Customer Reviews

Mendoza in Hollywood (A Novel of the Company, Book 3)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Oddly enough, I have recently stumbled upon the works of two authors who finally are addressing the immortality theme with intelligence, sensitivity, and subtlety. After the heavy-handed melodrama of popular authors such as Anne Rice, both Kage Baker in her Company Novels and Jane Lindskold in her Athanor novels have shown us, in very different ways, what kind of tragedy (and comedy!) immortality might truly bring.

Reading about Mendoza's latest adventure was heartbreaking -- her gradual descent into madness, juxtaposed with the sublime absurdity of the future-Hollywood setting, was genius.

The only criticism I have of this book is that it does wander a bit in places -- I would have preferred the narrative to be a little tighter. But this is an outstanding effort, definitely the best so far in the series.

In the third of a projected eight titles in Kage Baker's "The Company" series, the author returns to the cyborg Mendoza, star of the first book "In the Garden of Iden." Fans of early California history and silent film will especially be delighted with the cyborgs' dealings with the humans of the really wild, wild, west of 1860's California, and their take on some of the big classics of silent film. Baker delivers with the mix of humor and seriousness that made the first book of the series so memorable. Baker also reveals just enough more about "The Company" as she did in "Sky Coyote" to whet our appetites for the next books and the fate of Mendoza and her fellow cyborgs in the future, especially in the mysterious year 2355.

About two-thirds of the way through "Mendoza in Hollywood", I found myself getting rather disappointed with the book. The sotry was beginning to drag, I was starting to find Baker's inside knowledge of California more a self-serving egotism than a colorful plot setting and the promised reincarnation of the other big protagonist from "In the Garden of Iden" had not yet shown up.

The last hundred pages were a very impressive surprise. Interesting new twists were added, more information - and speculation - about The Company were slowly unpeeled and a few new genuinely fascinating questions popped up. Plot points that seemed overused or pointless even found their way into interesting and inexplicable threads. In retrospect, I find the book even more fascinating than I did immediately after I finished it.

Like its predecessor, "Mendoza in Hollywood" differs very markedly from what came before. The glib parody of Joseph in "Sky Coyote" is replaced by the much more down-to-Earth - and depressed - Mendoza as she once again takes the stage and the plot evens out a lot. Her fligts of fancy in this book avoid parody and instead involve conspiracies, the paranormal and the glory days of Hollywood in the 1920s (even though the book itself primarily takes place in 1862/1863). The realism in the book may not be more pronounced than in "Sky Coyote", but at least Baker is using creative license to advance the plot and not to make social commentary.

Taken in retrospect, I really enjoyed this book. Baker takes a lot longer to work up to the action than she did in "Mendoza"'s predecessors, but the plot entanglements certainly make up for this fact. As with the first two Company books, this one is not without its drawbacks, but the story and mystery that she weaves are such that they are relatively easy to overlook. The first two Company novels were wonderful and this one continues the saga impressively.

I was lucky enough to obtain an advance copy of this book, and it is WONDERFUL! I loved the first two novels by Baker - this one not only lives up to their promise, but takes the story to new and more fascinating heights. We resume the story of Mendoza, this time in Old California, and Baker displays her usual marvellous blend of history and fiction: she's generous with details of historical fact, which she then weaves into a wild tapestry of speculation and conspiracy. Not only are the interior workings of Dr. Zeus revealed in yet more sinister detail, she manages to suggest some really astonishing things about the goals of the British Empire. The lives of several of Mendoza's fellow cyborgs are revealed in hilarious and/or tragic chapters, the history of Catalina Island is shown in an entirely unexpected light, it's made appallingly obvious that the problem of urban violence in Los Angeles hasn't changed in the last 150 years, and Mendoza's love life takes a turn for the better, the worse and the really strange. Don't dismiss this as a reincarnation cliche - the intimations make it plain that there's nothing so ordinary involved in the existance of the delicious Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax. As usual, Baker is laugh out loud funny and yet pitiless when it comes to the hard cruel facts of life; and she ambushes you at several turns with both lyrical spirituality and cunning surrealism. Buy this book and settle down for a really wild and vastly enjoyable ride.

Another very satisfying "Company" novel. What struck me (apart from the usual fine characterisation and description) is the evolution of Mendoza's character. The first novel brought her to heights and then to exquisitely painful lows, and the second showed her wallowing. The third one portrays her finally getting over her lost love and beginning to mature and rejoin "human" society.

"Mendoza in Hollywood" gave only a little space to the subplots that appeared in the second novel; I trust we'll see more of them in the next "Company" novel. But I didn't feel they were really missed; the time was spent on showing how Mendoza changed into a more mature and better person. And we the readers are the better for it.

that'd be difficult since the The Garden of Iden and Sky Coyote were both books that made me wake up out a reader's stupor. My main complaint with this book: 18 pages devoted to relating the plot of DW Griffith's movie Intolerance. Instead of insightful examinations of the human character (Baker's usual choice for the meandering sections of her books), this read like padding.

Still, the book continues to unravel the mystery of 'the Company' in a slow, tantalizing way. Unlike many contemporary SF authors, Baker doesn't seem to be writing a long series to ensure that royalties keep rolling in year after year. She seems to be releasing the bits and pieces of the overall story out in a controlled flow. These nuggets tantalize and start the thought processes rolling. This way, you the reader attempt to puzzle out the big picture. I felt myself becoming a Fox Mulder-like seeker because the way the books are written, you know that 'the truth is out there.' If it takes another 7 books to find, fine by me!

I want to like these books more than I do. The underlying story is so compelling, that I keep reading another book to see what happens. Unfortunately, I don't like Mendoza that much. And I grow tired of the long drawn out detail of stories that have little to do with the story. I'd rather have more detail about the
Company and inter-Company politics than exposes on where future streets will be in Hollywood (I don't like California, LA, Hollywood, the history of the West, nor cinema in particular, so discount accordingly...) It took forever and a day for Edward to show up. I wanted more of their shocking visit to "modern day" LA than we got. In general, I was much more interested in what we didn't see than what we did.

However, knowing that Mendoza is not the protagonist of the next book, I'll wind up reading that one too. Sigh. These books are entertaining, and better than a lot of stuff out there. But I do wish she'd play more with the overarching plot than she does. Only someone like Umberto Eco or Neal Stephenson can get away with that much diversion and not lose my attention.

I ordered this title with some trepidation, having adored the first two in the series, but led by earlier Amazon reviewers to expect a possible disappointment. My fears were groundless. Baker is the current genre mistress of character and setting, and a reader sensitive to her delicious ironies is soon more intoxicated than an immortal cyborg plied with theobromos. Mendoza In Hollywood is perhaps not QUITE so overtly FUNNY as Sky Coyote, but it is just as compelling.

I loved Kage Baker's first two books, but she fell flat on her face in this one. Unlike Ms. Baker's previous books, where she managed to make history interesting, she failed miserably, her descriptions bland and leaving me bambouzled. I held on until page 156 and then I gave up when they had just traveled forward in time apparently and I was still bored as hell.
I would've given it one star but that wouldn't be fair considering I didn't finish it, so I give it the neutral rating of 3 in the hopes that people with as little patience as me heed my warning and those with more realize that it has room for improvement (lots of room) in the next few hundred pages.

Time is once again moving forward (has it ever moved backward?). In the third Company novel by Kage Baker, Mendoza in Hollywood, our illustrious immortal Mendoza has to deal with some hard issues. When we last left her in Sky Coyote, she had gone off into early 18th century northern California where she could be alone and study her plants, away from the strange and disgusting mortals (that would be us normal human beings) that surrounded her.

I found Sky Coyote to be a flawed but interesting sequel, but I love Baker's writing so I figured that she would rebound in her third book. Boy, did she ever. Mendoza in Hollywood is a masterpiece, having everything from social commentary to fascinating characters to mystery and beyond. We get a brief glimpse of the future, but we see nothing but agonizing hints to what is going on. Baker uses some of the tricks she used in Sky Coyote, but this time they work. It feels like Baker was maturing as a writer, determined to correct her mistakes and do it right this time. The result is a very entertaining read that will keep all Company fans engrossed and may even attract some new fans.

The story is quite simple in its complexity (yes, I do mean that). Character interaction is the name of the game in Mendoza in Hollywood and what wonderful characters Baker has to use. Every one of them is vivid, from the young Juan Batista, who is tasked with collecting rare birds but becomes too attached to them, to the film buff Einar, who brings in the entertainment for the staff at the outpost. This usually consists of rare movies, including the original 8 hour cut of Erich Von Stroheim's Greed and D.W. Griffith's Intolerance. The latter movie is a wonderful character set piece, as the soundtrack is gone and Einar (along with Imarte, who actually lived in ancient Babylon) does the commentary for the entire film. The sequence is a magical bit of comedy and character development, and is everything that the show in Sky Coyote wasn't. It goes on for just as long (though Mendoza in Hollywood is a longer book, so the portion is smaller) but is much better written. I really enjoyed it.

Other cast members are equally well done, with Porfirio (the outpost's security officer and commander) being the most bland. He is given some history that helps define Mendoza's character though, as she finds out that not all immortals have cut their familial ties with the mortal world. Oscar is a real treat, though. He's a salesman who is supposed to study living conditions of people in the area. He goes door to door, trying to sell items and get a look inside the domestic life of his customers. Mendoza accompanies him on some of his jaunts, and the scenes are just delightfully funny.

While there is a running subplot of a British conspiracy with the Confederates for control of California (sparked by the neglectful act of leaving his briefcase by one of Imarte's johns), most of the story is about Mendoza and her interactions with these characters. It might sound boring, but every page of the book is building up her sense of isolation and her desolation over the death of her lover 300 years ago. She despises mortals because of how weak they are and how ideological they can be. Yet every one of her companions loves interacting with them and has their own way of dealing with them. As Mendoza observes, she feels more and more alone. Even Einar and his movie obsession, while providing some enjoyment, eventually adds to her burden as she realizes that even though they haven't even happened yet, the movies' settings are ephemeral and won't last long. Baker illustrates the burdens of immortality. Some people can deal with it (Joseph, Mendoza's mentor who isn't actually in this book, has been alive for thousands of years), but she can't seem to. Baker paints these characters with such loving detail that you can't help but revel in them.

The book loses a little bit when the conspiracy plot takes center stage, even though Baker keeps the focus clearly on Mendoza and what's happening with her lover's doppelganger. The interaction between them kept me reading but I started to get tired of the conspiracy itself. However, I cared about what happened to Mendoza, and as I saw her go through hell yet again, for a man so much like her old lover but yet so different, I really felt for her. Baker has brought Mendoza alive, and her ultimate fate is heartbreaking yet slightly uplifting. She finally gets what she wants, but not quite the way she wanted it. I finished the book very quickly, totally engrossed in what was going on. That's the sign of a master author.

With Mendoza in Hollywood, Kage Baker has another winner. It's certainly readable by itself, but it gains so much if you read the first two books before this one. But whatever you do, check this one out.

David Roy