Gods and Pawns (The Company)

Posted by GOO | Posted in , | Posted on 10:00





  • ISBN13: 9780765315533
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.





Available at Amazon Buy this product!





Gods and Pawns (The Company)












   Customer Rating :


   Availibility : Usually ships in 1-2 business days





Gods and Pawns (The Company) Overviews




These eight stories, reprinted for the first time in this collection, delve further into the history and exploits of the Company.  The book opens with the novella, "To the Land Beyond the Sunset," starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. "Standing in His Light" features Van Drouten's role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. Other stories include "Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst," which opens up intriguing questions about The Company, and the original novelette, "Hellfire at Twilight," which concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in eighteenth century England. Gods and Pawns is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts




Gods and Pawns (The Company) RelateItems









Gods and Pawns (The Company) CustomerReview




As fans of the series know, Dr. Zeus Incorporated operates out of the 24th century, combining its time travel capabilities and its legion of cyborg near-slaves scattered through time from the Neanderthal era on, in order to make a small number of plutocratic technocrats very, very, very rich. Besides the novels, which began with the award-winning _In the Garden of Iden_, Baker has written a number of shorter stories set in the same world -- most of which probably will be very confusing for any reader not already familiar with the characters and themes. Baker's work can be somewhat erratic in quality, but the seven short stories and novelettes in this collection are mostly pretty good. "To the Land Beyond the Sunset" is a rather lightweight yarn featuring Mendoza, the flinty-eyed botanist, and Lewis, the literature-preserver who secretly adores her. They go on a short field trip to the Bolivian rain forest where the weather turns around and bites them -- and then they get mixed up with a family of down-at-the-heel deities. "The Catch" is a grim little story of what can happen when the not-yet-perfected attempt to produce a cyborg goes badly wrong. The story's narrator, Security Tech Porfirio, is also the protagonist of "The Angel in the Darkness," probably the best piece in the book. Set forty years later, it's mostly a very true-to-life depiction of the desperation of an older daughter who carries all the burdens of the family by herself, and of the "uncle" who watches over things, or perhaps controls them. The character portraits in this one are extremely good. And it doesn't matter too much if you don't know who Labenius really is. "Standing in His Light" is about the Company's entirely cynical use of Jan Vermeer to produce works to order that will be worth billions a few centuries down the line. "A Night on the Barbary Coast" is a rather lightweight romp that mostly just gives Baker an excuse to describe Mendoza's entry into San Francisco in 1850. "Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst," which starts out lighthearted and funny but eventually turns somewhat darker, involves Joseph the Facilitator and Lewis again paying a visit to San Simeon to close a deal on behalf of the Company and discovering that it doesn't pay to underestimate certain mere mortals. "Hellfire at Twilight" features the feckless Lewis again in a somewhat sweet story involving Sir Francis Dashwood and the Hellfire Club, which turns out to be something quite different than its reputation would suggest. As I say, many of the references in these stories will mean nothing to anyone new to the series, but for Baker fans, it's a pretty good collection.




*** Product Information and Prices Stored:Feb 18, 2010 01:05:59

Available at Amazon Buy this product!

university of michigan football sea salt

Comments (0)

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)