Posts Tagged ‘time travel’
We’re in the home stretch now! Yes, I’m talking about Kage Baker’s Company series, a series that spans all (literally, all) of human history, a story of romance, star crossed lovers, betrayal, immortality, the best of intentions, the longest game in the history of ever, some of the best historical fiction you’ll ever read, black humor and sarcasm, and of course, time travel.
the most unbreakable rule of time travel being that recorded history can not be changed.
but what about those idyllic afternoons where no one wrote down what happened?
and what the person writing the stuff down, what if they, um, missed some stuff?
if the future is known, because the Temporal Concordance has all of recorded history, what does that do to Mendoza’s free will?
Doesn’t that sound like the most fascinating thing ever? The Company books are my ideal binge read. I’m stuck at home for a while, so I’m reading comfort books, stuff that will keep my attention, stuff I really want to read.
ok, so there is plenty of discussion on the proper reader order for this series. Do you read it in publishing order? Do you read the main Mendoza and Joseph novels first and then go back and read the novellas short stories later? As time travel ramps up, and things become wibbly wobbly timey wimey, it stops making sense to read these in any kind of chronological order. I’m using the reading order list from Goodreads. I’m missing some of the novellas in the middle, but hey, I’ll be rereading this series and/or dipping my toes in again in the future, so there’s plenty of opportunity to pick up those missing books.
I’ve been blogging my way through the series. these aren’t book reviews, they are old fashioned blog entries, where I’m talking about what I’m reading, what else I’m up to, what I’m watching on TV (lots of Star Trek: Discovery), what I’m making for dinner (lots of home made bread), how I’m doing (it’s very quiet outside), etc.
Here’s the posts that have gone up so far, and the titles I’ve talked about:
It is sorta like Outlander meets Twilight, minus the Werewolves – In the Garden of Iden #1 and Sky Coyote (#2)
One non-sequiter after another – Sky Coyote #2
Books to Escape Into – Mendoza in Hollywood #3
Who is Writing this Story, Anyway? – The Graveyard Game #4 and The Life of the World to Come #5
The Children of the Company – The Children of the Company #6
Whiskey and Book Club Ep 1 – The Machine’s Child #7,
I have finished Gods and Pawns #7.5, and Rude Mechanicals #7.75. Both of those books are short stories that were published in Asimov’s and other magazines, and give a lot of background on characters, and show some other adventures. In my opinion, about half of Gods and Pawns is required for the big picture, and tbh you could skip the other half and skip Rude Mechanicals and be OK. are all of these stories enjoyable and beautiful written and full of snark and humor? hell yeah they are! If you missed them (like, if you couldn’t find a copy of the book), will you still be able to follow the main story? Abso-freaking-lutely.
I really loved the first story in Gods and Pawns, where Mendoza and Lewis spend a week in ancient Central America. Mendoza is, of course, obsessed with figuring out the super compost, and Lewis is mistaken for a God’s servant. You know how it’s easy to assume that ancient peoples weren’t as smart as we are today, because they don’t have steam engines and computers and airplanes and ipads? This story turns that theory on it’s head. the family that Mendoza and Lewis meet, these people know exactly what they’re doing, they know why and how to do it, and most importantly they know how to spin science as religion/magic.
The Kalugin story was hard to read. He’s talking about a global plague. I nearly put the book down, didn’t finish it, and just went right to the next novel. I don’t want to read anything about sickness right now.
Rude Mechanicals was (please don’t kill me) just okay. Was it fun? absolutely. Will I do just about anything to hang out with Joseph and Lewis? omg hell yes! Believe it or not, I think Rude Mechanicals was the first Company anything I ever read, way back when. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I knew whatever this was, I liked it, and I wanted more. I think my beef with Rude Mechanicals is that I’m getting itchy for “what happens next”, and while this super fun romp through 1930s Hollywood is very fun, it doesn’t move the story forward. In a few years, when I want to dip my toes into this series, without getting sucked into the main story line, Rude Mechanicals will probably be the perfect novella to read!
Which brings us to The Sons of Heaven. I’m nearly half way through The Sons of Heaven and holy shit is there buckets upon buckets of fuckupery happening in this book! just some absolutely trippy shit. Aside from that, this novel is exactly the dessert buffet I’d been wishing for – it’s all my favorite characters, together at last. And Lewis! He’s like the Neville Longbottom of the series. He’s meek, he’s quiet, but he’s going to save everyone, isn’t he?
At this point in the game (and we’re getting pretty close to end game), nearly all the factions are spying on each other, the mortals of the 24th century mistakenly think they run the place, and no one is asking the important question of “where the hell is Mendoza and Alec?”. I also want to know – the story line with Lewis and Tiara, when exactly is this taking place?
Hard to talk about much else without giving away epic spoilers!
Who is writing this story, anyway?
Posted on: March 31, 2020
- In: Kage Baker
- 5 Comments
I’ve been re-reading Kage Baker’s Company series. I’m not writing formal reviews, just chatting about the books every few days, making small connections, making big connections. Some spoilers are unavoidable.
If you don’t care about this series, but are interested in my poor brain exploding due to realizing my beloved characters never had any free will, scroll way down to a paragraph that starts with “I used to think . . ”.
Previous posts in this series:
post 1 – talking about In the Garden of Iden (book #1)
post 2 – talking about Sky Coyote (book #2) and Mendoza in Hollywood (book #3) and also the movie Rocketman and the tv show Star Trek: Discovery
and now we’re up to talking about The Graveyard Game (book #4) and The Life of the World to Come (#5). This is where I realized my beloved characters don’t have any free will, that everyone is trapped. Here we go!
About ten minutes after I finished The Graveyard Game, I pulled The Life of the World to Come off the bookshelf. Boy these books have some truly awful cover art.
The Graveyard Game is a hella fun read, and it’s a fast read! We’re back to Lewis and Joseph, and I adore Joseph, even if he’s a jerk sometimes. Please, is there an internet archive of Joseph fan-fic? Pretty please? Anyway, Joseph is trying to find out what happened to Budu, and Lewis gets a little obsessed with trying to figure out who the hell Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax was. They are both sort of trying to figure out what happened to Mendoza. The problem is, when you’re a cyborg who is enslaved to The Company, every word you say, every photo you take with your cybernetic eyes, every web-search you do, is recorded and added to the temporal concordance. Everything you do becomes recorded history, so you have to be super sneaky, and make sure nothing you do is recorded. Because recorded history can not be changed.
Joseph finds some secret bunkers, and reminisces about his early years with the Company and Budu’s heroic acts. Lewis is haunted by his past, when he saw something he shouldn’t have.
Joseph has a hard time coming to terms with the idea that as you age, the world changes. You feel like you don’t fit in with the younger generations anymore, the things you care about aren’t the things they care about. What happens when an immortal has a mid-life crisis, and realizes that trends in Company brainwashing and programming have drastically changed over the course of known history? The Graveyard Game might be my favorite Company book! (well, tied with Sky Coyote, because that book is just so damn funny) I guess I just love any excuse to hang out with Joseph!
And then we get to The Life of the World to Come, which is the most annoying book in the history of EVER, while at the same time being the most confusing book of the series and the most important book of the series.
As of Tuesday this week, I’m telecommuting until further notice. I have a mini-desk set up in one corner of the living room, and a huge thank you to IT for sending me home with an extra plug-bar!
I’m trying to keep to my normal schedule as much as possible, I’m the kind of person who really needs structure. This means: Up at 6am or earlier, exercise, have a shower, have a coffee. . . and well, I used to leave for work around 6:40am because I had an hour commute. I used to get home from work around 6:30, because hour commute.
no more hour commute.
I’ve just bought myself 2 hours a day (or more!) to read!!! I’m trying to read in the morning, instead of obsessing over reading the news.
I’m re-reading my way through Kage Baker’s Company series, blew through In the Garden of Iden in a couple of days, and am now a few chapters in to Sky Coyote.
We picked up a few more Witcher books, so I have those two.
if you’ve just gained some time, due to #reasons, what are you taking the time to finally read?
I’d forgotten how freakin’ smart In the Garden of Iden is, now that I’ve read further into the series there is SO MUCH foreshadowing in this book that OF COURSE I wouldn’t/couldn’t have seen the first time I read it. Also? The sex scenes are SO ADORABLE!
I was nervous getting up to the scene at the end. Iif you’ve read the book, you know the scene I’m talking about. I was this close to DNFing it, and going right to Sky Coyote, so I could skip that scene, because with all that’s going on, did I really need to torture myself with reading that scene?
Mendoza managed to survive it. Baker managed to write it. I needed to put on my big girl panties and read the fucking scene. I took a deep breath, and I read it. I didn’t like it, but I got through it. The actual scene? it was shorter than I remembered. A little easier to survive than I expected. Still, it was brutal. Maybe next time, I’ll skip it.
ok, more random thoughts on this book:
(apologies in advance for crappy grammar, shouty caps, and crimes against italics. I’ve been drinking. it’s been a week, ok?)
for the uninitiated, In the Garden of Iden has time travel, romance, teen angst, grown-up snark, and immortals. It is sorta like Outlander meets Twilight, minus the werewolves and with way better writing and humor?
Shit, the title!!!! Excellent play on words on Garden of Eden. Mendoza finds herself in a paradise, and is then thrust out, having had her eyes opened to so much awfulness. And holy crap, she is SO seventeen years old!! the teen angst is so adorable! And what she knows now? the knowledge she has (about life, about mortals) she can’t unknow. I think I could play with this paragraph for about forever, so i’m just gonna shut up now.
I like that this book is written in past tense first person. At least that means we know for a fact that Mendoza doesn’t die.
srsly, what the fuck are they teaching these kids in school?
Joseph rocks. The first time I read this, I thought he was an asshole. After re-reading Iden and a few chapters into Sky Coyote I don’t think he’s an asshole at all. i mean, he’s a total jerk sometimes, but he’s not an asshole.
In the Garden of Iden came out in 1997. for context, that was the year I graduated high shool, and at the time I wouldn’t have known quality science fiction if it bit me in the ass. For folks who were actual grown-ups in the 90s, did this book “break the internet”? Were people all like “what the hell is this?”, or did this book come out, and no one knew what it was and it didn’t get any buzz? I mean, the series doesn’t really get going big time for a few books or so, but Garden of Iden is SO FREAKING GOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! what was was the reaction when this book came out?
omfg time paradox!!! Joseph, Nef, and Mendoza were sent to Walter Iden’s estate to (among other things) collect samples of certain plants that would shortly become extinct. Some of these plants have medicinal extracts, etc. avoiding spoilers: if Joseph hadn’t given Iden __________, maybe Iden wouldn’t have ______ ____ _______ , and maybe _____ ______ would never _______ ________ in the first place??? i freaking LOVE shit like this!!!
More in a couple days when I’m further into Sky Coyote.
To Say Nothing of the Dog came out in 1998.
We all need something happy right now.
So I’m going to spoil this book for you:
It has a happy ending.
It stars the world’s cutest doggo, and the world’s fluffliest cat.
No one dies.
Yes, this is a book in which no one dies, comedies of manners take place, Victorian romances are not-quite thwarted by distractable chaperones, yard sales are born, mysteries are solved by studying other mysteries, time travel happens every five minutes, and you’ll laugh your head off.
While you can read Willis’s Oxford Time Travel books in nearly any order, since they all function as stand alones, I’d recommend reading Doomsday Book first. It’ll give you a feel for Willis’s writing style, the rules of her time travel technology, it’ll tell you what you’re getting yourself into. (and you have to read Blackout / All Clear as a duology, do NOT read All Clear first!)
Once you’ve finished Doomsday Book and you are done crying, you’ll be reading for something much lighter and much funnier. It’s time for To Say Nothing of the Dog. You’ve earned it.
In the future, Lady Shrapnell refuses to take no for an answer. She commandeers the time travel lab at Oxford to send hapless historians anywhen she pleases, so that her restoration of Coventry Cathedral can be perfect.
You can’t bring artifacts forward in time with you, but you can steal them away from a cathedral that is about to be bombed in the 1940 Blitz, hide them somewhere safe, and then 200 years later just happen to locate them in some granny’s attic. The one item the historians can’t seem to find is the Bishop’s bird stump. What is a bird stump? Doesn’t matter, it’s just a Macguffin, and a cause for comedy as time travellers to say “The Bishop’s Bird Stump” ten times fast while trying to figure out what happened to it and why anyone would want to make something so hideous.
The only way to protect the time lagged historians from Lady Shrapnell’s wrath is to get them as far away from her as possible – maybe a few hundred years away from her.
A bucket of mini-reviews
Posted on: December 7, 2019
Woah! How did it become December, like, when did that happen?
I could put myself under a ton of pressure to write thousand word reviews that won’t get read . . . or I could write some low-pressure mini-reviews.
Mini reviews it is. (I mourn my loss of review-writing motivation. I really do)
Here are some mini-reviews of books I read this year and enjoyed. If you read them, I’d love to know your thoughts! If you aren’t familiar with them, do they look interesting?
The Quantum Garden by Derek Kunsken – the direct sequel to Kunsken’s break out novel The Quantum Magician. I am a sucker for heist stories, and I am a sucker for when the con artist gets conned. This second novel in the series is quieter than the first, less action, less gigantic set pieces. And in the quiet spaces, we really get to know Bel and Cassie, and the family they came from. I’m not going to give away any plot points, because if you haven’t read the first book they won’t make any sense. If you like smart science fiction, if you like physics that is on the edge, if you like stories about science meets capitalism and human greed, and oh, if you’re looking to scratch your Locke Lamora itch, this is the series for you. Seriously excellent in every possible way. Def gonna want to reread this and tease out all the cool dimension hopping physics and cultural and family obligation stuff, and just totally cool shit on every page.
And Shall Machines Surrender by Benjanun Sriduangkaew – I loved this book. It was fun, it was super sexy, the characters were great, I enjoyed the story, I loved the idea of a sanctuary community that is run and governed by AI’s who rebelled against their human owners. But this isn’t a story about AI’s, it is a romance. Orfea and Krissana have history, oh do they have history. And the only thing they have more of than history is chemistry. If you don’t like romance and sexytimes getting all squished up in your scifi, this isn’t the book for you. Enjoy ultra smart scifi characters who also get to have romantic relationships and sexytimes? This novella is the gift you give yourself. Even better news? Sriduangkaew recently published Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster, which is same world, different characters. This is a huge sprawling space opera world that Sriduangkaew has created, there are endless stories she could tell.
Indelible Ink by Matt Betts – Ok, so I read this one a few months ago, and don’t remember a ton of the details. I remember that it had a rough start, but found its bearing pretty quickly, and that I enjoyed it enough that I’d read it again. Deena has some hella cool superpowers that she can sort of control, her story line felt X-Men and edgy, as if she was some mutant kid who got recruited into Magneto’s crew and didn’t really know what was going on. I remember really liking her as a character and rooting for her. And there was this crazy twist at the end that came out of left field, but at the same time made a ton of sense because there had been some clues all long. Yep, just gonna have to read this one again. If you can find a copy of this book, I recommend it.
It’s been a busy work week, and a slow-going reading week. Yep, no five for Friday for you last week, I was exhausted. Don’t worry, the stuff I’ve been busy with has been all good stuff that is keeping me out of trouble!
I’ve been slowly making my way through All Clear by Connie Willis, and I finished it about an hour ago.
some thoughts:
OMFG was the never ending scene to get to St. Paul’s annoying! If she had just told Binnie and Alf to bugger off, and ditched the doctor and the ambulance, maybe she’d have gotten to the church on time! Those were seriously THE MOST annoying 50 pages I have ever read. oh, it was only 5 pages? It felt like 50. I very nearly DNFd this book because that scene was so annoying!
The short scenes with Ernest and Fortitude South. I am embarrassed that it took me a gazillion pages to figure out where everyone’s names were from. come on, I haven’t read that play since high school! and now I want to know everything about Fortitude South, because holy shit so brilliant!
It also took me FOREVER to figure out that people we meet in 1944 are people I’ve already met. thanks for Agatha Christie’ing me, Willis!
Are Connie Willis and Ann Perry friends, or was that just a coincidence?
Connie Willis and Robin Hobb must be friends, they both subscribe to the philosophy of “imagine the worst possible thing that could happen to your characters, and then do it”.
That’s who Colin is?? WHAHHHH?????
now that I’ve finished the duology, the only thing I want to do is reread them both, so I can pick up all the hints I missed the first time. I have a feeling this duology is just like that painting that everyone in the book is always going on about – that you see something different every time you look at it.
Also, I suddenly feel really bad about bitching about that interminable-seeming ambulance / chase scene / split up / climb the rafters / everyone ends up at the hospital even though they are trying to get to St. Paul’s scene. Every minute was important, and I was a whiny bitch about it.
maybe I should take a break from time travel books? HAHAHAHA, no.
Oxford needs to do a “Connie Willis literary tour”.
this book was so fucking hopeful it makes me want to cry. Everything I’ve read by Willis is so damn hopeful. It’s like she’s saying to me “People are capable of so much good. Here, let me show you”. I kinda need that right now. Is this what hopepunk is? Please say that it is.
that is all.
have a great week everyone.
Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds
Posted on: July 7, 2019
Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds
published in March 2019
where I got it: purchased new
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Time travel is quickly becoming my favorite science fiction subgenre. I blame Doctor Who, who made it look fun, safe, and something that can be resolved in an hour. I blame my love for the phrase “what could possibly go wrong?”. So yeah, time travel is the best! Novellas? Also my new fave, and the best.
If you enjoy time travel stories, if you want a novella that’s excellently paced and grabs you on page one, a story that’s packed full of smart information but never info dumps, a story will great characters and a compelling story line, Permafrost is for you.
50 years from now, we’ve just about killed the Earth, our crops are dying, our soil can’t grow anything, seed banks that we thought would sustain us have either failed or the seeds won’t grow in our dead soil. The last generation of humans has already been born. It’s looking pretty grim. Remember the opening of the movie Interstellar? It’s a little like that, except we don’t have space travel, we don’t have a black hole, and we don’t have any other planets we can maybe colonize. We don’t have any of those things, but what we do have is math and a fledgling time travel project. The goal is to go back in time, get viable seeds, and bring them to the future.
Except you can’t send people or objects back and forth through time. But you can send pairs of particles. The goal of Dr. Cho’s Permafrost project is to send messages back in time so that seeds can be placed somewhere, so that in the future his project can find them. Cho recruits the elderly school teacher Valentina to his cause, her connection to his work is even more vital than the fact that her mother invented the mathematical equations that time travel hinges on.
Ok, so what really happens if you do successfully change the past? No one ever put a cache of seeds somewhere, but then time travelers go back in time do exactly that. Once upon a time, did that event never occur? On a smaller scale, if the time travel math shows that in five minutes you will drop your pen, and then the moment comes and your purposely drop two pens, what happens?
Blackout by Connie Willis
Posted on: June 30, 2019
Blackout by Connie Willis
published in 2010*
where I got it: purchased used
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I finished reading Connie Willis’s Blackout shortly after blogging about how much of a Lobster this book is. When I wrote that blog post, I was about half way through the book, I am pretty sure I read the 2nd half in a non-stop reading marathon.
That post, and this post has minor plot spoilers for Blackout.
I’m a sucker for time travel thrillers, and I especially love it when the premise of the thriller is “what could possibly go wrong?” and the author has correctly answered that question is “everything!”, thus the thrilling storyline.
Willis’s Doomsday Book is one of my favorite time travel novels, and I’d heard the sequel was To Say Nothing of the Dog. I recently bought a copy of TSNofD, and don’t tell anyone I said this, but i DNF’d that book about 50 pages in. I wasn’t getting any of the Three Men in a Boat jokes (yes, I am a midwestern heathen with no education. More on that in a bit, actually), I wasn’t connecting with any of the characters. So back on the bookshelf that book went. But I still wanted my Connie Willis fix? So I picked up Blackout.
Blackout takes place about 5 years after the events of Doomsday Book, and who were the first two characters I met? Dunworthy and Colin!! This was the sequel to Doomsday Book I’d been looking for!! Colin is nearly college age, and as adorable and puppy-like as always, Badri knows not to let Colin anywhere near the net, and Dunworthy is his usually curmudgeonly and rushing all about self. Dunworthy cares deeply for his time traveling students, he’s just real good at showing it. And he keeps rescheduling everyone’s drops and driving the net techs crazy.
Just joining us for Connie Willis time travel? Here’s some context: It’s the year 2060, time travel exists (but somehow smartphones, e-mail, and pages do not**), and Oxford University sends historians back in time for weeks or months, so the historian can embed themselves in the time and location they are studying. The language and accent you need will be imported into your implant, you’ll receive tons of training on how to act and dress, and when your drop date arrives, you go to the Net with your props, and the net techs send you through. To avoid anyone being able to change history, the net simply won’t open to let you go through to a moment in the past where you’d have any ability to muck things up. To return home, you got to the “drop” site at specific pre-arranged times when the net will open for you. Pretty cool, right?
Minor spoiler: Dunworthy and Colin are not major characters in Blackout. I think I cried with joy to get to see them again, and even 20 pages with them was enough for me to be OK with not seeing them for another who knows how many pages. The novel follows four time travelers/historians who I hadn’t met before, and they have all gone back to different areas of England at different points during World War II. They each have an assignment to observe different places. The good news is that while some things do go wrong, this book is nowhere near as brutal as what all went wrong in The Doomsday Book.
I’m about half way through Blackout by Connie Willis.
Someone told me that To Say Nothing of the Dog is the sequel to The Doomsday Book? I disagree!! Who is the first person I meet in Blackout? Colin! And who is he looking for? Mr. Dunworthy! And who does Colin run into as he’s running around Oxford? Badri! And who knows to not let Colin anywhere near the net? EVERYONE. Blackout is the sequel to Doomsday Book says I, as all my fave people are in the first chapter! Don’t at me!
Anyway, I love time travel stories that go a little like this: Let’s go back in time! What could possibly go wrong? In fact, let’s go back to the London Blitz, and then go to Dunkirk!
Um, everything could wrong? Didn’t Dunworthy already learn that the hard way?
I’m about half way through and Blackout is a damn Lobster.
It’s super intense, and scary AF, and I can’t put it down, it freaks me out to read it, it freaks me out to not be reading it and not know what is going to happen, i want to poke it I’m afraid to poke it. I call books like that Lobsters.
I was so into this book, and being so affected by it, that when my husband asked me something super basic about dinner, it took me a good 60 seconds to realize that I wasn’t in 1940 London and that I was perfectly safe.
What books have been lobsters for you?
(this post has minor spoilers for Blackout by Connie Willis)
What’s doubly scary is that all our time travellers – Polly, Mike, Eileen, and Mary, they KNOW exactly what happened in England during World War II. Our time travelers are in fact, historians studying at Oxford in the year 2060.
And while the time travellers are on assignment observing people, if they need to learn something (like how to drive), they can pop through the net back to the future, learn whatever they need to learn, and then pop back right moments after they left. Time travel is neat!
But they people they are with, they have no idea where and when the bombs will fall, they have no idea how much war is yet to come.
the Little Red Reviewer 
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