The Children of the Company (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: mortal masters, fusion drive, security techs, Sixteen Turtle, Brother Crimthann, Executive Facilitator (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The latest, slightly disappointing volume in Baker's highly regarded Company series (The Life of the World to Come, etc.) incorporates previously published short stories within a larger narrative framework. Immortal cyborgs have worked behind the scenes throughout human history, ostensibly to rescue great works of art, endangered species and other victims of human and natural disasters. Supposedly, Dr. Zeus, the 24th-century company that used time travel to create the cyborgs back in prehistoric times, is doing this for the good of all humanity, but previous books have dropped hints that things aren't exactly what they seem and that Dr. Zeus has powerful ulterior motives. Now, through these connected tales and Baker's frame, which focuses on a corrupt cyborg leader named Labienus, we gain new insight into the complexities of cyborg politics, while the existence of another human species, Homo sapiens umbratilis, holds out a dark promise for humanity's future. Though the individual episodes read well, they add up to a somewhat disjointed whole. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Since his first days as a cyborg, when he was a near deity in Sumeria, Executive Facilitator General Labienus has had centuries to work at subverting the Company, and while history may not be changeable, it is a web of lies that he aims to change so the world fits his idea of paradise. We follow his meditations, starting with when he met Budu, one of the old Enforcers. He remembers the beginning of the experiment with Homo umbratilis, and Facilitator Victor, whom Labienus is slowly co-opting and who began believing in the indestructibility of his kind and in the things the company tells them, but slowly becomes disillusioned by the lies of history. The book unfolds through both Labienus' memories and the journals and artifacts of Victor and others caught in his web. As in the other Company novels, the time line spanned is prodigious, despite which Baker never stints on characters and details that capture the reader's fancy. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (October 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076531455X
• ISBN-13: 978-0765314550
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #528,614 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining writing, but stringing us out??, November 13, 2005

By	J. Burke "jcburke1" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Certainly Ms. Baker can write an entertaining yarn that keeps the reader absorbed and turning the page. Great description, good insight into characters, wonderful color in the surroundings, we love the history woven throughout the storytelling. This book explores the rivalry throughout history between factions within the Company, focusing mostly on characters around the Executive Facilitator Labienus. The only disappointment in this book is that it seems to be a distraction from the setup and main storyline that was in the previous books regarding Mendoza and the Adonai project. I feel the author is milking the series by inventing more sideline struggles and subplots and making whole books out of them. But her writing is good enough to make for a great read even while I am frustrated to get back to the main plot she established previously.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another winner in the Company saga, just not quite as good, December 12, 2005

By	David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I've been anxiously awaiting the next "Company" book by Kage Baker ever since Life of the World to Come came out last year. I've been waiting to see how Baker moves the story forward, what Joseph's fate is, and where Mendoza will go from here. Unfortunately, The Children of the Company answers none of those questions, and again fills in a lot of backstory on the future and the evil machinations of a faction of Immortals, led by Labienus, who plans on perverting what the Company is doing for his own ends. This is valuable backstory, and I did enjoy the book, but I did feel a bit like we're spinning our wheels here. The book is a series of reprinted short stories with a framing sequence, as well as a few possibly new sequences along with them. It's not identified as such, which is also a problem (though a lesser one for me, since I've only read one of them). This is a good Company book, but not a great one.

The conceit of the story is a book told in three time periods: 1863, 1906, and 1906-2100. General Labienus (who was last seen sentencing the botanist Mendoza to 150,000 years ago exile) is reviewing some of his files, catching us up on his plotting to take what the Company is doing and turn it on its ear. He sees the Company as corrupt, the statement that recorded history cannot be changed as a lie (or, at least misleading), and he sees "mortals" as scum and slaves that should hang around to do the Immortals' bidding when the time comes. These files consist of previously published stories that give us pieces of the plot, all brought together for the first time. Is this intended to clean up some of the history? I don't know, but it seems to hang together fairly well. Ultimately, it boils down to Labienus' attempt to turn the Facilitator named Victor, who has been allied with Labienus' rival, Aegeus. It gives us the history of the defective humans who ended up capturing the literary expert Lewis in The Graveyard Game. It also, in an interesting twist, gives us a look from the other side at the saga of Alec Checkerfield and his various incarnations throughout time.

Thankfully, I've only read one of the stories reprinted here, "Son Observe the Time," which is the story of Victor and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Victor and a large party of Immortals are tasked with saving a lot of the art and other treasures that would have otherwise been destroyed in the earthquake, but Victor is also supposed to grab a young boy who would have also died, so that he can be converted into an Immortal. Victor is confronted by Budu, an Immortal from the dawn of man who was created to be a military Immortal, and has since gone insane since the Company stopped using them. Budu has his own thoughts on how things should be run, and he was Labienus' mentor at one time too. I had read the story, and it was wonderful, but it had even more meaning when given all the context that The Children of the Company gives us. Baker even gives us an epilogue to the story that wasn't included in the original, where Labienus debriefs Victor on his encounter with Budu, which goes even further to explain what happened and why. One small problem that this story didn't have before being included in this book is that Victor's attitude toward regular humans has softened a lot in 1500 years, but I guess that's not completely surprising. He's a lot more understanding of them in "Son Observe the Time" than he is in an earlier story.

The other stories are interesting in themselves, but even more important as they are put together to give us a view of what is really going on. We see the fate of Kalugin, a Russian Immortal who sees a bit more than he really should have in a future that's plague-torn. We see the history of Lewis that he can't remember in The Graveyard Game, as well as what happens when he starts to remember it. I wish we would have seen a little more of Aegeus and what his plans are, but maybe that's for another book. I have to admit that, as intriguing as all this is, I'm really starting to miss Joseph and Mendoza.

This all brings to mind pretty much the only fault with the book, which is the shotgun feeling of having a lot of stuff thrust at you at once. All of the above is included, plus a story of a new, extremely young, facilitator-in-training, named Latif. He's five years old but he's been fast-tracked. He's by-the-book with his training, so the base that he's sent to, with a facilitator that plays things more realistically than the book allows ends up throwing him for a loop. I have no doubt that Latif, and perhaps even Van Drouten, will play a role in the rest of the story, but they seem out of place here (though again, the story itself is wonderful).

Ultimately, it seems like Baker forged ahead in her story so quickly, between the various books and the short stories being published in Asimov's, that she has had to stop and let us catch our breath, bring readers who don't follow the short stories up to speed on what's going on, and then she'll vault forward for the finale. While I enjoyed Children of the Company because so much of it was new to me, it still felt like a pause for a bathroom break on a road trip that I was willing to hold it because I wanted to get to reach my destination. I trust Baker implicitly, as there hasn't been a work by her that I have disliked, but I'm getting a bit impatient.

David Roy

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Black Knights, Second Time Around, November 15, 2005

By	Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Ms. Baker's work feeds off the current mood of suspicion and conspiracy that grips so many. There has always been a strong Gnostic element to the series - the idea that a "secret" truth exists, a submerged reality where "they" control events and our destiny. Advocates of such ideas whisper about Bush, Osama, Jewish conspiracies, UFO's, UN helicopters, bar codes, flouride in water and immunization shots with the fervor of a convert attempting to save a lost soul.

This latest tale bears a structural similarity to an earlier work of short stories about the Company - "Black Knights, White Projects". This is not in any way a negative point in that BKWP ranks near the top of all her works. Instead of weaving the action around a particular story or time, we are presented with vignettes swirling around an immortal alternatively cynical, ruthless, charming and deadly. His hatred of mortals knows no bounds and he seems almost alien in his delight in human suffering.

Facilitator Labienus lets us in on a little secret: The cyborg servants of Dr. Zeus have gotten wise to his plan and are aiming at a takeover when history (as we know it) ends in 2355. In a tour of the ages we see the first stirrings of civilization, walk dusty roads of ancient Egypt, visit Victorian England and view San Francisco hours before the 06 earthquake. He goes about his task patiently, eliminating rivals and gaining allies for the ultimate coup. The journey is replete with machinations, surprises and an understated irony that alternates between humor and hubris.

In "Children" we finally realize how imbedded immortals have become in our world. It almost makes one want to look around at head shapes. In the end we are no closer to the answer than when we started but it's OK since the purpose was to establish a new edifice on which to finish the series. Each new publication is a literary event, a word feast in that idiomatic style that Ms. Baker has honed. One finds delight in the story-telling without admiring the main character or feeling that justice has been done. Another winner from a pro.