Due to the time dilation of fractional c travel, it arrived only a few years after the Americans. The Union expected to take possession of the ex-American Coyote colony, through succession. Nope. This story was about the guerilla “Revolutionary War” between the original libertarian American colonists and The Union. Book ends in a HFN, while setting-up for a subsequent book.
Middle books are hard. This book continued with the characters of the first book with no significant additions. It also had the same format of two ‘internal’ Books which were really a collection of several, related, short stories on the general themes of: Coyote settlement, frontier life, and the guerilla war. However, the first book’s cliffhanger for the colony’s future on Coyote was resolved.
All my sentiments on Steele and the story found in my review of Coyote remain. However, I did think the future Union, its tech and its Solar possessions would make a better story than the Coyote story. In particular, the Union's cyborgs were very cool. It was also amusing to note all the significant Union characters had Hispanic names, while the original colonists were Norte Americanos.
In addition, the same continuity issues identified in the first book continued. For example, everyone was still drinking Earth coffee from a bottomless supply imported from Earth. This was long after all other imported foodstuffs were a dim memory. Also, the Union on Coyote went on to build significant infrastructure, like: bridges, roads and light buildings. This was despite not having: mines, steel mills, and rod and wire manufactories to produce rebar and metal fixtures (like: nails), as well as quarries for: limestone, sand, clay and iron along with the cement plants to produce cement. So, Steele waved his hands to produce industrial infrastructure when folks should have been using wooden pegs instead of nails, and cobbled or wooden corduroy roads instead of cement.
As with the last book, this book was very much on the nose. However, here the libertarian Americans are fighting a Vietnam-like, Revolutionary War against their Hispanic, socialist oppressors. They used their frontier know-how, and grit against a larger, more powerful opponent with superior technology. I liked the action/adventure parts of this story. The world building was good, but the continuity errors created an uneven level-of-detail that continued to irk me. And, the politics were heavy-handed on the libertarian and frontier fiction aspect. At least this book ended with a HFN.
I will be reading the next book in the series, Coyote Frontier (Coyote Trilogy, #3). There’s enough to keep me interested, and I already own the book.
My dead tree version was 407-pages long. It had a US 2004 copyright. The book included: a Dramatis Personae, maps, a diagram, and a (now dated) Sources list of non-fiction on planetology.
Allen Steele is an American journalist and science fiction writer. He is the author of more than 20 science fiction novels in several series, and many short stories. This is the second book in an eight (8) book series. I’ve read a few books by the author in the past. The most recent being Coyote (Coyote Trilogy, #1) (my review).
I found all three of the Coyote Trilogy books with their spines unbroken in a box. These were the first books in the series, which eventually grew to be eight books total. They had been there forgotten for about 15-years. I’ve been reading this 20-year old science fiction as pop-corn reads when the spirit has moved me.
Like with all Serial Fiction, its strongly recommended that Coyote be read before reading this. While there is some backstory given, without having read the first book the characters and plotlines started in that first book would not be easily grasped without it.
The libertarian American dissidents that hijacked the first Earth star ship had settled a habitable planet in the 47 Ursae Majoris system 50-light years away after a 250-year, cold sleep voyage. While in transit, their authoritarian America had fallen. It had been amalgamated into a socialist Western Hemisphere political union (The Union). The Union sent its own starship with better tech and a much larger passenger complement, which arrived after only a 50-year voyage. Due to the time dilation of fractional c travel, it arrived only a few years after the Americans. The Union expected to take possession of the ex-American Coyote colony, through succession. Nope. This story was about the guerilla “Revolutionary War” between the original libertarian American colonists and The Union. Book ends in a HFN, while setting-up for a subsequent book.
Middle books are hard. This book continued with the characters of the first book with no significant additions. It also had the same format of two ‘internal’ Books which were really a collection of several, related, short stories on the general themes of: Coyote settlement, frontier life, and the guerilla war. However, the first book’s cliffhanger for the colony’s future on Coyote was resolved.
All my sentiments on Steele and the story found in my review of Coyote remain. However, I did think the future Union, its tech and its Solar possessions would make a better story than the Coyote story. In particular, the Union's cyborgs were very cool. It was also amusing to note all the significant Union characters had Hispanic names, while the original colonists were Norte Americanos.
In addition, the same continuity issues identified in the first book continued. For example, everyone was still drinking Earth coffee from a bottomless supply imported from Earth. This was long after all other imported foodstuffs were a dim memory. Also, the Union on Coyote went on to build significant infrastructure, like: bridges, roads and light buildings. This was despite not having: mines, steel mills, and rod and wire manufactories to produce rebar and metal fixtures (like: nails), as well as quarries for: limestone, sand, clay and iron along with the cement plants to produce cement. So, Steele waved his hands to produce industrial infrastructure when folks should have been using wooden pegs instead of nails, and cobbled or wooden corduroy roads instead of cement.
As with the last book, this book was very much on the nose. However, here the libertarian Americans are fighting a Vietnam-like, Revolutionary War against their Hispanic, socialist oppressors. They used their frontier know-how, and grit against a larger, more powerful opponent with superior technology. I liked the action/adventure parts of this story. The world building was good, but the continuity errors created an uneven level-of-detail that continued to irk me. And, the politics were heavy-handed on the libertarian and frontier fiction aspect. At least this book ended with a HFN.
I will be reading the next book in the series, Coyote Frontier (Coyote Trilogy, #3). There’s enough to keep me interested, and I already own the book.
August 10, 2023
I am not in the most critical (i.e. analytical and discerning and focused) mood today, but I think that I'll still be able to aptly review this "Novel of Interstellar Revolution," as the cover of my Ace Mass Market Paperback puts it. This is the sequel to Allen Steele's novel *Coyote*, which I found to be the very well put together (if not the most realistic) literary equivalent of a mid-2000s TV show. I was a bit worried that *Coyote Rising* would go off the rails and get kind of unrealistic and silly like a lot of those mid-2000s shows, and after reading it I can't see that my fears were unfounded... that being said, Allen Steele still writes a good yarn and I definitely enjoyed most of this book. I'll tell you what happens in this book, and then I'll tell you what I thought of it all.
The book opens with Fernando Baptiste, commander of the fourth social collectivism ship from the future foreshadowed in *Coyote*, on a transport shuttle. We then get to the real first part of the book, the story of a flute-player who was on Baptiste's ship and is now looking to carve out her own place in Shuttleville, an impoverished offshoot of Plymouth-esque Liberty where all the social collectivists have to go... I guess collectivism really isn't good for establishing a new colony, because these people live in (literal) crap. Anyways, the woman ends up living next to Sissy, Chris Levin's mother, and befriends her after making a deal with Chris. Part Two shifts focus to a Shuttleville drifter who ends up helping a religious group (or cult) unload from the fourth colonization ship and gets caught under the spell of a beautiful young woman, if not their gargoyle-like transhumanist prophet, and starts assisting and staying with them. Eventually social whims force them out of Liberty and onto a search for the original *Alabama* crew members - the cast of the first book. Our main character Ben gets more and more weary of the crazed prophet (Zolton Sandow) as time goes on, eventually coming to blows with him... Part Three showed us an architect forced to build a bridge against his wishes, and Part Four features Clark Thompson and Thompson's Keep stand up against the collectivist cyborg Savants when the flute-players try to escape main continent of New Florida. Everything is clearly intertwined and weaves in and out of each other, and this first part of the book is very fun.
Then... "The Incident at Goat Kill's Creek." We finally reunite with Carlos, who's on patrol with his little sister Marie and the Thompson boys. They stumble across Chris and some other collectivists and end up taking them out, more violently than an older and wiser Carlos would've wished. Still, he has Chris now... should he go on a cross-country hike with him and determine if he can be turned away from the collectivists or not?
Well, .
I fear that if I talk about my opinions on this book too much I'll turn into a broken record (if you're lucky enough to have read my review of this book's predecessor, that is), but I will start with a repeat critique: even though this book is more character-oriented than most things, the characters by themselves are a bit thin. Their dynamics get really interesting when they're mixed together, but they can't evoke too much emotion standing on their own. Steele did do a really good job of both introducing new characters and mixing them into the other characters and writing reasonable extrapolations of who the characters from *Coyote* would become. The way that the things which occurred but were skipped over by the mosaic narrative are woven into dialogue and exposition works, but that's more of a reflection of Steele's plot and narrative framing.
So, plot and narrative framing: the first half of this book (Two-thirds, maybe even three-quarters, really) is knit together very well. We get recurring characters and locations and themes but without it becoming to straggly or too fatty and therefore distracting. The plot progressed at a reasonable pace, though, even if was a bit predictable - and predictable it could be. For example, I predicted Fernando Baptise's plot arc in his first couple of pages... at the very beginning of the book. The plotting of the book is never weak, though, until the final battle sequences, where that event-that-shall-not-be-named really comes out of left field and kind of needlessly complicates things and then gets brushed aside in the epilogue (and, after reading book three, barely gets another mention in it). The closing scene of the book does redeem it, though, and still leaves me wanting more of this world and these characters.
What else is there to say about this book? I'm really just conflicted of the numerical value I should assign to it because of the varied levels of plotting. I do think I may have read too much of this book too fast and it took me out of the narrative a bit at about the two-thirds point... Still, I definitely enjoyed the book. The writing is about what you'd expect from a 2000s Allen Steele book (not blockbustery but pretty accessible and smooth without much flourish); the science fiction is mostly in the form of the setting and not crazy concepts, which is okay because Coyote's themes are of exploration and colonization and both self- and racial- (as in, the human race, not ethnicities) discovery.
At the end of the day, Allen Steele's second sequential novel of exploration and foundation and the tantalizing American spirit gets a slightly thin 8/10 from yours truly. I didn't enjoy it as much as Book One, but I think that Book Three (*Coyote Frontier*) could still cap off this trilogy on a high note, like the finale of the 2000s that you all wish your favorite show would've had. Until then I've got some more science fiction and a few oddities (to me, at least) to read, so I should get on that. Check out my profile for other cool Coyote reviews if you're interested, and no matter what else you do, watch out for the boids...
The book opens with Fernando Baptiste, commander of the fourth social collectivism ship from the future foreshadowed in *Coyote*, on a transport shuttle. We then get to the real first part of the book, the story of a flute-player who was on Baptiste's ship and is now looking to carve out her own place in Shuttleville, an impoverished offshoot of Plymouth-esque Liberty where all the social collectivists have to go... I guess collectivism really isn't good for establishing a new colony, because these people live in (literal) crap. Anyways, the woman ends up living next to Sissy, Chris Levin's mother, and befriends her after making a deal with Chris. Part Two shifts focus to a Shuttleville drifter who ends up helping a religious group (or cult) unload from the fourth colonization ship and gets caught under the spell of a beautiful young woman, if not their gargoyle-like transhumanist prophet, and starts assisting and staying with them. Eventually social whims force them out of Liberty and onto a search for the original *Alabama* crew members - the cast of the first book. Our main character Ben gets more and more weary of the crazed prophet (Zolton Sandow) as time goes on, eventually coming to blows with him... Part Three showed us an architect forced to build a bridge against his wishes, and Part Four features Clark Thompson and Thompson's Keep stand up against the collectivist cyborg Savants when the flute-players try to escape main continent of New Florida. Everything is clearly intertwined and weaves in and out of each other, and this first part of the book is very fun.
Then... "The Incident at Goat Kill's Creek." We finally reunite with Carlos, who's on patrol with his little sister Marie and the Thompson boys. They stumble across Chris and some other collectivists and end up taking them out, more violently than an older and wiser Carlos would've wished. Still, he has Chris now... should he go on a cross-country hike with him and determine if he can be turned away from the collectivists or not?
Well, .
I fear that if I talk about my opinions on this book too much I'll turn into a broken record (if you're lucky enough to have read my review of this book's predecessor, that is), but I will start with a repeat critique: even though this book is more character-oriented than most things, the characters by themselves are a bit thin. Their dynamics get really interesting when they're mixed together, but they can't evoke too much emotion standing on their own. Steele did do a really good job of both introducing new characters and mixing them into the other characters and writing reasonable extrapolations of who the characters from *Coyote* would become. The way that the things which occurred but were skipped over by the mosaic narrative are woven into dialogue and exposition works, but that's more of a reflection of Steele's plot and narrative framing.
So, plot and narrative framing: the first half of this book (Two-thirds, maybe even three-quarters, really) is knit together very well. We get recurring characters and locations and themes but without it becoming to straggly or too fatty and therefore distracting. The plot progressed at a reasonable pace, though, even if was a bit predictable - and predictable it could be. For example, I predicted Fernando Baptise's plot arc in his first couple of pages... at the very beginning of the book. The plotting of the book is never weak, though, until the final battle sequences, where that event-that-shall-not-be-named really comes out of left field and kind of needlessly complicates things and then gets brushed aside in the epilogue (and, after reading book three, barely gets another mention in it). The closing scene of the book does redeem it, though, and still leaves me wanting more of this world and these characters.
What else is there to say about this book? I'm really just conflicted of the numerical value I should assign to it because of the varied levels of plotting. I do think I may have read too much of this book too fast and it took me out of the narrative a bit at about the two-thirds point... Still, I definitely enjoyed the book. The writing is about what you'd expect from a 2000s Allen Steele book (not blockbustery but pretty accessible and smooth without much flourish); the science fiction is mostly in the form of the setting and not crazy concepts, which is okay because Coyote's themes are of exploration and colonization and both self- and racial- (as in, the human race, not ethnicities) discovery.
At the end of the day, Allen Steele's second sequential novel of exploration and foundation and the tantalizing American spirit gets a slightly thin 8/10 from yours truly. I didn't enjoy it as much as Book One, but I think that Book Three (*Coyote Frontier*) could still cap off this trilogy on a high note, like the finale of the 2000s that you all wish your favorite show would've had. Until then I've got some more science fiction and a few oddities (to me, at least) to read, so I should get on that. Check out my profile for other cool Coyote reviews if you're interested, and no matter what else you do, watch out for the boids...
July 2, 2024
Not as engaging as the first one, though I'm usually a sucker for political machinations. Everyone is just so a) similar in tone and style and b) obvious.
The introduction of savants is great, and the torture Savant Castro had to go through, underwater for years, was deliciously cruel- was it deserved or not?, but Steele never does much of anything with the idea. Maybe in the third novel, like how in this second one Marie is more of a player when she was barely mentioned in the first?
And Marie, well... I admire what Steele was going for in depicting a young girl who grew up with constant stress, death, and the threat of war hanging over her, but since we know nothing about her, really, before this, she just seems to be punished for having the same outlook as everyone else. Steele wants us to know that she enjoys it more, though, and she's definitely entitled at the end (though not unreasonably- Carlos was way too easy on her), but I don't really buy it.
I actually like the ending of "super volcano erupts and forces everyone to put aside their differences for survival" because it's unexpected and realistic, but when the whole novel is building up a to revolution/war that doesn't end up happening, it's hard not to be disappointed.
And I'm expected to believe that the social collectivists would just go back to Earth rather than anywhere else on this huge planet? That they would be accepted back? That this would be the end of it?
The introduction of savants is great, and the torture Savant Castro had to go through, underwater for years, was deliciously cruel- was it deserved or not?, but Steele never does much of anything with the idea. Maybe in the third novel, like how in this second one Marie is more of a player when she was barely mentioned in the first?
And Marie, well... I admire what Steele was going for in depicting a young girl who grew up with constant stress, death, and the threat of war hanging over her, but since we know nothing about her, really, before this, she just seems to be punished for having the same outlook as everyone else. Steele wants us to know that she enjoys it more, though, and she's definitely entitled at the end (though not unreasonably- Carlos was way too easy on her), but I don't really buy it.
I actually like the ending of "super volcano erupts and forces everyone to put aside their differences for survival" because it's unexpected and realistic, but when the whole novel is building up a to revolution/war that doesn't end up happening, it's hard not to be disappointed.
And I'm expected to believe that the social collectivists would just go back to Earth rather than anywhere else on this huge planet? That they would be accepted back? That this would be the end of it?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2020
This is the second book in the Coyote trilogy. In this book, after 200 years, the Earth has begun sending newer faster ships to Coyote, the first arriving only a few years after the Alabama. In those few years however, the crew and passengers have formed a community and worked hard just to survive.
The old government has Earth has been replaced with a newer government formed around the idea of Social Collectivism. When the Captain of the ship dictates that she will be landing her passengers in Liberty, and that the current residents will have to accept them and incorporate them into the limited framework of their community, they are naturally resentful. They've worked hard to build this, and it is getting close to winter so there won't be enough food or shelter to keep everyone safe.
So, they abandon the community, pack up everything valuable and take off.
This second book is about the fight for survival, and the quest for Liberty (in both senses of the word.)
Others have complained about the lack of diversity of flora and fauna on Coyote, but in reality only a small part of the world has been explored. If ancient aliens had landed on Greenland and only explored a small amount of Iceland though, they would have had a very limited idea of the species on earth.
Interesting story, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The old government has Earth has been replaced with a newer government formed around the idea of Social Collectivism. When the Captain of the ship dictates that she will be landing her passengers in Liberty, and that the current residents will have to accept them and incorporate them into the limited framework of their community, they are naturally resentful. They've worked hard to build this, and it is getting close to winter so there won't be enough food or shelter to keep everyone safe.
So, they abandon the community, pack up everything valuable and take off.
This second book is about the fight for survival, and the quest for Liberty (in both senses of the word.)
Others have complained about the lack of diversity of flora and fauna on Coyote, but in reality only a small part of the world has been explored. If ancient aliens had landed on Greenland and only explored a small amount of Iceland though, they would have had a very limited idea of the species on earth.
Interesting story, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
March 11, 2021
Ah, sigh, sadly the Golden Age of Sci fi seems to be waning. In fact I think it peaked in the 80's as far as real, hard sci fi goes. I have missed it and will probably continue to miss it as seemingly all that is written anymore is garbled and fantastical to a bizarre degree OR, as is the example in Allen Steele's works, the story line could very well be re-set anywhere on Planet Earth, at any time period, just change the names and the venue, throw in a few strange sounding names for oddball wildlife and voila, you have a science fiction tale. I DO appreciate the writing of Allen Steele, he is inventive and has a broad imagination , and he is very worthy of the term Science fiction writer. My main beef is that he did not introduce enough of what the genre entails. So we are on another planet but there is very little mentioned that is actually other-worldly. There is a lot of military interaction (with untrained men) and politicking and bureaucracy, those items could be enhanced reading for thriller stories. True science fiction is more rubbing shoulders with strange beings with unpredictable ways.
December 21, 2017
This is the second book in the Coyote series by Allen Steele. This book is about revolution. The colonists of Coyote are fighting for their freedom against the oppressive Earth government that they left Earth to escape. This book is a series of stories from the viewpoint of several different characters which lead up to the revolution which will attempt to free them. It would take too long to review each story but I will say each one is well written and entertaining to read. They tie in together to make a very good total story.
I have read several reviews that don't like this book because it was originally published as a series of short stories in a science fiction magazine. I'm not sure if it was actually published this way but I personally don't mind this type of story telling. In the Golden Age of science fiction it was common practice to first serialize stories this way and only later to novelize them. Many of the books we now consider classics were published this way. I recommend this book to all Allen Steele fans.
I have read several reviews that don't like this book because it was originally published as a series of short stories in a science fiction magazine. I'm not sure if it was actually published this way but I personally don't mind this type of story telling. In the Golden Age of science fiction it was common practice to first serialize stories this way and only later to novelize them. Many of the books we now consider classics were published this way. I recommend this book to all Allen Steele fans.
July 26, 2023
First read – 18 August 2008 - ***.
1 Coyote (2002)
2 Coyote Rising (2004)
3 Coyote Frontier (2005)
This is the second book in a trilogy, and like the first is a fix-up novel of stories previously published in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in the early 2000s, where I first read them. Except for the first two, these are all stories of the armed conflict between the original settlers and the new settlers who have taken over through sheer numbers. The old settlers stand for frontier liberty and freedom, while the new settlers espouse a system of Social Collectivism that has devolved into Feudalism. Good guys vs. bad guys. Thrilling, but simplistic.
My favorites are the first two stories, "The Madwoman of Shuttlefield" and "Benjamin the Unbeliever" which I feel to be more inventive, and rising out of the milieu of the slums of excess humanity brought to Coyote by the Social Collectivists.
1 Coyote (2002)
2 Coyote Rising (2004)
3 Coyote Frontier (2005)
This is the second book in a trilogy, and like the first is a fix-up novel of stories previously published in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in the early 2000s, where I first read them. Except for the first two, these are all stories of the armed conflict between the original settlers and the new settlers who have taken over through sheer numbers. The old settlers stand for frontier liberty and freedom, while the new settlers espouse a system of Social Collectivism that has devolved into Feudalism. Good guys vs. bad guys. Thrilling, but simplistic.
My favorites are the first two stories, "The Madwoman of Shuttlefield" and "Benjamin the Unbeliever" which I feel to be more inventive, and rising out of the milieu of the slums of excess humanity brought to Coyote by the Social Collectivists.
September 11, 2017
Secondo libro della trilogia di Coyote: anche questo mi è piaciuto molto come il primo.
Pur non avendo un idea particolarmente originale come base, la struttura è solida, la scrittura avvincente e convincente e mi piace molto anche il fatto che la storia continui a essere costruita con episodi che hanno protagonisti, trame e approcci diversi diversi (dalla delicatezza di sentimenti del primo all'azione della parte finale). Non vedo l'ora di leggere il volume conclusivo.
Pur non avendo un idea particolarmente originale come base, la struttura è solida, la scrittura avvincente e convincente e mi piace molto anche il fatto che la storia continui a essere costruita con episodi che hanno protagonisti, trame e approcci diversi diversi (dalla delicatezza di sentimenti del primo all'azione della parte finale). Non vedo l'ora di leggere il volume conclusivo.
November 14, 2019
Not as good as the first book. It bogged down a little in the middle but the last third was really good and moved quickly. I liked how the author told the story in different narratives, almost like individual short stories. I was somewhat disappointed by the fact that the characters I like had limited time dedicated to them. So the story continues from the first book but everyone is older and changed. It's fitting but sad.
December 8, 2019
I just finished book two, COYOTE RISING, in the Coyote series by Allen Steele.
This is exactly the type of science fiction that I like the best.
No weird names or strange technical jargon.
The series deals with colonizing a planet far from our solar system.
I will be reading book three, COYOTE FRONTIER in the near future.
I'm so very glad that I discovered this fascinating science fiction series.
This is exactly the type of science fiction that I like the best.
No weird names or strange technical jargon.
The series deals with colonizing a planet far from our solar system.
I will be reading book three, COYOTE FRONTIER in the near future.
I'm so very glad that I discovered this fascinating science fiction series.
September 9, 2016
The second installment in Allen Steele's "Coyote Trilogy" starts right where the seminal first book left off, namely the separation between the original arrivals to the one habitable moon in the Ursae Marjoris 47 star system and the subsequent waves of ill-prepared and ill-equipped colonists that follow them. This separation eventually degenerates into a planet-wide conflict as the authors spins an increasingly ambitious narrative around the clash of fundamental ideas like social collectivism and personal freedom.
However, even though Coyote Rising succeeds in assembling the stories published in "Asimov's Magazine" from 2003-2004 into a coherent and highly entertaining story, much like its predecessor Coyote did, at the end of the day it is a novel almost entirely driven by plot. As such, the new world and its attendant environmental and physical challenges take a back seat to the interactions of various human characters, which Steele uses to make one philosophical point after another with varying degrees of success.
I thought the considerations of how does one build a brand new society in a completely new setting constitute a good overall theme for the parts 1 and 2 of this saga, but towards the end of Coyote Rising the story begins to drag, forcing Steele to accelerate both human and natural phenomena to the point where their credibility is undermined by the need to 'wrap it up'. The best example of this is the conveniently timed volcanic eruption that forces an armistice between the two warring factions.
For the rest of this review, I'm just going to shamelessly copy and paste from Justin Howe's spot-on discussion of the entire Coyote Trilogy at Strange Horizons.
"It is in the first half of the second novel that Steele introduces his more far-reaching social ideas, as well as renewing his investigation of the idea of personal freedom. There are the post-human Savants who have downloaded their intelligences into machines and serve as advisors to the forces of Social Collectivism. There's a cult that worships a physically altered human as the Church of Universal Transformation. With both of these, Steele crafts cautionary tales. He clearly finds the Savants to be pitiable for having lost their humanity. Each character forced to deal with one of the post-humans experiences some degree of revulsion. As for the church, well, for that story Steele takes his inspiration from the Donner party and other gruesome tales of wilderness survival. In between and around these wonders are the human stories of colonization in the face of the grim truths of Social Collectivism. Political exiles, geniuses, drifters, and misfits have all found themselves on another world. Their struggles feature many harsh realities, as the chapter "The Garcia Narrows Bridge" clearly illustrates. Plus, in the background, the other sentient inhabitants of Coyote have started to notice they are no longer alone upon the world. Along with Social Collectivism come the twin troubles of exploitation and sabotage. Like the tyranny last seen on Earth in the first book, this form of government does not embrace the freedom that the Alabama colonists typify. Guerilla raids led by Carlos Montero soon develop into open conflict between the two factions. The second part of Coyote Rising details the revolution that ultimately leads to the planet's independence from Earth. At this point, Coyote is a changed world on the verge of a new era of exploration.
As a storyteller, Steele has established his name with his ability to create compelling, everyday characters in a hard science-fiction setting. Like Joe Haldeman, Steele writes such accessible prose that we're willing to go along wherever it may take us. The first two novels abound with believable and well thought out technologies. There's nothing that reads as out of place, and Steele has found a framework upon which to investigate the mythology of his country. As it turns out, this is both a curse and a blessing. On one hand it's a mythology in need of exploration, but on the other hand it's just too easy to have things turn into "the American Revolution in space." But Steele is attempting to do more than that. He's concerned with the nature of governments and the personal freedoms of the individual. Throughout the series, he's shone a wary light upon methods of social control. We've seen a repressive future America that pays lip-service to personal freedoms, the threat of Social Collectivism, misplaced trust in leaders and technology, and the birth of a new community. By the end of Coyote Rising the stage is set for the adventure to continue, even if the main story has been told. Things can move forward. The characters are free to explore the world."
So, even though the stage is set for the remaining characters to go back to building their society and resume exploring their new home, it's probably safe to assume conflict will return in some form or another. But that's for part 3 to detail. Overall, Coyote Rising is an entertaining read and a good follow-up despite the fact that, like most sequels, it is unable to match the novelty of the original. It is worth 3.5 stars really, more than what I gave it here, but not 4.
However, even though Coyote Rising succeeds in assembling the stories published in "Asimov's Magazine" from 2003-2004 into a coherent and highly entertaining story, much like its predecessor Coyote did, at the end of the day it is a novel almost entirely driven by plot. As such, the new world and its attendant environmental and physical challenges take a back seat to the interactions of various human characters, which Steele uses to make one philosophical point after another with varying degrees of success.
I thought the considerations of how does one build a brand new society in a completely new setting constitute a good overall theme for the parts 1 and 2 of this saga, but towards the end of Coyote Rising the story begins to drag, forcing Steele to accelerate both human and natural phenomena to the point where their credibility is undermined by the need to 'wrap it up'. The best example of this is the conveniently timed volcanic eruption that forces an armistice between the two warring factions.
For the rest of this review, I'm just going to shamelessly copy and paste from Justin Howe's spot-on discussion of the entire Coyote Trilogy at Strange Horizons.
"It is in the first half of the second novel that Steele introduces his more far-reaching social ideas, as well as renewing his investigation of the idea of personal freedom. There are the post-human Savants who have downloaded their intelligences into machines and serve as advisors to the forces of Social Collectivism. There's a cult that worships a physically altered human as the Church of Universal Transformation. With both of these, Steele crafts cautionary tales. He clearly finds the Savants to be pitiable for having lost their humanity. Each character forced to deal with one of the post-humans experiences some degree of revulsion. As for the church, well, for that story Steele takes his inspiration from the Donner party and other gruesome tales of wilderness survival. In between and around these wonders are the human stories of colonization in the face of the grim truths of Social Collectivism. Political exiles, geniuses, drifters, and misfits have all found themselves on another world. Their struggles feature many harsh realities, as the chapter "The Garcia Narrows Bridge" clearly illustrates. Plus, in the background, the other sentient inhabitants of Coyote have started to notice they are no longer alone upon the world. Along with Social Collectivism come the twin troubles of exploitation and sabotage. Like the tyranny last seen on Earth in the first book, this form of government does not embrace the freedom that the Alabama colonists typify. Guerilla raids led by Carlos Montero soon develop into open conflict between the two factions. The second part of Coyote Rising details the revolution that ultimately leads to the planet's independence from Earth. At this point, Coyote is a changed world on the verge of a new era of exploration.
As a storyteller, Steele has established his name with his ability to create compelling, everyday characters in a hard science-fiction setting. Like Joe Haldeman, Steele writes such accessible prose that we're willing to go along wherever it may take us. The first two novels abound with believable and well thought out technologies. There's nothing that reads as out of place, and Steele has found a framework upon which to investigate the mythology of his country. As it turns out, this is both a curse and a blessing. On one hand it's a mythology in need of exploration, but on the other hand it's just too easy to have things turn into "the American Revolution in space." But Steele is attempting to do more than that. He's concerned with the nature of governments and the personal freedoms of the individual. Throughout the series, he's shone a wary light upon methods of social control. We've seen a repressive future America that pays lip-service to personal freedoms, the threat of Social Collectivism, misplaced trust in leaders and technology, and the birth of a new community. By the end of Coyote Rising the stage is set for the adventure to continue, even if the main story has been told. Things can move forward. The characters are free to explore the world."
So, even though the stage is set for the remaining characters to go back to building their society and resume exploring their new home, it's probably safe to assume conflict will return in some form or another. But that's for part 3 to detail. Overall, Coyote Rising is an entertaining read and a good follow-up despite the fact that, like most sequels, it is unable to match the novelty of the original. It is worth 3.5 stars really, more than what I gave it here, but not 4.
August 4, 2017
Published 2004. Second in the original series (now expanded). A little choppy with the individual character vignettes at the beginning. It says some of it was published as individual stories in "Assimov's Science Fiction" so maybe that has something to do with it. Afterwards the balance of the book flows better.
July 21, 2017
I could quibble about a few details that don't seem logical. I could take issue with the author's technique of writing some chapters as if a different character was writing the story. None of my nitpicking should prevent anyone from reading this enjoyable series.
August 19, 2017
This is a book about the settling and development of coyote, instead of a story about people who happen to be on another planet. Much better than the first book! Bat-jesus was a bit hard to get through, but it was worth it to explain bat-god.
March 24, 2017
Un buon romanzo nel complesso, molto "spazio: ultima frontiera" per certi versi e per certi altri un western vecchio stampo. I richiami alla Rivoluzione Americana sono molti e comprensibili anche a i non espertissimi, e in fondo Coyote Rising è proprio questo: un inno alle idee che hanno reso l'America quella che è nel senso positivo dell'accezione.
Non poteva non piacermi.
Non poteva non piacermi.
May 15, 2017
Taking a break before finishing off the trilogy. Good stuff, as always from Steele.
May 24, 2017
I love reading about this amazing planet, can't wait to read the next book.
May 25, 2019
So cool
I particularly enjoyed the separated vignettes of all that was happen g on the planet. The social dynamic and evolution was fascinating
I particularly enjoyed the separated vignettes of all that was happen g on the planet. The social dynamic and evolution was fascinating
September 30, 2019
A good follow up to the first book in the series but with less space travel
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