Customer Reviews

Cowboy Angels (GollanczF.)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In Cowboy Angels, McAuley breathes new life into a fairly well worn idea. This is a story of alternate histories and parallel worlds, of people travelling through magic doors to worlds that are almost-but-not-quite their own. This was an idea that wasn't new when Andre Norton did it in The Crossroads of Time, much less when Keith Laumer tackled it in Worlds of the Imperium or when Harry Turtledove more recently dusted it off for Gunpowder Empire. But as Cowboy Angels shows, it's an idea still worth exploring, if an author can come up with a novel approach to the subject. McAuley's twist here is to view the interactions of different histories through the lens of American foreign policy, and in particular the CIA's "dirty tricks" in the mid-20C Cold War. The superpower in this particular multiverse is the "Real," a version of America that didn't experience our WWII, but in which physicists at a high-energy physics lab in Brookhaven in 1963 discovered the secret of creating "Turing gates," doorways to parallel worlds. The US government takes control of the technology, and uses it to "spread democracy" to the various alternate Americas it finds out in the multiverse. The various worldlines, or "sheaves," are known by the name of whomever was in charge of America when contact is first made, hence the designation "Nixon sheaf" for our own history. The structure of Cowboy Angels is part thriller, part murder mystery, with a fair number of pulse-pounding action scenes along the way. But it's really in the examination of the history of the 20th Century seen from a variety of angles, and the history of America and her foreign policy in particular, that Cowboy Angels shines. Highly recommended.

I've been a fan of Paul McAuley for a long while now, ever since I read Pasquale's Angel, so it was nice to see him dipping into the alternate history genre once more.

Cowboy Angels is a thought-provoking and truly intriguing vision of just what the cost of empire-building actually is - the Americans of 'The Real' (the alternate history which invented cross-time travel) see it as their sacred duty to bring freedom and democracy to as many different versions of the United States as they can find. Sometimes this involves rebuilding Americas destroyed by nuclear conflict, but just as often it involves overthrowing communist or fascist Americas and instilling their own brand of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, whether the inhabitants want it or not.

As the story opens, it's 1980, and Jimmy Carter has just been elected President of the Real America, promising to end 15 years of cross-time war and focus instead on peace, not bloodshed. But there are those who want to preserve the status quo...

This book is just hands down good. McAuley mixes Ludlum spy-games, Wambaugh police-procedural, pop culture, gee-whiz science fiction, and just plain old-fashioned excellent story-telling to create a fantastic novel. The characters are sympathetic and interesting, with enough back-story and vivid dialogue to make them really come alive and relate to each other like real people. The twists and turns will keep you guessing, and the ending is not to be missed.

Five stars.

I have a love-hate relationship with alternative history novels. I think most of them are crap. This one was pretty good. The concept of one world discovering the means to travel to alternative worlds and then subverting those worlds for its own ends is not new. But I thought that McAuley handled it well. I had some problems with the characters, especially the main character, Agent Adam Stone. Stone is a retired CIA agent, one of the first Cowboy Angels, who was known as a tough and decisive character back in the day. I wish McAuley had written about that Adam Stone. Retired Adam Stone seems to be confused most of the time and often doesn't know what to do.

The main characters are all searching for Hitchcock's McGuffin, which in this case turns out to be a mysterious device which not only allows you to travel to an alternate history but time travel as well. Once this found, and the characters began using it, the story really got confusing. McAuley creates a number of time loops and didn't do a good job of explaining what was happening.

I started reading another McAuley book last year called The Quiet War. This had gotten off to a promising start but about half way into it I had to give it up. I didn't understand what was going on and worse, didn't care. I'd say that Cowboy Angels is a better book. Although I was confused I did want to see how it ended.

This novel is filled with Styrofoam, a novice writer's story padding which doesn't develop anything but adds to the word count while boring the reader. The characters also suffer from nominative determinism... Agent Stone is rock solid, Agent Tom Waverly keeps changing the big picture, changing his mind, making waves. Agent Linda Waverly is a wavering woman only along for the ride.

The novel has a vast and brilliant premise -- America discovers how to build quantum gates in the 1960's and sends out maverick secret agents, Cowboy Angels, to make American Democracy a thing of all Americas, in all alternate worlds. This secret program is discontinued by President Carter, but that sends the former agency head Knightly 'underground' and operations continue.

The main characters are orphans who personify the cowboy mentality. In the introduction, one agent shoots another to save his life on a 'last hurrah' operation. The introduction is good material, but the rest of the book is taken over by Styrofoam scenes.

World War Three Blues (part one, 140 pages) has too much wasted wordspace on tedious investigative work and irrelevant conversations. 'The Agent in charge agreed with his subordinate's conditional planning' is a phrase the author really needed. (Biggest Dislike: trained Agents are going to 'work around' agenda-bearing local police; I hardly need long detailed sections about this is a non-crime, non-law, alternative history sci-fi novel.)

Look For America (part two, 100 pages) is better, with multiple reality sheaves visited. The mystery deepens, and double-crosses abound. At this point I was more into the story and started wishing Jack L Chalker had written the novel instead of Paul McAuley. Chalker would emphasize the sci-fi, while McAuley liked stressing how confused Agent Stone was, which never advanced the plot and wasted the reader's time. Chalker would have also handled the confusing aspects of time-travel (page 220+) in a much better and reader-friendly fashion. He also would have had a end with actual resolution.

The 'secret agent' angle becomes an excuse for false suspense, with spy vs. spy being taken too far when the spies are on the same side. The awesome multi-reality premise is under-used. I didn't want to read a mediocre spy book, I wanted to read alternate universe science fiction featuring cowboy angel heroism, not political machinations where no character is 'good' or has the whole story. 'Cowboy Angels' is not personal, without emotional characterization, because the agents are tough men who don't feel. I wasn't sad when characters attend a funeral, and wasn't happy when they save the world, and that was the biggest problem.

I liked the idea of the story, but the author needed an editor, badly, and it essentially ruined his grandiose set-up. Three stars because the ideas shine more than the writing. Not recommended.

In 1963, American scientists opened a Turing gate, and promptly initiated a major effort to bring together Americas across quantum sheafs (alternate realities). Pouring soldiers, resources, and CIA-style intelligence through these gates, the "Real" stands at the head of a multi-universe organization when Jimmy Carter is elected as a peace candidate. Rather than continue to throw resources at an apparently infinite number of Americas, Carter wants to focus on negotiations and consolidation. The "Real's" version of the CIA isn't happy. To them, any America enslaved deserves its freedom and there are plenty of enemies.

Adam Stone was one of the CIA agents, "cowboy angels" who infiltrated new sheafs, discovered what made their economies and political systems click, and helped bring an American-style government and economy into worlds where America had taken fascist or communist paths, or where they were threatened by European powers. Now, though, he wants his retirement on a sheaf where humanity didn't develop, where he can lead hunting parties to catch saber-tooth cats, and where he can develop his growing affection toward the pretty widow who is his business partner. When the Company wants to reactivate him, he isn't interested, until he learns that they want him to help look for an old Company buddy, Tom Waverly. According to the Company, Waverly has gone on a murder streak, killing the same woman across multiple sheafs, and Tom is asking for Stone.

As Adam follows leads, trying to prevent his one-time friend from killing again, he learns of a plot by disaffected Company agents. Rather than accept their new role, they're trying to change the world of the Real, allowing them to re-launch their crusade to save every America.

Author Paul McAuley creates an intriguing multiverse. In McAuley's story, every decision possible is taken. America sided with Germany during World War II, World War II was avoided but Europe went to war with Communist Russia. The Turing gate allows travel between these sheafs, but time is constant--unless the mysterious object Tom stole really does allow time travel. It's a complicated place, and it's not always clear who's in the right and who's in the wrong. Should the America of the "real" be doing more to help those who are less fortunate?

There's a lot to like about COWBOY ANGELS. It's an interesting take on alternate history, with modern quantum physics at its root. Stone, the disaffected former 'angel' is an interesting and driven protagonist. I would have liked to see more of the different worlds and McAuley's vision of how they diverged and what this meant. There is a lot of action and running around, but it's not always clear to me what the characters are trying to accomplish and it's a stretch to imagine the Company letting Stone participate in the projects given his opposition to their activities. Overall, COWBOY ANGELS is a well-written and interesting take on alternate history.

I'm biased because I liked everything else McAuley wrote a lot. This is definitely not his best. He was seemingly trying to write a "hard boiled PI" novel, and it's not his strong suite. As other reviewers said, it's hard to relate to the characters, for example. (Might have been better in the first person.)

But on the other hand the foreign policy/alternate universe theme is interesting and thought provoking. The "Real" universe that started alternate universe travel is not our own, but ours appears as one of the important settings. It's fun to look at American history and foreign policy from an outside/inside perspective. The CIA plays a big role, as do nuclear weapons. So if you like the hard-sf Alternate History genre, this is worth reading.

Paul McAuley is quickly becoming one of my favorite SF authors. This is only the third book of his that I've read, but I have really liked all three (Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun are the other two).

This one is a spy/thriller novel set across several iterations of America in the multiverse. Our main character, Adam Stone (was McAuley being ironic with that name?), is a former undercover agent for the Company (his home universe's equivalent of the CIA), infiltrating other universes (or "sheaves") and researching the best way to make America in that universe democratic and powerful like the America in his home universe, or "the Real." After he retires, he gets pulled back in to the intrigue after a former Cowboy Angel -- what the early agents for the company called themselves -- goes rogue and starts murdering the same woman over and over again in multiple sheaves.

The book is definitely a thriller, with PLENTY of action throughout, but it is also very intelligent, and not just in the details and variations of the different universes we pass through as the story unfolds or in the intricacies of the snappy and twisting plot. The book gives a science-based view of how alternate universes would work, branching and collapsing as various choices and events -- some that matter and some that don't -- occur. It also explores several themes, like loyalty, patriotism, and free will and determinism. In particular, however, the story focuses on what it is that makes us unique, and why our choices really do matter. This book was what Walls of the Universe hinted at but never actually achieved.

The one drawback of the book was its British spelling and phrasing. I know that McAuley is British and that this book was first released in the UK, but for the US version, I think the editors should have "Americanized" the language of the book. Of course, maybe in Mr. Stone's home universe, America retains the British spelling of all words.

When I was a kid I read a novel by Keith Laumer called Worlds of the Imperium. Worlds of the Imperium was (and still is) a kick-ass science fiction novel involving an American diplomat, Brion Bayard, kidnapped by agents from an alternate universe and given the mission of assassinating and then impersonating a dictator in another timeline, a dictator who happens to be a different version of Brion Bayard. Keith Laumer wasn't a hard SF author, when it got down to the details of how the Imperium travelled between timelines (the Maxoni/Coconi drive) there was a lot of handwaving and mention of "Möbius wound coils". No matter though, what Laumer lacked in scientific accuracy (and is that really the right term for it given that no one has built a device capable of traveling to alternate universes, assuming of course that alternate universes even exist) he made up for in plotting ability, evocative descriptions and the ability to slam action into every page he wrote. The cool thing about "Worlds of the Imperium" and it's sequels The Other Side of Time and Assignment in Nowhere and what has made them hold up so well, is that Laumer wasn't interested in how one would travel between universes, he was interested in how people would react if they suddenly found themselves dumped into another universe where history was different and where they were an evil dictator, or the last Plantagenet or when they were confronted with the enormity of a multiverse of parallel timelines. In this Laumer was much like H. Beam Piper with his Paratime Police stories, most notably Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. These stories were fun, thought-provoking and incredibly kinetic.

Now, what does all of this have to do with "Cowboy Angels". Well "Cowboy Angels" has a similar premise. Adam Stone is a "cowboy angel", a CIA operative trained to infiltrate alternate universes and help depose their governments. In Stone's timeline the Soviet Union fell apart in the 1940s and Alan Turing, instead of being persecuted for his homosexuality and committing suicide, emigrated to America and worked with Richard Feynman to develop a quantum computer capable of opening a gateway to another universe. The United States in this timeline, referred to as "The Real" uses the new technology to colonize uninhabited timelines and to expand its influence into other timelines by overthrowing their governments, creating a multi-universal government united under the slogan "Many Skies. One America". After several years of this the American people tire of brushfire wars fought in alternate universes and elect an alternate Jimmy Carter who promises to end the wars. Adam Stone testified about the Cowboy Angels program before the alternate universe's version of the Church committee and has been retired for several years, living as a farmer in an alternate universe where human beings never evolved when he is contacted by the CIA about his colleague and best friend, Tom Waverly.

Waverly was another Cowboy Angel who did not take well to retirement. After the cowboy angel program was shut down he became involved in various clandestine CIA activities and when the novel begins it is revealed that he has been traveling between timelines and murdering the same woman, a scientist named Eileen Barrie, over and over again. Stone is called out of retirement to track Waverly down, stop him before can kill any more versions of Eileen Barrie (referred to as "doppelgangers") and bring him in and this is where the fun begins. And fun it is, there are a lot of really cool ideas in "Cowboy Angels" and some really great scenes but unfortunately it just doesn' t hang together, more than once I found myself backtracking asking "wait, which alternate history version of New York City are we in?" and the ending seemed tacked on. After reading the novel I was disappointed, there are a lot of neat ideas in it and some very well written and evocative scenes but I can't help but feel that it could have been great instead of merely being a diverting and entertaining read.

The formatting on the Kindle edition of this book is also screwed up. It doesn't use the standard Kindle fonts and instead uses some kind of bit mapped font. There's no table of content and you can't adjust the text size the way you can on other Kindle books.

Let me say right up front that I really wanted to like this book. The idea of a multiverse where an infinite variety of universes exist side by side is intriguing. The idea may not be a particularly new one in sci-fi, but I've always found it interesting to see what different writers propose when they write about the subject.

Paul McAuley gets off to a promising start in Cowboy Angels in which he proposes a world in which America has discovered "Turing gates" and used them to enter many other Americas. In some, America is nothing but wilderness where the megafauna such as giant sloths and wooly mammoths that once thrived in our world continues to dominate the land. Other Americas are oddly similar to ours, but not identical. In one America fascism has taken root. In another a mad general has taken control after a nuclear war. Meanwhile, a secret government plot is working to overthrow governments in some of these other Americas and replace them with democracies.

In the Real (the world in which the main characters of the story call home) Jimmy Carter has just taken office. He has curtailed the covert attempts at interfering with other Americas and brought the agency and it's operatives - the cowboy angels - to heel. So far so good. This could be an interesting, though at times heavy-handed, examination of American foreign policy. But McAuley doesn't stop there. He continues to add new ingredients to the mix. What was once about the Multiverse gets mixed with a mystery, spycraft, and even time travel before the story comes to an end over 300 pages later. By the time I reached the end I would have sworn I had finished a book twice that length.

For a book with a lot of action, there certainly is a lot of dialogue in Cowboy Angels. A good portion of that dialogue could have been jettisoned without sacrificing the story. In fact, the dialogue is sometimes so bad that I had to stop and ponder if the book was written more as a parody. When one of the heros confronts the villian it almost sounds like a bad James Bond satire ... so much so that you expect the bad guy to give an evil laugh and stroke the cat we didn't notice on his lap.

Even the descriptive portions of the book could have used a heavier hand in the editing process. Take, for example, this description of a cross-country trip: "They pushed for hours across the plains of Oklahoma, wind battering the station wagon while tarred cracks in the road raced under its nose like tickertape hieroglyphs written by a vanished race to appease their sky-gods."

Huh?

Don't get me wrong. The book wasn't a complete waste of time. McAuley does well at explaining quantum physics and the theories of the Multiverse. He also shows some sly humor when doppels (versions of a person from a different America) of Elvis keep turning up in bars touting "Elvis Live and In Person!" I'll give Cowboy Angels a star for each of those, but beyond that there's little to recommend this book.

I saw Paul McAuley's "Cowboy Angels" at a local store and decided to buy it on-line. I like alternate history stories, what could have been and the like. Mr. McAuley came up with some interesting alternate histories which seemed realistic. As the story progressed it also became a time-travel story where some of the characters are trying to prevent events that had happened in other time-lines and the ending is one I've seen before, the heros both succeed & don't succeed depending on the time-line. Slightly disappointing.