Company
10 primary works • 11 total works
Book 1
This is the first novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary Science Fiction, now back in print from Tor. In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company. One of these is Mendoza the botanist, who is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. Her quest is jeopardized by Nicholas Harpole, who stirs unfamiliar emotions within her about her future - with a man she will long outlive.
Book 2
The year is 1699, the place the Lost City in the heart of the Mayan jungle - but in fact it's New World One, a rest-and-rec center for Dr. Zeus's hard-working immortal operatives. (The margaritas at the Palenque Poodle are excellent.). Enter Facilitator Joseph. He's been given a new assignment, and it's a tough one. Joseph sailed with the Phoenicians, was a priest in Egypt, a politician in Athens, secretary to a Roman senator...but now he must go to Alta California. His mission: to save the Chumash of Humashup from certain destruction at the hands of the coming white men, by convincing an entire village to step into the future.
Book 3
This is the third novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary SF, now back in print from Tor. In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life-for profit, of course. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. The death of her lover has been followed by centuries of heartbreak. She spends a period of time in early twentieth-century Hollywood in the days of D. W. Griffith. Then Mendoza, in the midst of the Civil War, runs into a man disturbingly similar to her lost love. She is about to find love again, and be in more trouble than she could ever have imagined.
Book 4
You wouldn't take Lewis for an immortal cyborg: he looks like a dapper character from a Noel Coward play. And Joseph - short and stocky in his Armani suit, with a neatly trimmed black moustache and beard that give him a cheerfully villainous look - you'd never guess that his parents drew the Neolithic cave paintings in the Cevennes. What are these two operatives of the Company doing in an amusement arcade in San Francisco in 1996? They're looking for Mendoza, fellow cyborg of Dr. Zeus Incorporated, who has been banished Back Way Back. They're also trying to solve the mystery of her impossibly-reappearing mortal English lover. Soon they will begin uncovering some extremely hush-hush stuff about what the Company has been doing with the cyborgs it no longer wants in the field.
Book 5
From idea to flesh to myth, this is the story of Alec Checkerfield: Seventh Earl of Finsbury, pirate, renegade, hero, anomaly, Mendoza's once and future love. Mendoza is a Preserver, sent back from the twenty-fourth century by Dr. Zeus, Incorporated-the Company-to recover things from the past which would otherwise be lost. She's a botanist, a good one. She's an immortal, indestructible cyborg. And she's a woman in love. In sixteenth century England, Mendoza fell for a native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality.He died a martyr's death, burned at the stake. In nineteenth century America, Mendoza fell for an eerily identical native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality. When he died, she killed six men to avenge him. The Company didn't like that-bad for business. But she's immortal and indestructible, so they dumped her in the Back Way Back. Now, stranded 150,000 years in the past, there are no natives for Mendoza to fall in love with. She tends a garden of maize, and she pines for three thousand years for the man she lost twice.
Then, one day, out of the sky and out of the future comes a renegade, a time- faring pirate, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality. This is the beginning of the end.
Then, one day, out of the sky and out of the future comes a renegade, a time- faring pirate, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality. This is the beginning of the end.
Book 6
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 a useful race of mortals known as Homo sapiens umbratilis; their unique talents may enable him to seize ultimate power. Labienus plans a double cross that will kill two birds with one stone: he will woo away Aegeus's promising protege, the Facilitator Victor, and at the same time dispose of a ghost from his own past who has become inconvenient.
Book 7
Alec Checkerfield's piratical AI, Captain Morgan, has masterminded the rescue of Mendoza the botanist. It takes a lot to kill an immortal, and they tried hard to kill Mendoza, whose body is destroyed and whose memory has been nearly totally erased. She is grown a new body and raised to consciousness. The captain has also retrieved the personalities of her dead lovers, Nicholas and Edward, who are clones of Alec and now inhabit the same body as Alec, an uncomfortable symbiosis. Everyone's favourite immortal cyborg, Mendoza, and the three incarnations of her not-quite-human love, Nicholas/Bell-Fairfax/Alec are all together for the first time. And now they can really begin to fight back against The Company. "The Machines Child" is the one fans have been waiting for, the start of a complex and gripping war along the timelines.
Book 8
In "The Sons of Heaven", the forces gathering to seize power finally move on the Company. The immortal Lewis wakes to find himself blinded, crippled, and left with no weapons but his voice, his memory, and the friendship of one extraordinary little girl. Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, resurrected Victorian superman, plans for world domination. The immortal Mendoza makes a desperate bargain to delay him. Enforcer Budu, assisted by Joseph, enlists an unexpected ally in his plans to free his old warriors and bring judgment on his former masters. Executive Facilitator Suleyman uses his intelligence operation to uncover the secret of Alpha-Omega, vital to the mortals' survival. The mortal masters of the Company, terrified of a coup, invest in a plan they believe will terminate their immortal servants. And they awaken a powerful AI whom they call Dr. Zeus. This web of a story is filled with great climaxes, wonderful surprises, and gripping characters many readers have grown to love or hate. It's a triumph of science fiction!
Book 9
She has written the story of the young life of Edward Fairfax, who lives in a secretly steampunk version of Victorian England, and in a Europe filled with covert and hidden advanced technologies. Edward is an idealist, and as he grows into manhood, it becomes apparent that he is some kind of superman. He can think faster than normal people, has the utter charm to persuade others, and possesses physical strength. He has been manipulated from birth, created for hidden purposes, and now as a young man is sent on a European tour, as a spy and an assassin. Edward the idealistic assassin - perhaps the most dangerous man alive.
Book 9
When the British Arean Company founded its Martian colony, it welcomed any settlers it could get. Outcasts, misfits, and dreamers emigrated in droves to undertake the grueling task of terraforming the cold, red planet - only to be abandoned when the BAC discovered it couldn't turn a profit on Mars. This is the story of Mary Griffith, a determined woman with three daughters, who opened the only place to buy a beer on the Tharsis Bulge. It's also the story of Manco Inca, whose attempt to terraform Mars brought a new goddess vividly to life; of Stanford Crosley, con man extraordinaire; of Ottorino Vespucci, space cowboy and romantic hero; of the Clan Morrigan; of the denizens of the Martian Motel; and of the machinations of another Company entirely - all of whom contribute to the downfall of the BAC and the founding of a new world. Mary and her struggles and triumphs are at the centre of it all, in her bar, Empress of Mars. Based on the Hugo-nominated novella of the same name, this is a rollicking novel of action, planetary romance, and high adventure.
In the Company, you're either a God or a Pawn, but sometimes you have to be both. These eight stories, reprinted for the first time, delve further into the history and exploits of the Company and its operatives, including Mendoza, Lewis, and Alec. The book opens with the novella, "To the Land Beyond the Sunset": starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. Their ability to grow a small tropical paradise in the middle of the desert certainly seems godlike, and it's Mendoza's job to figure out their secret. "Standing in His Light" features Van Drouten and her role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. The story illustrates how, with a little help from the Company, lost masterpieces can be found (or created) easily. Other stories include the original novelette, "Hellfire at Twilight," that concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in the England of the eighteenth century. This book is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts.