Sky Coyote: The Company, #2 -- Kage Baker

If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Zeus, Inc. and what it does, see this post.

1699.  Facilitator Joseph, who has just spent many years with the Church in various roles -- not the least of which was serving with the Spanish Inquisition -- has been given a new assignment:  to appear to the Chumash people as their trickster god, Sky Coyote, and to convince them to avoid annihilation at the hands of the coming white men -- by leaving their own world forever.

Before even picking it up, I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy Sky Coyote as much as I'd enjoyed In the Garden of Iden.  For one thing, my love for the first book was due in part to Mendoza's voice.  For another, it seemed that the responses to this one were pretty mixed -- some people loved it, others said to skip it.

I'm glad that I didn't.  Because I fell squarely into the LOVE camp.  I think, actually, that I might even prefer Joseph's voice to Mendoza's -- though it might just be that I found his perspective more exciting.  Whatever the reason, poor Josh got an earful while I read this one, and then he got even more of an earful after I'd finished.  Blather city.

Major reason for the love:  Joseph's voice.  He's been around since the very beginning -- his father's cave paintings were some of the earliest works of art that the Company preserved -- and despite his cynicism (in regards to human nature and in regards to the Company) and despite his worries (about his current mission, about Mendoza, about the rapidly approaching future -- a future that he and the other immortals know very little about), his sense of humor remains intact, and his love of noir fiction often sneaks through into his dialogue and his description.

Some people, I think, may be put off by the extremely modern-sounding Chumash, but I loved that style choice -- I attributed it to Joseph's storytelling and to his translation, which made me enjoy it all the more.  But I could see how it would be a bit of a shock, especially when compared to the extremely different stylistic choices made in the first book. 

For me, this one wasn't really about the plot -- I didn't think it really mattered all that much.  Not a whole lot happened, really.  But I was so engrossed that I didn't even really realize that until I'd finished the book.  Because in Sky Coyote, Kage Baker really begins to lay out some of the dark, scary, shadowy aspects of the Company.  And suddenly, the existence of the immortal operatives seems very perilous -- not because of their work in our past, but because of their creators in our future.

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Book source:  ILLed from another library.  Because my library has NO books by Kage Baker.  NONE.  Still.  So now I will ILL #3.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask?  Well, gosh.  How else will I ever hire the Company to bring back the dodo?