Kage Baker Collection - Fantasy - Science Fiction

Kage Baker Collection - Fantasy - Science Fiction

Kage Baker

in mobi format

Company
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Book 1 � In the Garden of Iden
This is the first novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary SF, now back in print from Tor. In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. She is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden.�
But while there, she meets Nicholas Harpole, with whom she falls in love. And that love sounds great bells of change that will echo down the centuries, and through the succeeding novels of The Company.


Book 2 � Sky Coyote
Cunningly blending a pre-Columbian past with a 24th century extrapolated from every adult's nightmare about the younger generation, Baker's second installment in her Company series proves a witty match to In the Garden of Iden. Fresh from a cushy R&R after a supervisory stint in the Inquisition, time-hopping cyborg Facilitator Joseph jaunts to 16th-century Alta California. There, cybernetically outfitted with fur and paws, he apotheosizes to the cannily entrepreneurial Chumash Indian tribe so he can collect them and their entire biosystem for Company studies in the remote future. Joseph's Company is Baker's deliciously wicked platform for satirizing past, present and all-too-likely future human frailties. From sure-handed sendups of 24th-century Cinema Standard speech patterns and a dismayingly suggestive portrait of the Chumash Medical AssociationAstaring eyes, knotted hair and an air of too frequent consumption of alkaloidsAto the Company's sacred Greater Mission Statement, Baker nails her 20th-century targets: societal, religious and oh-so-personal hypocrisy.�


Book 3 � Mendoza in Hollywood (aka At the Edge of the West)
Ah, pity poor Mendoza. She's a botanist stuck in dusty southern California in 1862, with a broken heart, bizarre companions, lousy food (frijoles and steak again, anyone?), and no plants to study. On top of all that, she's immortal--a cyborg created and maintained by Dr. Zeus, also known as the Company. From its 24th-century headquarters, the Company sends orders back in time to Mendoza and her fellow cyborgs, who collect stuff from the past and send it ahead through time machines for inscrutable uses. But things go from bad to worse for our heroine when drought and smallpox decimate the region, leaving her with nothing to do but pine for her three-centuries-lost mortal love, the martyred Nicholas Harpole. But what's this? Along comes a British agent--the spitting image of Nicholas--hell-bent on upsetting the Union in its hour of need. Mendoza must decide whether to help him in his plot to ensure British rule of the Americas, thereby directly disobeying her Company mandates. She finds herself in a weird race against time itself in this story of science fiction adventure, mystery, and comedy, with not a few reverential in-jokes about SoCal culture thrown in for good measure.


Book 4 � The Graveyard Game
"Sin exists," says Joseph, an immortal cyborg agent employed by Dr. Zeus, Inc., and in this fourth novel of Kage Baker's Company series, it certainly does.�The Graveyard Game�follows agents Joseph and Lewis as they try to find their missing friend Mendoza, who's been exiled to the Back Way Back as punishment for anti-Company activities.
Dr. Zeus, a time-travel corporation, created cyborgs to selectively preserve artifacts from the past for the edification of the 24th century, when the Company exists. But as the centuries go by for the agents, they hear strange rumors of a "silence" in the year 2355. Ominously, cyborgs who try to investigate disappear forever, hidden away or shut down by Dr. Zeus.
Joseph and Lewis become obsessed with finding Mendoza, and along the way, they uncover evidence of bizarre and dangerous Company deeds. Joseph finds strange underground holding cells, with "retired" agents in vats of preserving fluid. Meanwhile, Lewis researches the activities of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, the odd mortal who was with Mendoza when she disappeared. The two get together to discuss their disheartening quest in present-day Ghirardelli Square. Cyborgs get stoned on chocolate, and they order round after round of hot cocoa, even snorting the stuff, until a Company security tech finds them.


Book 5 � The Life of the World to Come
The botanist Mendoza, an immortal female cyborg employed by the rapacious Company, fell in love with a mortal while on a mission in 16th-century England. Tragically, her lover was then burned at the stake. Later in the series, during the 19th century, she fell in love with another man who could've been her first lover's clone. Baker centers this latest on Alec Checkerfield, an English nobleman of the 24th century and the third of Mendoza's physically identical lovers. We discover that Alec and his predecessors have been created by Company scientists as prototypes for a new line of cyborgs designed to replace the occasionally fractious models they've heretofore employed to do their dirty work. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the spoiled, childlike men who run the project badly underestimate both Alec and Mendoza.�


Book 6 � The Children of the Company
Alec Checkerfield shares his cyborg body uncomfortably with the Recombinant personalities of 19th-century spy Edward Bell-Fairfax and 16th-century scholar Nicholas Harpole. Each man, in his own time, worked for�and was betrayed by�Dr. Zeus Inc. (aka the Company), which uses time travel to recover and hoard important historical artifacts. In their quest to destroy the Company, Checkerfield and his unlikely partners must rescue Mendoza, an immortal female cyborg and Company botanist each fell in love with in his own time, from a Company torture facility.�


Book 7 � The Machine's Child
Kage Baker's trademark series of SF adventure continues now in a direct sequel to�The Life of the World to Come.�Mendoza was banished long ago, to a prison lost in time where rebellious immortals are "dealt with." Now her past lovers: Alec, Nicholas, and Bell-Fairfax, are determined to rescue her, but first they must learn how to live together, because all three happen to be sharing Alec's body. What they find when they discover Mendoza is even worse than what they could imagined, and enough for them to decide to finally fight back against the Company.


Book 8 � The Sons of Heaven
The immortal Lewis wakes to find himself blinded, crippled, and left with no weapons but his voice, his�memory, and the friendship of one extraordinary little girl. Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, resurrected Victorian superman, plans for world domination. The immortal Mendoza makes a desperate bargain to delay him. Enforcer Budu, assisted by Joseph, enlists an unexpected ally in his plans to free his old warriors and bring judgment on his former masters.�
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Executive Facilitator Suleyman uses his intelligence operation to uncover the secret of Alpha-Omega, vital to the mortals' survival. The mortal masters of the Company, terrified of a coup, invest in a plan they believe will terminate their immortal servants.�And they awaken a powerful AI whom they call Dr Zeus.


Book 9 � Not Less Than Gods
On a dark evening in 1824, a lady is offered a ride home in the carriage of a dark and mysterious stranger and a boy is conceived, to the strains of Beethoven's brand-new setting to the Ode to Joy. Groomed from childhood to become a perfect British hero, young Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax proceeds uncertainly through public school, a career in the navy, mutiny and court-martial before discovering his true place in life. There is, in Whitehall, a comfortable and slightly shabby club called Redking's. Downstairs from Redking's, however, is concealed the London headquarters of the Gentlemen's Speculative Society... a centuries-old fraternity devoted to the development of what its members call Technologia. Their goal is to bring about a Utopian paradise of science, through the manipulation of men and governments. Edward, as one of their agents, sets off on an odyssey across 19th-century Europe, encountering on the way flying machines, self-propelled carriages, and an Underground Galvanic Railway... and learns that the Society, in its various disguises, is everywhere.

Books in the Company Universe


Black Projects, White Knights The Company Dossiers
Offers fourteen stories exploring the world of Dr. Zeus, Inc., known to its employees as "The Company," and the exploits of its field agents--once human, now immortal time-traveling cyborgs.


Rude Mechanicals
The year is 1934, the scene is a Wood Near Athens -- temporarily relocated to the environs of the Hollywood Bowl, as German theater impresario Max Reinhardt attempts to stage his famous production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Fortunately for Reinhardt, he has immortal assistance in the person of Literature Specialist Lewis, a cyborg working undercover for Dr. Zeus Incorporated, masters of time travel. Lewis is tasked with preserving Reinhardt's promptbooks for future Company profits at auction.

Unfortunately for Reinhardt, there are complications...

For Joseph, Lewis's fellow cyborg, is on the case as well, attempting to salvage a botched mission of his own. It involves the lost treasure of the Cahuenga Pass, a missing diamond, a third-century pope, burglary, disguises, car chases, and a legendary Hollywood party spot. All of which interact, more or less disastrously, with Lewis's mission and Reinhardt's Shakespearean extravaganza. Will the show go on?


The Empress of Mars
When the British Arean Company founded its Martian colony, it welcomed any settlers it could get. Outcasts, misfits and dreamers emigrated in droves to undertake the grueling task of terraforming the cold red planet--only to be abandoned when the BAC discovered it couldn't turn a profit on Mars.

This is the story of Mary Griffith, a determined woman with three daughters, who opened the only place to buy a beer on the Tharsis Bulge. It's the story of Manco Inca, whose attempt to terraform Mars brought a new goddess vividly to life; of Stanford Crosley, con man extraordinaire; of Ottorino Vespucci, space cowboy and romantic hero; of the Clan Morrigan, of the denizens of the Martian Motel, and of the machinations of another Company entirely, all of whom contribute to the downfall of the BAC and the founding of a new world. But Mary and her struggles and triumphs is at the center of it all, in her bar, the Empress of Mars.


Anvil of the World


Book 1 � The Anvil of the World
The Anvil of the World�is her first fantasy novel, a journey across a fantastic landscape filled with bizarre creatures, human and otherwise. It is the tale of Smith, of the large extended family of Smiths, of the Children of the Sun. They are a race given to blood feuds, and Smith was formerly an extremely successful assassin. Now he has wearied of his work and is trying to retire in another country, to live an honest life in obscurity in spite of all those who have sworn to kill him.

His problems begin when he agrees to be the master of a caravan from the inland city of Troon to the seaside city of Salesh. The caravan is dogged with murder, magic, and the brooding image of the Master of the Mountain, a powerful demon, looking down from his mountain kingdom upon the greenlands and the travelers passing below. In Salesh, Smith becomes an innkeeper, but on the journey he befriended the young Lord Ermenwyr, a decadent demonic half-breed. Each time Ermenwyr turns up, he brings new trouble with him.


Book 2 � The House of the Stag
Before the Riders came to their remote valley the Yendri led a tranquil pastoral life. When the Riders conquered and enslaved them, only a few escaped to the forests. Rebellion wasn't the Yendri way; they hid, or passively resisted, taking consolation in the prophecies of their spiritual leader.

Only one possessed the necessary rage to fight back: Gard the foundling, half-demon, who began a one-man guerrilla war against the Riders. His struggle ended in the loss of the family he loved, and condemnation from his own people.

Exiled, he was taken as a slave by powerful mages ruling an underground kingdom. Bitterer and wiser, he found more subtle ways to earn his freedom. This is the story of his rise to power, his vengeance, his unlikely redemption and his maturation into a loving father--as well as a lord and commander of demon armies.


Book 3 � The Bird of the River
In this new story set in the world of The Anvil of the World and The House of the Stag, two teenagers join the crew of a huge river barge after their addict mother is drowned. The girl and her half-breed younger brother try to make the barge their new home. As the great boat proceeds up the long river, we see a panorama of cities and cultures, and begin to perceive patterns in the pirate attacks that happen so frequently in the river cities. Eliss, the girl, becomes a sharp-eyed spotter of obstacles in the river for the barge, and more than that, one who perceives deeply. A young boy her age, Krelan, trained as a professional assassin, has come aboard, seeking the head of a dead nobleman, so that there might be a proper burial. But the head proves as elusive as the real explanation behind the looting of cities, so he needs Eliss's help. And then there is the massive Captain of the barge, who can perform supernatural tricks, but prefers to stay in his cabin and drink.

Nell Gwynne


Book 1 � The Women of Nell Gwynne's
Lady Beatrice was the proper British daughter of a proper British soldier, until tragedy struck and sent her home to walk the streets of early-Victorian London. But Lady Beatrice is no ordinary ~censored~, and is soon recruited to join an underground establishment known as Nell Gwynne's. Nell Gwynne's is far more than simply the finest and most exclusive brothel in Whitehall; it is in fact the sister organization to the Gentlemen's Speculative Society, that 19th-century predecessor to a certain Company... and when a member of the Society goes missing on a peculiar assignment, it's up to Lady Beatrice and her sister harlots to investigate.

Novels


Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key
It's 1672 in Port Royal, Jamaica. John James, London bricklayer's apprentice turned pirate, is returning from the sack of Panama with his share of the loot (a lousy 200 pieces of eight) and a resolve to go back to bricklaying, since piracy pays so badly. First, though, he has a duty: he must deliver a letter to a lady. The letter is from his dead comrade, Sir Thomas Blackstone, who was a court intriguer on a mission for Prince Rupert of the Rhine. The letter's recipient is Clarissa Waverly, Blackstone's mistress and accomplice. Before he went off to Panama, Blackstone hid four thousand pounds of the prince's money, unwilling to trust his lady friend not to make off with it in his absence. Dying of battle wounds, he wrote to let her know where he'd concealed the money.


Dark Mondays
In this enchanting, if melancholy, story collection from Hugo� and Nebula Award�nominee Baker (_Mother Aegypt_), the supernatural matter-of-factly touches the shabby lives of people in small, isolated towns, providing resolution and revelation. In "Calamari Curls," a legless war veteran who owns a divey chowder house sees his clientele dwindle with the opening of the titular upscale restaurant until a supernatural solution eliminates the competition and forestalls gentrification of his run-down coastal California town. "Events are only as real as we make them," realizes a Catholic priest in "Monkey Day" (also set in California), which pits him and an imaginative boy against an elementary school teacher whose nonbelief protects her from fantastical violence. In "The Maid on the Shore," a sprawling novella set in the 17th-century West Indies, English pirates are helped to bloody victory against the Spanish by a beautiful girl who embodies the fury of war.�


The Hotel Under the Sand
Appealing to boys and girls alike, this beguiling adventure explores classic fantasy themes from a unique young heroine's perspective. Nine-year-old Emma loses everything she has in a fearsome storm and finds herself alone in the wilderness of the Dunes - an area desolate since the mysterious disappearance of a resort known as the Grand Wenlocke. Finding a friend in Winston, the ghostly bellboy who wanders the Dunes, Emma learns that it has been more than 100 years since the hotel with an unsavory reputation vanished; but, unbeknownst to either of them, the long slumbering resort has just begun to stir. Allying herself with a motley crew of companions - the ghost bellboy, a kindhearted cook, a pirate with a heart of gold, and the imperious young heir to the Wenlocke fortune - Emma soon learns that things are not always as lost as they seem, especially if you have a brave heart and good friends.