Customer Reviews

The Return of Santiago (Tor Science Fiction)

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

 

 

Mike Resnick's Santiago is not only one of my all-time favorite science-fiction novels, but also one of the first genre books I read when growing up. As far as I'm concerned, it's about as close to a perfect adventure novel as any reader could hope for.

So I had mixed feelings about the sequel. Resnick had resisted writing one for nearly fifteen years, because the first book ended without any need for a follow-up. I was worried that this would just be a watered-down version of the first book (remember the sequels to Bill the Galactic Hero that Harry Harrison foisted on us?).

I'm so happy to report that I was wrong.

The Return of Santiago is probably the second-greatest adventure novel I've read. Resnick has recognized the two things that made the first book so much fun -- the poetry of Black Orpheus, and the quirky characters (and subjects of those poems) who populate the Inner Frontier of Resnick's future universe. Instead of a limp attempt at following up the saga of Songbird from the first novel, Resnick tells the tale of a petty thief a hundred years in the future, who sets out to be the new Black Orpheus and tell the tales of the Frontier.

Danny, our thief, rechristians himself "Dante Alighieri," and prompty finds a Virgil to guide him through the Frontier (from which Santiago has long vanished, we discover). After writing his first few poems, Dante realizes that what made Orpheus great was having a Santiago who affected the entire Frontier, and was known to all as the greatest outlaw (all the while fighting the corrupt Democracy). He decides, then, to go on a quest to find a new Santiago to provide him with fodder for his poetry.

Dante's quest, like Songbird's in the first book, takes him to dozens of planets, and introduces us to hundreds of fascinating, quirky characters. I'm hesitant to spoil any of Resnick's wonderful writing. Suffice to say, the book has characters who will make you laugh out loud, and ones who are truly horrifying.

As with the first book, the fun of this novel is the quest, not the reward. However, Resnick has improved as a writer over the decades, and this novel has a much more solid feeling ending than the original one did. No one will ever call this great literature, but The Return of Santiago will be remembered as one of the most enjoyable adventure novels in a long time.

If you're not familiar with Mike Resnick's work, Santiago, pick it up and read it before reading this one. Even without reading the first book, this book is a lot of fun. Mike's storytelling is excellent, but it has gotten better over the years and I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan or who wants to read something entertaining.

It's been over a hundred years since the last Santiago surfaced and Danny Briggs, aka Dante Alighieri, discovers Black Orpheus's original poems in a house he broke into. This sets him on a quest of bringing back Santiago, the famed King of Outlaws who worked towards righting injustices.

Along the way, Dante meets people on the frontier such as the Virgil Soaring Hawk, Tyrannosaurus Barnes, the One Armed Bandit, Waltzin' Matilda. Moby Dick, and a host of other unforgetable characters. His search for Santiago takes him up against some of the baddest aliens in the galaxy.

If you're looking for sheer fun, this is the book!

Following up one of the best sci-fi adventure novels ever written, especially after such a lengthy absence, shows a lot of courage on Mike Resnick's part. Lucas didn't learn his lesson with Star Wars, and I was afraid that Mike might drop a bomb with the Return of Santiago. Thankfully he didn't. That isn't to say that the book doesn't have its problems, especially in comparison to the first novel, but at least it is a decent read.
The thing I liked the most about the book is that it is not what I expected it to be. What I expected was the further adventures of Santiago and Moonripple (and secretly, I still wish Return WAS that story as I thought Moonripple was fascinating). I truly expected the sequel to pick up right where the first book left off. Instead, Resnick shoots us into the future a hundred years after Santiago's death and begins his story in the heart of the Democracy with a small time crook named Danny Briggs. Danny is hiding from the police in the house of a family off on vacation when he finds the original manuscript of Black Orpheus, the poet of the Inner Frontier. In poring over the poem, he realizes that the part of Santiago had been played by more than one person and, ironically, the king of the outlaws had really been a champion of the rights of the people against the Democracy. In a moment of self revelation, Danny decides to move to the inner frontier, change his name to Dante and continue Orpheus' saga. To write such a poem, however, he needs a central figure, and only one will do--Santiago. Since one does not exist at the time, Danny and his rapidly growing circle of new companions on the Frontier decide to find and recruit one. The universe may need a man like Santiago, but how do you go about recreating a myth for modern times. Dante and his friends soon find it isn't as easy as it seems. Great spin on an interesting concept and a good sci-fi read.
I do have some reservations about the work, though. No matter how bad you want it to be, it isn't the original by a long shot. The pacing isn't as crisp, the story isn't as tight and the writing style just doesn't have the edge the first book possessed. The characters, while still colorful with interesting names, aren't nearly as memorable as the ones in the first work (and many are downright forgettable). The story is clever, but absent of surprise and if you didn't see the ending coming a mile away, well, I just don't see how you could miss it. There is just something missing here that was present in the original work and I'm not sure what it is. Void of the snappy patter and the absorbing moments and the breakneck plot pace, this book just seemed much more tame. There is also, and this annoyed me to no end, a moral to the story which Resnick pounds pretty heavily throughout the book. There is a definite preachy quality about good men standing up and being counted...if not you, whom...if not now, when...the ultimate evil is when good men stand by and do nothing...etc...etc. A little too much of the real world and the current global political situation seeps into this, what is supposed to be, fantasy work. The original book had an adventuresome Robin Hood morality to it that worked very well without beating you over the head with anything. Many times in some of the heavier handed passages, I saw the author's views intruding negatively into this work. Mike could have been a bit more subtle here.
Anyway, this is a decent book. It isn't great as some claim, and it isn't bad like some feared. It is a decent sequel as sequels go, and unlike the original work, this one definitely leaves the door open for a sequel of its own.

If you liked Santiago, you'll like his return just as much. More quirky characters, more moral tales told in short, episdodic chapters. More problems presented, more problems solved.

It doesn't much matter if you read the original book or not.

Have fun everyone!

This book is full of bigger than life egocentric antiheroes but none who are admirable. The main character, Danny Briggs, is a thief who concludes that the government is too oppressive and needs to be thwarted. To do so he decides to revitalize a legendary terrorist organization and he goes in search of a leader. He finds one but when they actually begin committing acts of terrorism, he feels they have gone too far. He recruits another. By the end of the book, Danny is indirectly responsible for several deaths but seems to suffer little remorse and never questions if terrorism is the best way to enact social change.
The bad science, flawed characters and even more flawed premise make this a less than satisfying book. The reader ends up feeling that the government, oppressive as it is said to be, can't be as bad as the terrorists who are supposed to be the heroes. I could find no redeeming value in either the terrorists or the government they oppose (but don't want to overthrow) so I really didn't care which of them ultimately triumphed. I almost walked out on this book two-thirds of the way in but mainly kept reading to see if the author had some insight to share or a point he was trying to make. There wasn't.

Let me start by saying I am a huge Resnick fan; his books fill a couple of shelves in my collection. "Santiago" was my first Resnick book and set me on a years-long love affair with his works. That said, I can't tell you how disappointed I was in this follow-up. I thought if anybody stood a chance of pulling it off, especially after all this time, it would be the veteran Resnick, who has proven his mettle in terms of publishing longevity and his ability to write a good sequel.

I found the plot lacking from the outset, with holes in it big enough to to fly a dreadnought through. I can forgive some story problems, though, if characters are well-developed and act consistently true to their natures. This is where the sequel fails so miserably. The characters frequently behave in manners illogical and out of character, or just downright stupidly. Overall, the feel of the book was very... elementary, is the main word that comes to mind. It was almost insulting, the utterly simple level of exposition, description, and narration to which it stooped.

If I had picked this book up without seeing the author's name on it, I would have thought Resnick had turned the franchise over to a less experienced, far inferior writer.

This book, to me, is like an olives. I WANT to like olives. But I can't stand the taste. I wanted to like this book, but can't stand it.

I look forward to my next Resnick read and seeing the master back to form.

THE RETURN OF SANTIAGO(2003) is the sequel to the classic SANTIAGO(1986). SANTIAGO was so good, that it was a very tough act to follow, but THE RETURN does a good job, and I rate it at 4.5 stars.

In the original SANTIAGO, we learned that Santiago was really more of an idea than a person (there were 6 Santiagos over the course of 30 years in the original book). Santiago is described as "The King of Thieves", but he is really a revolutionary who keeps the Galaxy-ruling Democracy at bay on "The Inner Frontier". RETURN is set 100+ years later in time, and starts off with a petty thief coming across the entire collection of poetic writings of Black Orpheus, a contemporary during the original "reign of Santiago" a hundred years ealier... well, our petty thief figures out "the secret of Santiago", takes on the moniker "Rhymer" and decides to continue writing in the vein of Black Orpheus, and to help ressurrect the legend and reign of Santiago, to keep the increasingly oppressive Democracy at bay.

The author couldn't just continue writing in the exact same way as the original book, as that would have been too boring; but he is able to mix some of the original flavor with enough new twists and turns that RETURN still is able to continually capture the reader's attention and interest. All in all, it is great fun, and that is really why I read - for enjoyment!

Someday, I expect there might be a third book in this series, rounding out a new classic "Trilogy".

I like Mike Resnick's space-based dime Westerns, probably for the same reasons that historical readers liked the original dime Westerns. Resnick's larger-than-life characters, with their outsize names (Tyrannosaur Bailey, the Black Death and Accidental Barnes are but three) and bizarre talents, are magnetic, and their hyperbolic adventures are luridly compelling. But Resnick, a writer of exceptional technical skill when he wants to be, is definitely not trying to be William Shakespeare when he writes stuff like this, the original Santiago, or the Oracle trilogy.

Compared to the first Sanitago, this long-delayed sequel has a more complicated, but more troublesome, plot. I know that Resnick intentionally glosses over a lot of details he's fully capable of writing out if he wanted, just to keep things simple and broad-stroke like the tall takes he's emulating. But even making allowances, some of the plot can be hard to swallow. For instance, it's hard to buy that our hero the Rhymer, who is trying to re-create the biggest secret of all time, does so by telling the details of that secret to practically everyone he meets.

Still, plot is not the point of this fast-reading book anyway. The point is to see what happens when Jackrabbit Willowby meets the One-Armed Bandit, or who would win if Joshua Silvermane fought the giant aliens Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Mike Resnick is the only guy who writes stuff like this any more, and I'm happy to have it on any terms.

I loved the original and count it as one of my favorite books (and Resnick as one of my favorite writers). This sequel falls flat and the characters are relatively forgetable. I liked the ending but the trip there was tedious and it seemed like he just wanted to introduce a whole lot of cool characters and then kill them off before they did anything interesting. If you are a fan of Santiago, read the sequel but don't expect too much.

Feeling like not much more then amateur Jack Vance fan-fic, the return of Santiago has a little charm, and about 150 too many pages. It also has a ridiculously obvious ending, which is a problem, as it is supposed to be a surprise.

Mind you, if you pick it up, you will probably be roped into Mr. Resnick's easy natural style. His ability to generate quick likable characters is evident, a skill he shares with the venerable Mr. Vance.

His inability to create memorable interesting cultures in a few sentences, or maintain interest past 200 pages (both skills Jack Vance excelled at) sadly outweighs this however, and eventually drags this book down below the 3 star level.