James Nicoll Reviews

1997’s In The Garden of Iden is the first volume in Kage Baker’s Company series.

Dr. Zeus, Inc (also known as the Company) is perhaps the greatest benefactor the human race has ever known… or at least it is the greatest benefactor the Company has ever known. The Company owes its success to two discoveries: time travel and immortality.

Thanks to the first, 16^th century Spaniard Mendoza was a beneficiary of the second.

Throughout history, the Company seeks out potential recruits who would otherwise be crushed under history’s treads. These lucky few are dispatched to secret training centres, where they are educated and greatly enhanced. The immortal cyborgs who emerge from this process act as the Company’s hands in the past, seeking out and preserving valuable items, orchestrating contrived sequences of events that will allow the Company to serendipitously discover said treasures in the 24^th century¹.

As a girl, Mendoza was purloined from her proud but poor parents on the pretext that she was to become a servant. In fact, the wealthy Spaniards who acquired Mendoza intended her as a human sacrifice. Matters only got worse when the Inquisition intervened. Surely this little girl who does not know her own name², the name of her village, or the names of her parents must be a secret Jew!

Had Mendoza not been recruited by Company agent Joseph and sent off to Terra Australis for education and enhancement, she would no doubt have been burned alive, if she survived the torture that preceded conviction. As it is, her experiences leave her with a well-founded fear of mortals. What she learns about the centuries to come does not allay her phobia.

Mendoza’s solution is to specialize in New World botany. Surely 16^th century North and South America are so thinly populated that she can happily locate and preserve doomed species without more than minimal contact with mortals. Mendoza is understandably distressed to discover that her planning and specialized education are rewarded with an assignment in darkest England.

Sir Walter Iden’s garden, restored in honour of a valiant ancestor, contains many exotic plant species slated for extinction. Posing as Spaniards, Company agents inveigle invitations from Sir Walter. Sir Walter will be rewarded with New World exotica³ and medicine far more advanced than Sir Walter knows. The Company will gain plants that would otherwise be lost.

The visit coincides with interesting times. Queen Mary is determined to restore British Catholicism. England’s Protestants are determined to resist. Passions are high on both sides. It is a perfect time to visit England, if your goal is to perish due to religious strife.

Mendoza’s plan is to keep her immortal head down, do her work, and get out unharmed. Falling in love with a mortal was never part of the plan, especially not an outspoken, pious Protestant like Nicholas Harpole. And yet, she does.

Can true love redeem all? Or is poor Mendoza fated to suffer more trauma?

~oOo~

This is not my period, but some of the details in the author’s handling of race make me wonder about their period accuracy. That said, this is all funneled through Mendoza. Not only is she an extremely biased witness, it’s not clear when she wrote this memoir. If it was centuries after the fact, she may be reframing issues in more modern form.

The Company does its best to indoctrinate its immortal cyborgs, despite which the cyborgs are cynical about the rewards waiting for them once they reach the 24^th century:

Will they really welcome us, will they really share with us the rewards we’ve worked millennia to provide them with? If you’re any student of history, you know the answer to that question. 

The cyborgs persist because they believe their work important enough to ignore the source of funding or their likely fates. At least it’s an ethos⁴.

I bounced off Baker’s debut novel when I first tried to read it back in 1997. Too pessimistic and gloomy, too committed to the idea that the world would eventually be owned by a few power-hungry oligarchs into whose plans each person would have to fit themselves. For some reason, those elements didn’t annoy me as much on a reread as they did in 1997. I wonder what changed? I suppose we will never know.

This is perhaps not the most upbeat of books, involving as it does a clearly doomed romance (if only because mortals die, while immortals do not) during one of England’s many unpleasant moments. Nevertheless, on re-reading the book I found it enthralling. I regret not having paid more attention to Baker’s fiction while she was alive.

In The Garden of Iden appears to be out of print.

1: By which time, USA delenda, judging by the fact that there is a Republic of California.

2: ​“Mendoza” is not her original name, but rather that of the rich Spaniard who planned to murder Mendoza.

3: An unusual strain of corn.

4: The Company has been creating super-intelligent cyborgs since Neanderthals were around. It seems likely that some of these immortals have devoted their long, long lives to considering how to best manage the inevitable crisis that is sure to arise between them and their bosses in the 24^th century. I can see no way that could go horribly wrong for the Company.