The novel “Sky Coyote” by Kage Baker was published for the first time in 1999. It’s the second novel in the Company series and follows “In the Garden of Iden“.
Joseph, one of the immortal cyborgs of Dr. Zeus, Inc., also known simply as the Company, was tasked with a new mission in California at the end of the 17th century. Europeans are invading North America and the Chumash native tribe is about to be wiped out.
A Company group has the task of saving the Chumash transporting them to a new environment created specifically for them. Joseph will have to impersonate the Sky Coyote, one of their gods, to convince them of the impending disaster. In the group there’s also Mendoza, a botanist he had “recruited” long before and with whom his relationship is complicated.
“Sky Coyote” is the second novel by Kage Baker and continues the build-up of the fictional universe presented in “In the Garden of Iden” Two of the immortal cyborgs return who were among the protagonists of the first novel who work for Dr. Zeus, Inc., a company that in the XXIV century possesses immortality and time travel technologies: Joseph, who has thousands of years of experience, and Mendoza, much younger.
In their missions, Company’s people must avoid interfering in history but can act in the moments when there are no recordings of events. This is the case of the Chumash native tribe, of which it’s known that disappeared after the Europeans reached California.
In “In the Garden of Iden” the historical component is very important because it’s set in a well-known historical period, on the contray in “Sky Coyote” Kage Baker can take many liberties in the descriptions of the Chumash because information of this tribe are limited. The result is that the Chumash were turned into a metaphor of modern Western society.
The story of the rescue of the Chumash is rather simple but is actually only a part of “Sky Coyote”. In the end, the novel is above all Joseph’s story and is narrated in the first person by him. During his mission, he often thinks back about events of his past and that’s used to show the dark side of the Company.
Both various events experienced by Joseph in his past and his relationship with a Company’s bureaucrat who in theory oversees the mission with the Chumash leave doubts about Dr. Zeus and on the cyborgs’ treatment as they’re seen as robots. The bureaucrat looks like an idiot which raises doubts about the brain skills of the future people who run the Company.
Joseph has been working for thousands of years for the Company but there are more and more things that do not add up. Despite his doubts, he does his best to impersonate the Sky Coyote with the Chumash and to handle difficult relationships. In addition to the bureaucrat, there’s also Mendoza, part of the mission as a botanist: the relationship between the two of them is conditioned by what happened in “In the Garden of Iden”. That’s one reason wny it’s better if you have already read the first novel.
If for you the historical plausibility is important, certainly “Sky Coyote” will not be as good as “In the Garden of Iden”. Otherwise, I think that the second novel is in many ways better because Joseph is a more interesting character than Mendoza with his experiences of millennia and for the bigger picture about the Company.
In the end, I think that the most interesting part of “Sky Coyote” is the one that, through Joseph’s story, explores this fictional universe. Joseph is not the only one with doubts, indeed there are other cyborg more disillusioned than him. The relationship between cyborgs and the mortals who run Dr. Zeus have dark sides that in this novel are just introduced. At times the tone is really dark but they’re compensated by the humor present in many other moments.
In “Sky Coyote” there are many characters, too many to be all developed, especially since Joseph is by far the main character and not just because he’s the narrator. It’s not an action novel though many things happen and it contains many dialogues so the pace tends to be slow.
In my opinion, “Sky Coyote” is a novel that continues the exploration of the fictional universe of the Company in a way I found very interesting adding an element of intrigue. For this reason, it provides the basis for more developments although the main storyline is completed. If you’re interested in the themes I recommend reading it.
