There’s a problem any author writing about immortal beings faces. Most readers identify with characters through danger. This is why suspense movies work. The audience doesn’t want to see the good people get horribly hurt or die. But with immortal beings who can’t die, there’s no danger. Oooh, a mortal doesn’t like them? In 500 years the mortal will be dead and the immortal won’t even remember the incident.
This problem is endemic in this novel of The Company
by Kage Baker. Plucked from the bowels of the Spanish Inquisition, Mendoza is transformed into an immortal self-repairing cyborg. Her job is to collect specimens of soon to be extinct plants for Dr. Zeus, the company that saved and employed her. So long as recorded history isn’t changed, they can do anything. So when these plants show up 500 years later in some unexpected place, recorded history hasn’t been changed. And the plants have been saved by Dr. Zeus.
But Mendoza can’t die or even really be hurt. She can zip to the other side of a room in a heartbeat. She can talk over internal channels with her fellow immortals. She has gadgets cleverly designed to mimic regular objects. The biggest conflict in the book is whether or not Mendoza and her fellow operatives will be discovered. Which we know, because they are time travelers, they aren’t. At least not in any effective way.
So it’s hard for me to care about Mendoza. And that leaves me with caring about the premise (the saving history angle) to drive me caring about this book. It’s hard. Sadly, that puts this book in the mediocre category for me. It had potential, but Baker had a mountain to scale here, and she didn’t make it. I may read a sequel or two to see if she managed to rectify this lack, but it’s not on my list of reading priorities.
Title: In the garden of Iden: a novel of the company
Author: Kage Baker
Covert artist: Paul Youll
Series: The Company book 1
Imprint / publisher: Tor
Format: Paperback
Length: 329 p.
Publication date: January 2006
ISBN-10: 0-765-31457-6
LC classification: PS3552.A4313I5 1998
