Finished reading In the Garden of Iden (1997) by the late Kage Baker the other night. I’d been ignoring her work for years as I’m not as into series as I once was. But over the last couple of years I’d picked up a couple of her books so I could see what the fuss was about, but still hadn’t gotten around to reading any. Then, not too long ago, Tor reissued In the Garden of Iden, the first book in her popular “The Company” series. Since I always like to start reading a series at the beginning I picked it up.

About half way through I started looking in local book stores and online for her other books. I got all of her Company books (or will have once Amazon delivers my order), and most of her other books.

In the Garden of Iden is a fun read. The basic premise and the characters (at least the main ones) are interesting. As I’ve said before, I’m a sucker for time travel stories. There’s not a lot of time travel in this book, but the basic premise of the series depends on it. In the future a company decides to perfect immortality. But they run quickly into a problem: how to test the process. The answer: they invent time travel, go into the past, experiment on the natives and see if they survive. But there are problems with the process (for example, it only works on children, and children aren’t rich enough to afford it) and so they decide instead to get rich by hiding valuable things in the past where they can find them in the future. (Apparently they can’t bring stuff back to the future with them when they return from the past. And they can’t change the past; or at least they can’t change what’s been recorded about the past. If a person left no mark on history, the Company can use them as it sees fit.)

In the Garden of Iden is about Mendoza, an immortal botanist. The story begins (more or less) in Spain in the 1540’s and the Spanish Inquisition is well underway. Children who fall into the hands of inquisitors seldom survive and no one ever knows what happens to them. Fair game for the Company.

Most of the novel takes place in the mid-1550s in England. It is a time and place of religious unrest. In the 1530s Henry set up the Church of England, in 1553 Mary restored the Catholic Church and in 1558 Elizabeth restored the Church of England. Mendoza is now about 18 and on her first field assignment, to gather rare botanical samples that will have become extinct in the time of the Company. She is living with other members of the Company in a rural Protestant England household, posing as Spanish Catholics who traveled to England with Prince Philip. Also in the household is one Nicholas Harpole young and handsome (and mortal) fervent Protestant with decidedly odd (for his time) beliefs. Romance, adventure and catastrophe ensue.

After I finished In the Garden of Iden I almost broke a custom of mine of not reading multiple books by the same author consecutively. This stems from a weekend many years ago (between marriages and before kids) when I read 6 of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels. For a while afterwards, I kept expecting the characters from Spenser to show up in whatever I happened to be reading. Very unnerving. But I held fast. Sitting on my desk was a story by Cherie Priest I’d downloaded from the .net that caught my eye. But more about that later…

Bottom line: In the Garden of Iden is not great literature. Will it still be popular (or even known) in twenty years? I’d guess not (but who knows). Did I enjoy it? You betcha. Will I read more books by Ms. Baker? Oh yes.