In the Garden of Iden: A Novel of the Company [Hardcover]

Kage Baker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 1998

In this “highly impressive and thoroughly engrossing” (Kirkus Reviews) debut novel of the Company, Mendoza is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden all in an effort to save the Company. But her quest is jeopardized by Nicholas Harpole, who stirs unfamiliar emotions within her about her future-with a man she will long outlive. “If you’re reading something by Kage Baker, fasten your seat belt-you’re in for a wild ride” (Gardner Dozois).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 16th-century Spain, everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition, as they have a well-known tendency to cart people off to their dungeons on trumped-up charges. What 5-year-old Mendoza, on the brink of being tortured as a Jew, is totally unprepared for is to be rescued by the Company--the ultimate bureaucracy of the 24th century--and made immortal. In return, all she has to do is travel through time on a series of assignments for the Company and collect endangered botanical specimens. The wisecracking, mildly misanthropic Mendoza wants nothing to do with historical humans, but her first assignment is to travel to England in 1553--uncomfortably close to those damn Inquisitors--with Joseph and Nefer, two other Company operatives. Their intent is to gather herb samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden, a foolish though generous country squire. (Kage Baker knows her Shakespeare: Sir Walter is the descendant of Alexander Iden, loyal subject of Henry IV, who slew the hungry rebel Jack Cade in that very garden in Kent.)

The cyborg trio poses as Doctor Ruy Lopez, his daughter Rosa (the irrepressible Mendoza, now grown), and her duenna, Doña Marguerita; Sir Walter's hospitality and discretion are bought for the promise of restored youth. (There are hilarious moments that call to mind the Coneheads, who claimed to be from France when caught doing anything peculiar.) Sir Walter's secretary, Nicholas Harpole, is immediately suspicious of and hostile towards the strange "Spanish" visitors, which prompts Mendoza to fall in love with him. Nicholas has his own badly kept secret: he's proudly Protestant at a time when Queen Mary and Philip of Spain are on a Catholicizing rampage. Mendoza knows Nicholas is probably doomed, and that as a Company operative she cannot meddle with his fate, but love makes people do desperate things. Baker surpasses even Connie Willis in humor and precision of period detail in this fresh, ingenious first novel.--Barrie Trinkle

From Library Journal

Baker's witty debut novel is a pip. Full of exquisite descriptions of 16th-century England and the Spanish Inquisition (Baker was an actor and director at the Living History Centre and has taught Elizabethan English as a second language), this is a bittersweet tale of a young woman's first love. The initial assignment for 18-year-old Mendoza, transformed into an immortal cyborg by the 24th-century Company, is to retrieve from Renaissance England an endangered plant that cures cancer. Posing as a Spanish lady accompanying her doctor father, she falls in love with the mortal Nicholas Harpole, secretary to the owner of Iden Hall and its exotic gardens. Amidst the raging Catholic/Protestant powerplays revolving around the English throne and the fervent religious bloodlust of common folk, Mendoza is torn between her task and her love. Baker's story comments powerfully on religious hypocrisy and xenophobia. Highly recommended for most collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st U.S. ed edition (February 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151002991
• ISBN-13: 978-0151002993
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,330,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What An Interesting - If Flawed - Premise..., January 31, 2001

By 

Carl Malmstrom (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: In the Garden of Iden (A Novel of the Company, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Time travel is nothing new to science fiction. Even the idea of people travelling through time to preserve (or to try to alter) the timeline of the world is not new to science fiction. The idea of hiding in the shadows of history to preserve that which would otherwise be lost, though...

I was really impressed with the premise of "In the Garden of Iden". I thought the idea of a company that could make employees of 'indigenous' people and send them along ('along' mind you, not 'through') history to preserve plants, animals, art works, etc. only as long as they did not change history in the process to be a neat, if not revolutionary idea. Baker pulls off the idea quite well to in this book. She gives us a good feel of history unfolding while the characters of the book go about their mission in a country that's teetering on the verge of a new dark age just before it's greatest era begins.

The science in the book is well-researched. The history in the book is very well researched. Even the romance manages to push the reader into an interesting parallax between love and practicality. Surprisingly enough, the one thing that bothered me about the novel was the stipulation in the premise that people sent back couldn't change "recorded history". I found myself wondering what constitutes 'recorded history'. We as a race have so much difficulty sorting the fact from the lie and the myth in our 'recorded' history - even in the past century - that I wondered how valid an argument this could be. Perhaps it's an idea that she'll pursue in a later "Company" novel. I'd be interested to see what she could do with it...

All in all, I really enjoyed this novel. I blew through it like I haven't blown through a science fiction novel in a long time. While some of the topics it deals with are quite heavy, the overall read is really light. If you're looking for a fun, light book with a genuinely interesting premise, I recommend picking "In the Garden of Iden" up. Personally, I'm looking forward to getting on to the rest of the series...

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blood Mary and the romantic problems she causes, September 29, 2003

By 

David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Garden of Iden (Library Binding)

In the Garden of Iden is Kage Baker's debut novel of "The Company." It's a science fiction novel set in the 1550s, during the reign in Britain of Queen Mary. Baker's fluid style is a joy to read and her transformation from "modern" English to Renaissance and back to modern is wonderful. This is a marvelous debut and I can't wait to read more in the series.

I've loved Kage Baker's work ever since I read her stories in the various Year's Best Fantasy books, and I was eager to dive into a novel written by her. It was definitely worth the wait. Her prose style is wonderful and she seamlessly changes dialogue depending on who's talking, thus giving us the dialect of the time alongside the modern phrasings of a group of cyborgs honed by time travelers. I'm not expert enough to tell whether or not she gets the Renaissance dialogue right, but she certainly makes it feel right. It really makes you feel like you are there listening.

Another thing Baker avoids, for the most part, is making the romance cloying. While there were a few times where Mendoza and Nicholas became annoyingly written, most of the time this was turned on its head by a choice comment from Joseph (the leader of the expedition and Mendoza's recruiter) or something else happening. She doesn't overwrite the romance scenes and she deftly "fades to black" when the sex scenes are about to start. Thus, while the novel definitely has some adult themes, there are no actual scenes that should keep kids away from the book. Instead, she writes two adults who love each other deeply but know that there are some serious potential problems that might get in the way of that love.

The concept of the Company is very interesting. Time travel and cyborg technology have been invented, so what they do is send operatives back in time to recruit local people, train them in secret facilities (bringing them up to modern standards), turn them into immortal cyborgs, and allow them to do the job of preserving things. They take samples of various things that will become extinct, hide them away for a thousand years, and then "discover" them again in the present. One of Baker's most inspired creations is a radio that broadcasts at a frequency that humans can't hear, and which operatives can listen to and find out what is going on locally. Thus, there is a news story about the reintroduction of Papal law in the British parliament, along with commentary similar to a CNN broadcast. It was very innovative.

Baker also does a credible job with the characters. All of the operatives (there are four) in the house are interestingly written and have some sort of way to keep them straight. Nefer is stuck in limbo while she's waiting for an assignment in northern England, and she's also the resident animal expert. Thus, she has an affinity for them and takes umbrage at what she sees as the torturing of a goat (the owner tried to graft a horn on its forehead and called it a unicorn). Joseph has the worn feel of a man who's been around for hundreds of years and has seen it all, but yet he knows exactly how it feels to be a first-time operative. He's incredibly understanding with Mendoza, forgiving her the jitters and mistakes that any rookie will have. He is a wonderful mentor to her as well. I didn't feel like I knew Flavius very well, but he's not in the book much so there isn't a reason to flesh him out further than he already is. The local characters have their character hooks and are recognizably different, but aren't anything special.

The romance would not work if Nicholas is badly done, so it's a good thing that Baker saved her best for him. He is well-rounded with intelligence and wit, and the verbal sparring between Mendoza and him is great. His beliefs are very strong, and he sticks to them through everything. Watching Mendoza try desperately to convince him to run away from the inquisition that is coming to England is almost heartbreaking. With the exception of a few times, the book sparkles when the two of them are on the page, and he is a worthy companion for Mendoza. When things start to go sour, it's on an understandable basis and Nicholas reacts as he should.

The plot is a bit slow-moving, but it is interestingly told. There are a few places it drags as Baker takes a detour to do a little philosophizing. The trigger event for the climax also feels a bit artificial as Joseph makes a mistake that I didn't really think he would make with his experience in the field. Then again, these people are human so mistakes do happen to the best of them. It just felt a little bit too much like it was there just so that the plot could start moving.

Baker has created a wonderful little sci-fi story and if she can continue to write this strongly, she will continue for a very long time. The fact that there are already 3 other books, along with a short story collection, bodes well for the success of the series. If you want something new to try, this would be a good one to start with. Even if you don't like science fiction, you might find something in here to enjoy.

David Roy

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, engaging, well-plotted time travel yarn, November 1, 1998

By 

Thomas O. Gray "tomgray" (Norwich, VT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Garden of Iden (A Novel of the Company, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Kage Baker's first novel concerns a company that controls access to both time travel and immortality, and whose immortal employees labor ceaselessly to find and save lost artistic, literary, biological and other treasures of the past. The plot of this book revolves around the protagonist's effort to gather samples from a garden of unique plants during the brief reign of Mary Queen of Scots. Baker writes in a clear, accessible style and her characters are well developed and memorable. For a debut, this is a remarkable performance that already ranks among the best of the time-travel and alternate-universe novels, such as Poul Anderson's "Guardians of Time" or Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee." Baker's narrative holds the reader's attention, and makes the book both educational and entertaining. The background setting she has worked out should be good for many more novels, and I look forward to them.