Mendoza in Hollywood

Title: Mendoza in Hollywood
Author: Kage Baker
Published: 2000 originally, this paperback ed. 2006 by Tor.
Genre: Historical time travel science fiction!
Pages: 334


Oh man, this one took far, far longer than such a relatively short book had any right to take. I started this long before I went on summer holiday from work, in August, and during the holiday I read the fourth A Song of Ice and Fire -book, plus Mrs. Fry's Diary, and the couple of Dresden Files audio books too.

Our acquintance from the first book, botanist Mendoza, is sent to Hollywood -which some of you probably guessed from the title- to gather samples of rare plants. But not the Hollywood we know: the year is 1862, and the west is quite wild. Quite empty, but wild.

There was a lot of insight to the lives of Dr. Zeus' immortal operatives, new and old. But those breaks, those damn long breaks coupled with the relative uneventfulness of the book made me not like it very much. Partly I also blame the text on the back cover: it promised this very specific, spoilerrific action, which didn't start until the book was 4/5 over! The last ten pages were the most eventful ones, but they left me with a lot of curiosity for the coming books, and with an overall nice taste in my mouth. Figuratively. I don't lick my books. Except, umm. Maybe once or twice. Mostly I just cuddle them.


But yeah, that was the third book in Baker's Company series, and I am looking forward to the next. Gotta finish these few ones I've started first, though...


   "Now, señors, I think some of the reason for my subsequent lamentable behavior is evident right here in the next scene. I hung up my oilskins and shrugged into dry clothes, meditating smugly to myself that it didn't take much to make me happy nowadays. I was an old hand now, wasn't I? A couple of tamales and a dry place to put up my feet and read a novel were enough. I could make my own space anywhere they posted me, as a good operative should. Wisdom at last. Perhaps I'd attained enlightenment after tramping through that beautiful desolation all these years collecting specimens alone. Certainly I had equilibrium.
   "Well. Where pride flaunts such scarlet banners, blares such brazen trumpets, you know what follows."