Customer Reviews

The Empress of Mars (Company)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With a title evoking the romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs, you might expect this to be a rip-roaring adventure with little in the way of nuance or deep ideas. But Ms. Baker is a little more subtle than that, and what you actually get in this book is a scenario for really colonizing Mars in the face of strong bureaucratic pressure and bumbling plus a lack of interest and funding from Earth.

She peoples her planet with some strong if idiosyncratic characters, including a bar owner (the Empress) who also holds advanced degrees in biology, a lawyer (a lawyer? On Mars?) who seems bent on stymieing the bureaucrats just for the fun of it, an autistic mechanical/electronic genius, a one-eyed refugee from a certain religious persuasion, and a conman/gambler. Not quite the list of people you would normally make up as prime candidates for accomplishing the task of turning Mars into something at least marginally habitable.

There's quite a bit of satire and a fair amount of humor here, but running underneath it all is quite a statement about what makes and keeps people motivated to attempt the impossible, with some strong support for the concept of capitalism. As such, this book stands in counterpoint to Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent Red, Green, and Blue Mars set, which at least at its beginning was based more on the communistic ideal. Both books get their science right, which contributes a lot to the believability of the situation and the actions of the characters. Unlike Robinson's work, which bogged down in places in extreme technical and geographic detail (but which eventually contributed greatly to its scope and scale), this work gives just enough information about the conditions and science involved to keep the reader satisfied that this is a real world.

In all, this is a fun, easy reading romp with a lot hiding just below the surface, well worth your time.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

This is a great novel-length adaptation of the original The Empress of Mars novella (published by Nightshade Books a few years back). Most of the book is set in "The Empress of Mars", the only bar on the young Mars colony. Mary Griffith barely manages to keep the bar solvent, helped by her three daughters and a number of outcasts (some of whom you'll be familiar with if you've read Baker's short story in The New Space Opera).

Kage Baker really shows off her trademark wit and easy-flowing style in this funny and at times moving story. In the novella, there were some subtle links to Kage Baker's main Company series. The links are much clearer in the novel-length version, including the appearance of two Company operatives and a strong link to one of the main plot lines of the series.

If you've read Baker's Company books, I'd call this one a must-read - you will definitely enjoy this book. If you're not familiar with the series yet, it's actually not a bad place to start because it stands outside of the main plot, but I'd still recommend to start with In the Garden of Iden.

Comedy or Commentary?

Who wouldn't want to go to Mars and be a pioneer?

The settlement of a new planet administered by the British Arean Company attracted all sorts of settlers. Engineers, outcasts, cooks, labourers and dreamers traveled to terraform the Red Giant. Years into the project the BAC realized that they could not turn a profit , and they abandoned the settlers, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Mary Griffith, owner of the Empress of Mars, is trapped by her poverty and lease with the BAC. When a family friend (Cochevelou) offers to sell his 20 acre spread that happens to include a stable supply of barley, her future is nearly secured. While `working' a barren piece of land, she uncovers a rock that proves to be her fortune. As with any community, the local watering hole becomes a central home for barter, news, and networking. The `Empress' matron, Mary, and her daughters, Manco Inca, Ottorino Vespucci, and the Dutch agent, Mr De Wit form an entertaining, complex web of characters that keep you laughing, and yet, yearning to be a pioneer at the edge of change.

There is no stopping a population that sniffs opportunity. Cast off geniuses have a knack for creating big things out of nothing. Consider the biis (drones)(bees?), the magma well, and the unique Clan Morrigan structures.

Keen readers of Martian novels will recognize scores of cultural references. There is Uncle Tars Tarkas, thoats, the `Empress of Mars' even , Barsoom day, Gwynned, Santa Claus, Amadeus, H P Lovecraft, J K Potter, and many others that display a keen knowledge of contemporary and classic literature. I think Edgar Rice Burroughs would be pleased with the compliment, but I'm not sure that Tars Tarkas was really `cute' and thoats were comparable to reindeer.

I was very keenly interested in the novel from a thematic sense as well. As a Canadian, I live in a country that was founded by the Hudson's Bay Company and in a province whose land was granted by the Queen. Just like this novel, mineral rights and leases are controlled by a foreign concern, that knows nothing of the territory except the profit and loss.

This, however, is beneath the surface, and the rich characters drive the book. Kage Baker is an amazing novelist with a gift that few authors posess.

Bring them on!

Tim Lasiuta

Like EVERYTHING Kage Baker writes, 'The Empress of Mars' is involving, funny, a joy to read, and is filled with characters you care about. The PC- to-the-nth-degree Earth she populates so flawlessly is fascinating and too-horribly possible. Her Mars is dusty red and dry, old and new at the same time. I've been hooked on her work since 'In The Garden of Iden'.

I like Kage Baker's books a lot and have most of them in hardback, but this is about her weakest to date. It's not a bad book, Baker couldn't write a bad book if she tried. The setting and science are convincing, the characters are colourful, mostly, the writing is good, it's never dull and there is always plenty going on.

And at this point I imagine you're wondering what on Mars I'm moaning about and only giving it a three star rating for. The answer is fairly simple: the struggle of the protagonists is never really convincing. The baddies -the British Arean Corporation and its representative on Mars are straw men. There is never a moment when you doubt that our heroes will win the day because the antagonists are useless and easily manipulated. There is never any sense of real threat and, as a consequence, no real drama.

It's a fun read but one without any substance.

The Empress of Mars is most certainly an experiment in expectations. Having read Baker's The House of the Stag (and loving it, by the way), and being wholly unfamiliar with her Company novels, I had expected The Empress of Mars to be another adventurous, incredibly internalized story, only with spaceships and other science fiction furniture instead of magic and half-demons. Only, that's not what I got. Instead, The Empress of Mars provided me with more of Baker's ability to craft character and a strangely vibrant vision of a Mars that just might be, without the need for explosions and laser pistols to keep things interesting.

The Empress of Mars takes place on, well, Mars, obviously, and follows Mary Griffith, a worshiper of "the Goddess" and owner of a seedy bar called The Empress, practically the only thing she owns, and a business she is struggling to keep afloat. There, she and her daughters, and a ragtag group of unwanted men and women who have come to Mars for the chance to make a life for themselves, eke out a meager living under the stern hand of the British Arean Company. Mary has had a hard life, too, with the BAC breathing down her neck, but unable to do anything about her, and all manner of unsavory characters wanting to see her pushed off the planet for good. After a string of good luck, however, Mary finds herself the target of the BAC's legal rumblings and business acumen. Now everything rests on Mary's shoulders: her business, the fate of Mars, and, most importantly, her family.

Baker's pension for character is certainly a feature of this installment in her Company series. Mary Griffith is one of a set of astonishing array of unique characters, all with powerful motivations, wonderfully realized dialogue, and Baker's own flare for creating fascinating black and white figures on both sides of the coin. You still hate her bad guys, but you at least understand why they do what they do and disagree with them either because you hold different beliefs or because their tactics are unacceptable. Her good guys have similar problems, and this makes her story incredibly character-driven, because as the story moves along, Baker creates for us a long string of flawed, but endearing figures that you can't help but love, even if you disagree with aspects of their lifestyles. There are no wooden characters here.

Pacing and world-wise, The Empress of Mars doesn't leave too much to the imagination. Some might conceive of this as a flaw, considering that much of Baker's novel is not at all unlike what we might see going on today: legal blunders, corporations overstepping their bounds, bitter attempts to steal land from underprivileged people, etc. The plot does take some time to get moving, but once it does, Mars comes to life as a clear, but somewhat exaggerated (and necessarily so) reflection of our present. Everything is laid out for the reader, bringing focus to the characters and their struggles with what is going on around them and de-centering the wider struggle of mankind; this creates isolation in plot and world, providing ample space for Baker to develop the scenery and history of the Mars colonists. Only in the end do things move a little too quickly, and some questions are left unanswered, but perhaps for good reason (the supernatural might have played a welcome--or unwelcome, depending on your perspective--hand in the overall story, but that's up for the reader to decide on his or her own).

Beyond a somewhat lingering plot, Baker's imagining of religion seems to have a stronger connection to exoticism than realism. I feel as though the insertion of the mostly-pagan worship of the Goddess was inconsistent with what actually might be true in our own future. Mary's relationship to "the Goddess," while interesting, reflects more of the old, somewhat absurd early renderings of Mars in science fiction. Granted, I have not read her other Company novels, so perhaps there are some clear and powerful motivations for the changes in religion and social dynamics that I am unaware of in reading The Empress of Mars, but regardless, this seems a somewhat absurd complaint to have when the overwhelming majority of my thoughts about this particular novel center on my love for Baker's writing and her ability to create memorable characters.

If everything up to this point hasn't indicated whether or not I liked this book, then I'll clarify now: while The Empress of Mars is not perfect, I found myself thoroughly engaged by the characters and once again loving Baker's writing style. This novel may not be for everyone--after all, it is not about galactic wars or spaceships or many of the more explosive and action-packed elements of the science fiction genre--but it will certainly appeal to many readers, particularly those who enjoy stories centered on the characters, rather than on the shininess of the setting.

The Empress of Mars (2009) is a standalone SF novel loosely associated with the Company series. It is an expansion of the novella of the same name.

It is set within a near future, where Britain has colonized the Moon and Mars. The Empress of Mars is a pub on Mars, the owner of the pub and the Queen of England. The British Arean Company does not care for either the pub or the owner, considering them immoral.

In this novel, Mary Griffith is the owner of the Empress of Mars. She had been an employee of BAC, but they fired her for redundancy. She took her severance pay and bought a small dome that became the Empress of Mars pub.

Alice, Rowen and Mona are the daughters of Mary Griffith. They were the only children on Mars, although they are now rather more mature. Alice desperately wants to return to Earth.

Maurice Cochevelou is a citizen of the Celtic Federation. He is also Chief of Clan Morrigan on Mars.

Perrik is Chief Cochevelou's son. He is twenty-three, but has a slight physique and looks much younger. He has invented biis, micromachines that pollinate plants.

The Heretic is a fugitive from the Ephesian Church. One eye has been replaced by an artificial ocular.

Brick is head of the ice haulers guild. His name comes from his build and coloring. Haulers transport ice -- water, carbon dioxide, and even some oxygen -- from the Martian poles and are very important to the Martian economy.

Epital De Wit is a lawyer from Earth. He works for Polieos of Amsterdam.

In this story, Mary was a xenobiologist for BAC, developing various forms of algae for terraforming. She was starting to develop a new form of lichen when BAC declared her redundant. So she is very knowledgeable about fermentation and capable of producing her own beer.

Mary has a small property just outside the settlement, but it is very rocky in a clay matrix. It doesn't produce very much -- or healthy -- grain. So Mary barters for barley and oats with Clan Morrigan.

Heretic escapes from the Church and arrives on Mars. She is guided to the pub and then is hired as the cook. She is not the best cook on Mars, but she is definitely better than Mary.

Chief Cochevelou comes to Mary with a problem. The Clan has saved enough money to send Finn -- a man who misses the ocean -- back to Earth. But Finn owns a critical allotment within Clan territory.

BAC has offered four thousand punts Celtic for the farmlands, but the Clan does not want to sell. Chief Cochevelou offers the land to Mary for the same price. Yet Mary and her friends do not have that much money.

Then Mary finds a reddish crystalline stone on her land. Brick declares it to be a diamond. Finn takes it back to Earth to get it appraised.

De Wit comes to Mars with an offer to cut and sell the stone. Mary acquires Finn's land and makes token payments to the Clan pending sale of the diamond. After the stone is offered for sale, prospectors start coming to Mars looking for diamonds.

Alice has many boy friends due to the shortage of women on Mars. The latest is Dunstan Johnson, a Hauler. Although none of the women on Mars has become pregnant, Alice manages to conceive a baby. Then Dun is lost in a sandstorm.

BAC tries to gain control of Perrik's biis. That failing, they try to get control of Perrik. He literally heads to the hills.

This tale is filled with oddities. The strangest character is Heretic, who seems possessed by a god. But Mars was settled by Eccentrics and other deranged people.

The plot is filled with unexpected twists and turns. Nothing seems to go quite according to plan. And the ending is totally bizarre. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Baker fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of extraterrestrial colonies, corporate manipulation, and persevering people.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I love sci-fi and fantasy and a rollicking good read with characters with whom I can identify and sympathize. It is simply written and yet has depth and purpose in its telling. The characters are fun (the good and bad guys clearly identified), just complex enough to be interesting, but not too complex not to be remembered from chapter to chapter if there has been a couple of days between reads. It does not take an genius IQ to follow the story but it is a good story about family, friendship and love that is satisfying all the same. This reading for fun and entertainment; a good read for teens as well as adults.

I found this novel to be a lot of fun. Not as heady as some classic sci-fi (Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Martian Chronicles) and not as light as William Shatner's Tek War series (which I also enjoyed). This novel had lots of twists and turns, intriguing characters, new takes on space colonization, some political drama, and some new inventions. Overall, a great diversion. A nice plus is that this volume was a limited (less than 500 copies), signed first edition at a reasonable price.

Don't let the slow start put you off reading this book. Your persistence will be rewarded as the delightful tale unfolds of how a group of eccentric characters, taken under the wing of Mary Griffith, the independent bar owner of the only bar on Mars, fight against the incompetent might of the British Arean Company, while keeping their dreams of terraforming Mars alive. The new frontier is the Mars Colony sited on the Tharsis Bulge on the flanks of Olympus Mons, but what really makes this book a joy to read are the marvellously crafted characters and how their eccentricities help them succeed against the bad guys. It is the wild west again, but with opposing lawyers at 10 paces.