Amph Kage Baker -- Immortals, time travel, and The Company!

Californian Kage Baker is one of my favorite writers. She's witty and erudite, a born storyteller who does well with both short stories and novels. Her work is never less than delightful.

She's best known for her Company series. It will be eight novels long, of which the first six are already out. Yes, these are the immortal time-traveller books, and they're fantastic fun. Kage has been compared to Connie Willis, and the comparison is apt: she has a fine sense of humor and knows how to turn a phrase. The Company novels:

1. In the Garden of Iden (12/1997)
2. Sky Coyote (01/1999)
3. Mendoza in Hollywood (01/2000) (UK title: At The Edge of the West)
4. The Graveyard Game (01/2001)
5. The Life of the World to Come (12/2004)
6. The Children of the Company (11/2005)
7. The Machine's Child (2006)
8. Book 8

Further, there is a collection of Company stories: Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers (09/2002)

Kage has also written a brilliant novella, The Empress of Mars (07/2003), which was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and won the Sturgeon award, which is set in the Company universe.

Outside of that milieu is her fantasy novel The Anvil of the World (08/2003), which features one of her most delightful characters, Lord Ermenwyr, who also features in several of her stories. Also look out for the duel of fatal verbal abuse. Classic!

Much of her short fiction can be found in the collections Mother Aegypt and Other Stories (2004) and the forthcoming Dark Mondays and Other Stories, which will include a pirate story!

Anyway, Kage definitely deserves wider readership, and all of you deserve to do yourselves the pleasure of reading her books, so go out and read them now! And then discuss them here!

 

I've only read a couple of her short stories in Asimov's, but I've enjoyed them. I'll try and find the titles.

 

I've read 1-6 of her Company novels and have 7 waiting for me now. Also read Anvil of the World, wasn't what I was expecting at all based on her company novels, it was a welcome suprise. The Demons in there cracked me up. Someone I know even arranged to get me a signed copy of that novel <3 One of my most treasured books.

I'm anxiously waiting to see how the company novels turnout. Mendoza's fate especially. When is she going to end up? Why all the silence? Haven't decided on a theory yet personally.