Black Projects, White Knights
Kage Baker
Golden Gryphon Press, 288 pages
Order this book
Kage Baker’s Company
series (the Company is twenty-fourth century research and development firm
Dr. Zeus Incorporated, inventor of time travel and immortality, whose deathless
cyborg operatives travel through time salvaging the lost treasures of history)
is one of the more interesting SF series now in progress. Since 1997,
it has been unfolding not just in Baker’s novels (In the Garden of Iden,
Sky Coyote, Mendoza in Hollywood, and The Graveyard Game), but in her considerable
output of short fiction. This collection from specialist publisher
Golden Gryphon Press gathers together fourteen Company stories (three of
which haven’t appeared elsewhere) plus an introduction by Baker.
The stories don’t truly stand alone, for they assume familiarity with the
Company universe, and feature recurring Company characters--Joseph, Mendoza,
Lewis, Kalugin, Nan D’Arrignee, and also Alec Checkerfield (though he isn't
recurring in quite the same way). They’ll certainly have more resonance
for the reader who has traveled in the universe before (and the reader who
wishes to follow the series is well-advised to read them, since many contain
vital clues to the ongoing saga). But they are so deftly written, so
sympathetically characterized, and so intelligently plotted that even a non-Company
aficionado should appreciate them. More than that: these stories
aren’t merely clever plotlines set in an intricately-invented fictional world,
but explorations of larger themes--mortality, compassion, loneliness, love,
what it means to be human, what it means to be Other. This wider sensibility
informs all of Baker’s work, and is one of the things that sets it apart from
typical genre series writing.
Baker’s sardonic wit is integral to her work, and many of the stories have
a humorous focus. In “Noble Mold” (the first Company story ever published),
Joseph and Mendoza run into a problem in their efforts to acquire a rare
plant, and solve it by amusing use of period-appropriate special effects.
In “Lemuria Will Rise!”, Mendoza encounters a classic California eccentric--in
1859, which goes to show that some things don’t change. The “agent”
of “The Literary Agent” is Joseph, inserting himself into a blank spot in
the life of Robert Louis Stephenson in search of a “lost” story to sell to
a wealthy twenty-fourth century client, and in the process planting the seeds
of some of Stephenson’s most famous novels (the joke here is that the plot
the client chooses is obviously inferior). “The Queen in Yellow” (written
especially for this collection) features Lewis in turn-of-the-century Egypt,
overcoming various crises and mishaps with his usual combination of raffish
derring-do and incorrigible romanticism.
Other tales are much darker. “Hanuman”, in which a resentfully convalescing
Mendoza encounters a Company-enhanced ape who is wiser than his human masters,
is a poignant examination of displacement. “Studio Dick Drowns Near Malibu”
and “The Wreck of the Gladstone” are both about the humanity of compassion,
even when the compassion isn’t human: even gods and angels may sometimes
take pity on the poor mortals with whom they secretly share the world.
“Facts Relating to the Arrest of Dr. Kalugin” provides an unsettling glimpse
of Company fallibility, as does the previously unpublished “The Hotel at
Harlan’s Landing”, which turns on the secret cabals and rebellions within
the Company (this is the one story that probably won’t make much sense to
non-readers of the series). And “Old Flat Top”, also previously unpublished,
paints a vivid and disturbing picture of the Company operatives known as
Enforcers. In its almost Biblical treatment of themes of judgment and
retribution, it’s one of the most compelling stories in the book.
There are also four Alec Checkerfield stories. These are set in Baker’s
nightmarish twenty-fourth century--a vision of political correctness gone
mad, where exercise and vegetarianism are mandated by law and sensuous indulgences
like chocolate, cream, and coffee are illegal. A knowledge of Baker’s
context isn’t required to appreciate them, for they work very well as tales
of secret rebellion and sabotage, a gleeful portrait of a wildly individualistic
worm at the heart of a drearily conformist apple. But for experienced
Company readers, there’s an additional level of significance--for Alec, or
someone exactly like him, has played a mysterious recurring role in the novels,
and will obviously feature prominently in the series’ conclusion (four novels
away at this point). Who--or rather what--Alec is isn’t at all clear,
but some inferences can be drawn from his odd physical qualities, and also
from a major hint provided by Baker in her introduction.
This is an altogether fine collection from one of the most interesting authors now working in the field.
Copyright © 2003 Victoria Strauss
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