Kage Baker - Sky Coyote

[I, Brian]

Original review by Elaine Frei:



The Company, a 24th century corporation that has learned the secrets of time travel and immortality, has decided in its infinite wisdom - or at least in its quest for ever more profit - to preserve intact a Chumash Indian village on the coast of southern California in 1700, inhabitants included. To do this, it sends in some of its immortal cyborg operatives to deal with the inhabitants of the village. But, because this operation is so important (read lucrative), the Company decides that it is necessary to send some of its own mortal stockholders and staff from the 24th century to keep an eye on things and make sure everything goes right.


Of course, things don't go smoothly. The mortals are afraid of and bigoted towards the cyborgs. They are horrified that the cyborgs do things like eat meat and chocolate and drink alcohol. The cyborgs don't like the mortals any more than the mortals like them. They see the mortals as intellectually bankrupt, childish, weak, and afraid of their own shadows. And the Chumash - well the Chumash are revealed as a complex, pragmatic, capitalistic people who wouldn't be at all out of place in our own time. They have some very sharp questions and logical concerns for Coyote, the cyborg surgically altered to portray one of their gods, about his plan to take them to the next world without having to suffer the pains of death. The interactions that come out of this mix of cultures make Sky Coyote, the second of Kage Baker's novels of the Company, worth the read in and of themselves.


One of the best things about this book is the portrayal of the Chumash, one of the native groups of southern California that was all but wiped out by European colonization. Baker has done her research. Despite their perceived primitiveness, the Chumash were a seafaring people who possessed a highly complex society that included a rich mythology and a hugely successful capitalistic economy that included trade links that stretched for hundreds of miles from their home area. Baker has succeeded in showing a portrait of the Chumash that is vivid, highly accurate, and - most important - quite entertaining. She shares a great deal of information with the reader without ever becoming pedantic or boring.


I confess that one of the reasons I liked Sky Coyote so much is that I grew up in the area where the Chumash made their homes. But, beyond that, it is a good book. For those who have read the first of the Company novels, In the Garden of Iden, both Botanist Mendoza and Facilitator Joseph are back and as quirky as ever. For those who haven’t read that first book, I would be willing to wager that reading Sky Coyote will make you want to go out and catch up with the earlier adventures of Joseph, Mendoza, and friends.