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A review by tome15
In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker
5.0
Baker, Kage. In the Garden of Iden. The Company No. 1. Tor, 1997.
The Company series is based on the most original time-travel premise I can remember. Most of the novels are tolerably stand-alone, but In the Garden of Iden is no doubt the best place to start. Time travelers from the future recruit children in the past, modify them to make them immortal, and use them to recover and conceal items officially lost to history so that people in the future can retrieve them. This first novel follows the history of a Spanish woman called Mendoza, who the historical record says disappeared in the Inquisition. The Company rescued her and trained her as a botanist to recover extinct plants; when, at 18, she finds herself undercover in Tudor England in the reign of Bloody Mary, she is out of place in more ways than she can handle. Baker was an expert in Renaissance history and culture, and she uses that to good advantage here. In the end, Mendoza has to reconcile the intractability of religion and superstition with her enlightened scientific and historical education. Mendoza’s history is rounded out in The Sons of Heaven (2007). The whole series is worth reading; I also especially enjoyed Mendoza in Hollywood (2000).
The Company series is based on the most original time-travel premise I can remember. Most of the novels are tolerably stand-alone, but In the Garden of Iden is no doubt the best place to start. Time travelers from the future recruit children in the past, modify them to make them immortal, and use them to recover and conceal items officially lost to history so that people in the future can retrieve them. This first novel follows the history of a Spanish woman called Mendoza, who the historical record says disappeared in the Inquisition. The Company rescued her and trained her as a botanist to recover extinct plants; when, at 18, she finds herself undercover in Tudor England in the reign of Bloody Mary, she is out of place in more ways than she can handle. Baker was an expert in Renaissance history and culture, and she uses that to good advantage here. In the end, Mendoza has to reconcile the intractability of religion and superstition with her enlightened scientific and historical education. Mendoza’s history is rounded out in The Sons of Heaven (2007). The whole series is worth reading; I also especially enjoyed Mendoza in Hollywood (2000).