The Children of the Company

by Kage Baker

Book Overview

Take a ride through time with the devil. In the sixth book of the Company series, we meet Executive Facilitator General Labienus. He's used his immortal centuries to plot a complete takeover of the world since he was a young god-figure in Sumeria. In a meditative mood, he reviews his interesting career. He muses on his subversion of the Company black project ADONAI. He considers also Aegeus, his despised rival for power, who has discovered and captured...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765353679
• ISBN13: 9780765353672
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 374 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Brillant and Funny

Kage Baker has a unique sense of humor that has caused me to laugh out loud on several occasions. Despite being a book with time travel it makes no absurd claims (aside from the premise of time travel). Paints an eerily likely view of a dystopian future.

Another winner in the Company saga, just not quite as good

I've been anxiously awaiting the next "Company" book by Kage Baker ever since Life of the World to Come came out last year. I've been waiting to see how Baker moves the story forward, what Joseph's fate is, and where Mendoza will go from here. Unfortunately, The Children of the Company answers none of those questions, and again fills in a lot of backstory on the future and the evil machinations of a faction of Immortals, led by Labienus, who plans on perverting what the Company is doing for his own ends. This is valuable backstory, and I did enjoy the book, but I did feel a bit like we're spinning our wheels here. The book is a series of reprinted short stories with a framing sequence, as well as a few possibly new sequences along with them. It's not identified as such, which is also a problem (though a lesser one for me, since I've only read one of them). This is a good Company book, but not a great one. The conceit of the story is a book told in three time periods: 1863, 1906, and 1906-2100. General Labienus (who was last seen sentencing the botanist Mendoza to 150,000 years ago exile) is reviewing some of his files, catching us up on his plotting to take what the Company is doing and turn it on its ear. He sees the Company as corrupt, the statement that recorded history cannot be changed as a lie (or, at least misleading), and he sees "mortals" as scum and slaves that should hang around to do the Immortals' bidding when the time comes. These files consist of previously published stories that give us pieces of the plot, all brought together for the first time. Is this intended to clean up some of the history? I don't know, but it seems to hang together fairly well. Ultimately, it boils down to Labienus' attempt to turn the Facilitator named Victor, who has been allied with Labienus' rival, Aegeus. It gives us the history of the defective humans who ended up capturing the literary expert Lewis in The Graveyard Game. It also, in an interesting twist, gives us a look from the other side at the saga of Alec Checkerfield and his various incarnations throughout time. Thankfully, I've only read one of the stories reprinted here, "Son Observe the Time," which is the story of Victor and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Victor and a large party of Immortals are tasked with saving a lot of the art and other treasures that would have otherwise been destroyed in the earthquake, but Victor is also supposed to grab a young boy who would have also died, so that he can be converted into an Immortal. Victor is confronted by Budu, an Immortal from the dawn of man who was created to be a military Immortal, and has since gone insane since the Company stopped using them. Budu has his own thoughts on how things should be run, and he was Labienus' mentor at one time too. I had read the story, and it was wonderful, but it had even more meaning when given all the context that The Children of the Company gives us. Baker even gives us an epilogu

Black Knights, Second Time Around

Ms. Baker's work feeds off the current mood of suspicion and conspiracy that grips so many. There has always been a strong Gnostic element to the series - the idea that a "secret" truth exists, a submerged reality where "they" control events and our destiny. Advocates of such ideas whisper about Bush, Osama, Jewish conspiracies, UFO's, UN helicopters, bar codes, flouride in water and immunization shots with the fervor of a convert attempting to save a lost soul. This latest tale bears a structural similarity to an earlier work of short stories about the Company - "Black Knights, White Projects". This is not in any way a negative point in that BKWP ranks near the top of all her works. Instead of weaving the action around a particular story or time, we are presented with vignettes swirling around an immortal alternatively cynical, ruthless, charming and deadly. His hatred of mortals knows no bounds and he seems almost alien in his delight in human suffering. Facilitator Labienus lets us in on a little secret: The cyborg servants of Dr. Zeus have gotten wise to his plan and are aiming at a takeover when history (as we know it) ends in 2355. In a tour of the ages we see the first stirrings of civilization, walk dusty roads of ancient Egypt, visit Victorian England and view San Francisco hours before the 06 earthquake. He goes about his task patiently, eliminating rivals and gaining allies for the ultimate coup. The journey is replete with machinations, surprises and an understated irony that alternates between humor and hubris. In "Children" we finally realize how imbedded immortals have become in our world. It almost makes one want to look around at head shapes. In the end we are no closer to the answer than when we started but it's OK since the purpose was to establish a new edifice on which to finish the series. Each new publication is a literary event, a word feast in that idiomatic style that Ms. Baker has honed. One finds delight in the story-telling without admiring the main character or feeling that justice has been done. Another winner from a pro.

Entertaining writing, but stringing us out??

Certainly Ms. Baker can write an entertaining yarn that keeps the reader absorbed and turning the page. Great description, good insight into characters, wonderful color in the surroundings, we love the history woven throughout the storytelling. This book explores the rivalry throughout history between factions within the Company, focusing mostly on characters around the Executive Facilitator Labienus. The only disappointment in this book is that it seems to be a distraction from the setup and main storyline that was in the previous books regarding Mendoza and the Adonai project. I feel the author is milking the series by inventing more sideline struggles and subplots and making whole books out of them. But her writing is good enough to make for a great read even while I am frustrated to get back to the main plot she established previously.

stupendous sci fi

Dr. Zeus of the Company has learned the secrets of time travel and how to turn mortals into immortal cyborgs that he sends back in time to hide art, artifacts and anything else that would benefit the Company in a place where the company can recover it. Cyborgs also turn young children into cyborgs as new recruits for the company. Cyborgs have been on the Earth for many millennia, raising man up on two legs and bringing new civilizations into being. Executive Facilitatior General Labienus looks at files that span the millennium to learn that the company did not play fair with the cyborgs. He has plans to take over the world and eliminate the company and Dr. Zeus if he can defeat his life long enemy who has discovered a new race of mortals, Homo sapiens umbratilis, mortals who can invent anything and are easy to manipulate. Throughout time Labienus subtly influences history so that when the moment is right he will be in a position to make his move to control the world. Kage Baker's Company novels are always fun to read but CHILDREN OF THE COMPANY is particularly good because it shows the different eras that the agents operated in from the dawn of time to the San Francisco earthquake to the future when a virus was deliberately let loose on a world so that some scientific research would be lost until Dr. Zeus "finds" it. This is a stupendous series because one never knows in what direction Mr. Baker will take readers. Harriet Klausner