In The Garden of Iden
By Kage Baker
In The Garden of Iden, the first book in The Company series by Kage Baker, tells the story of Mendoza who is rescued from the Spanish Inquisition as a small child by and organization of time traveling immortals called The Company. Mendoza is bio-engineered to become an operative of The Company which, led by the enigmatic Dr. Zeuss, travels back through time to �rescue� things lost in the past such as people, plants, animals and works of art, that can be used or admired by those in the future. The mortals that the Company infiltrate in order to do their work are held in disdain by the Company�s operatives and regarded disparagingly as "monkeys." But those immortals who feel that way forget that they too came from these ranks, ranks which contain the seeds of grandeur that bore the likes of Shakespeare, Jefferson and Da Vinci. So when Mendoza meets a mortal who is one of the best that these �monkeys� has to offer and falls in love with him what sort of future can they make for themselves in the past?
Mixed genre books, books that combine elements of two or more types of fiction are a favorite of mine, but In The Garden of Iden was a mixture I�ve never encountered before. I�ve enjoyed the combination of mystery and science fiction such as in Isaac Asimov�s The Caves of Steel or horror and detective fiction such as Laurell K. Hamilton�s Anita Blake series, but In The Garden of Iden was something new to me�a combination of the romance and science fiction genres. Certainly science fiction novels in the past have contained romance, usually as a sub-plot of the characters within the book, but In The Garden of Iden effectively combined the best elements of science fiction and romance to come up with something new, interesting and exceptionally well written. The only comparison I can make, and higher praise I cannot give, is the short story in Robert Heinlein�s Time Enough For Love titled, The Tale of the Adopted Daughter, and which also deals with the love between an immortal and a mortal.
If you like romance, science fiction or both give In The Garden of Iden a try.
Grade: A
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