In The Garden of Iden
Encyclopedia
In the Garden of Iden is a 1997 science fiction
novel by Kage Baker
. Although it is set entirely in the 16th century, in Spain
and England
, it is a science fiction
story revolving around the activities of a group of immortal cyborg
s, individuals who appear human but have been transformed by high technology.
Mendoza is a cyborg, who, like others of her kind, has been rescued from certain death as a small child and turned into an immortal machine, then made to work for "The Company
". She loves her work and hates 'mortals'. All that changes when, on her first mission, she encounters love and learns the terrible price she has paid to live forever.
" and its servants, human and otherwise. The series continues with Sky Coyote
, Mendoza in Hollywood
, The Graveyard Game
, and The Life of the World to Come
. The collection Black Projects, White Knights
consists of Company stories, and there are allusions in the collection Mother Ægypt and Other Stories.
The story is told by Mendoza, a cyborg botanist. In the introduction, she describes a 24th century organization called Dr. Zeus Inc.
, or simply "The Company". The Company has the secrets of immortality
and time travel
. Unfortunately the immortality treatment can only be used on young children; and time travel is difficult, expensive, and only possible when going into the past and returning to your own time. History cannot be changed.
Dr. Zeus uses the technology simply to get rich. By travelling far into prehistory, the company creates its own immortal cyborg agents, who then have the mission of preserving cultural artifacts and other valuable items for sale in the 24th century. Usually these items are hidden in safe places, but in the case of extinct species, for instance, they are kept in secret Company caches run by the cyborgs. In the 24th century the Company then 'finds' the long-lost objects and sells them.
The cyborgs are expected to arrive in the 24th century the old-fashioned way, by living through the intervening millennia. On the way, they can create more cyborgs from those who would otherwise die as children.
Fifteen years later she returns to Spain for her first mission. Although she trained as a botanist and wants to go the New World, she has to spend time in Europe on an expedition to England. She finds that the expedition leader is Joseph, the cyborg who saved her. He is about 20,000 years old, having been recruited from the Basque region as a child when his village was massacred. Joseph is a Facilitator, a 'fixer', a top agent. He is also world-weary, cynical and irreverent. His passion is his work, like all the cyborgs, but he also has a deep-seated hatred of religious fanaticism, partly because his parents were killed by a cult, partly because of what he has seen in his long life. The group also includes Nefer, whose specialty is farm animals, and Flavius, a technician.
The mission is to travel to England as part of the entourage of Prince Philip of Spain
, who is going to marry Queen Mary
. Then they will go to the estate in Kent
of Sir Walter Iden, who has been persuaded to let them sample rare plants from his garden. Mendoza is not pleased by all this. She is already deathly afraid of all 'mortals' as she calls them, and is further dismayed by the prospect of going to cold, wet, violent, disease-ridden England.
When they arrive, without Flavius who stays in London, two things quickly change her mind. One is a hedge of Ilex tormentosum, or Julius Caesar's Holly, a plant with tremendous medicinal properties. It is already rare and, in the future, it is extinct. The other is Nicholas Harpole, Sir Walter's secretary. Nicholas is "tall even for an Englishman" and has a horse-like face but is very intelligent and well-educated. She is immediately attracted to him, and Joseph, always on the lookout for an advantage, encourages her to seduce Nicholas. This she does, and settles in for a long stay, having decided that the Garden is full of unusual plants that will take year to catalogue.
Nicholas, it turns out, has a dark past, having been a member of an ecstatic Christian cult that practised sexual freedom. Deciding that the cult leader was simply exploiting his fellows, he broke away and began preaching radical ideas, for which he was arrested and put in chains. Although Nicholas is illegitimate, he had well-connected friends and was freed with the warning to sin no more.
Mendoza also has problems. As she matures, she finds she emits "Crome radiation", a psychic field which can have unpredictable effects on time and space. This is not supposed to be possible for cyborgs, who are screened for such abilities when recruited. (In a later Company story, we learn that Joseph caused the tests to be fudged because otherwise Mendoza would be tortured to death by the Inquisition.)
As the novel progresses, she is increasingly torn by love for Nicholas and the need to lie to him, to play her assigned part. Nicholas himself is suspicious of Mendoza and her companions. Old Sir Walter Iden, having been given rejuvenating treatments by Joseph as payment for their stay, decides to sell the estate and move to London. The entire household is already amazed by his transformation from doddering old man to virile middle-age. Joseph is furious but can do nothing. Then, while the household is being inventoried for the sale, Joseph is damaged in an accident which would have killed a normal human. Though he talks his way out of the immediate situation with his usual skill, he is eventually found out by Nicholas, who sees him doing self-repairs to his internal machinery.
Nicholas, having been prepared to elope with Mendoza, confronts her, believing her to be a devil in human form. She admits that, even in her own eyes, she is no longer human. Nicholas flees the estate.
Later she learns he has returned to preaching in Rochester, and has been condemned to burn by the new Catholic authorities. She runs away herself to Rochester, but is unable to convince him to recant. At this point Joseph appears, having followed Mendoza. His only purpose now is to prevent her becoming a Company renegade. He denounces Nicholas as just another fake messiah who can only lead others to destruction along with himself. He reveals to Nicholas that he has lived many thousands of years and has yet to see anything resembling the Truth that Nicholas and his like preach. Telling Nicholas that "of all the burnings I've witnessed, this is one I will actually enjoy" he takes Mendoza away.
The next morning, they witness Nicholas' death. Returning to the Iden estate, Joseph promises to pull strings and get Mendoza sent to the New World, as she originally wanted.
In the final chapter, Mendoza arrives at New World One in the South American jungle. It is a secret Company base run like a luxury hotel, where the servants are Mayans rescued from sacrifices. She settles into her new air-conditioned existence, with an unknowable future.
The novel provides much detail on Elizabethan language and culture. Technological anachronisms, such as the cyborgs' superhuman abilities, serve only as background to the main action. The Company operatives' most important assets are Joseph's silken tongue and quick wits.
However, Joseph's guidance and actions also lead to Nicholas' downfall, and thus to Mendoza's crash. Having progressed from naïve child to boisterous cadet cyborg to dangerously besotted agent, she is twisted inside, though outwardly numb.
Joseph himself has been a loyal Company man for millennia, acting role after role and seeing all things as temporary. By the end of the novel it is clear that he regards Mendoza as a daughter, not just an operative playing that role for the Company.
A theme introduced here, and recurring in the later stories, is dislike of religious fervor in all its forms, from oppressive establishments to messianic cults and even, later, to fanatic pursuit of vegetarianism, abstinence, and animals' rights.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Kage Baker
Kage Baker
Kage Baker was an American science fiction and fantasy writer.- Biography :Baker was born in Hollywood, California and lived there and in Pismo Beach most of her life. Before becoming a professional writer she spent many years in theater, including teaching Elizabethan English as a second language...
. Although it is set entirely in the 16th century, in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, it is a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
story revolving around the activities of a group of immortal cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
s, individuals who appear human but have been transformed by high technology.
Mendoza is a cyborg, who, like others of her kind, has been rescued from certain death as a small child and turned into an immortal machine, then made to work for "The Company
Dr. Zeus Inc.
Dr. Zeus Inc., also known simply as The Company, is a fictional entity in a series of time travel science fiction stories by Kage Baker....
". She loves her work and hates 'mortals'. All that changes when, on her first mission, she encounters love and learns the terrible price she has paid to live forever.
Plot introduction
This novel is the first in a series about "The CompanyDr. Zeus Inc.
Dr. Zeus Inc., also known simply as The Company, is a fictional entity in a series of time travel science fiction stories by Kage Baker....
" and its servants, human and otherwise. The series continues with Sky Coyote
Sky Coyote
Sky Coyote is a science fiction novel of The Company by Kage Baker. It is the second in the series which began with In The Garden of Iden and continues with Mendoza in Hollywood.-Plot introduction:...
, Mendoza in Hollywood
Mendoza in Hollywood
Mendoza in Hollywood is the third novel in the science fiction and time travel series by Kage Baker, concerning the activities of The Company. In the UK it was published as At the Edge of the West.-Plot introduction:...
, The Graveyard Game
The Graveyard Game
The Graveyard Game is the fourth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
, and The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come
The Life of the World to Come is the fifth installment in the series of science fiction time travel novels by Kage Baker concerning the exploits of The Company.-Plot introduction:...
. The collection Black Projects, White Knights
Black Projects, White Knights
Black Projects, White Knights is a collection of short stories written by Kage Baker and published by small-press science fiction publisher Golden Gryphon Press, assembling various short stories set in the universe of The Company series, which comprises the bulk of her published fiction...
consists of Company stories, and there are allusions in the collection Mother Ægypt and Other Stories.
The story is told by Mendoza, a cyborg botanist. In the introduction, she describes a 24th century organization called Dr. Zeus Inc.
Dr. Zeus Inc.
Dr. Zeus Inc., also known simply as The Company, is a fictional entity in a series of time travel science fiction stories by Kage Baker....
, or simply "The Company". The Company has the secrets of immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
and time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
. Unfortunately the immortality treatment can only be used on young children; and time travel is difficult, expensive, and only possible when going into the past and returning to your own time. History cannot be changed.
Dr. Zeus uses the technology simply to get rich. By travelling far into prehistory, the company creates its own immortal cyborg agents, who then have the mission of preserving cultural artifacts and other valuable items for sale in the 24th century. Usually these items are hidden in safe places, but in the case of extinct species, for instance, they are kept in secret Company caches run by the cyborgs. In the 24th century the Company then 'finds' the long-lost objects and sells them.
The cyborgs are expected to arrive in the 24th century the old-fashioned way, by living through the intervening millennia. On the way, they can create more cyborgs from those who would otherwise die as children.
Explanation of the novel's title
Mendoza and her companions journey to England, to the estate of Sir Walter Iden, who keeps a collection of exotic plants in a walled garden. Mendoza's job is to take genetic samples.Plot summary
Mendoza tells how she is snatched as a child from the Inquisition in Spain, having first been sold by her real parents to some 'noble Christians' who want her for pagan rites, but are instead arrested. In prison she is called Mendoza, after the name used by the pagans. She does not remember ever having a name of her own before that, her parents simply calling her "daughter" (hija in Spanish). She does not even know her family name, or the name of her village. One of the Inquisitors is Joseph, a cyborg, who is able to deliver her to his fellow agents for 'augmentation'.Fifteen years later she returns to Spain for her first mission. Although she trained as a botanist and wants to go the New World, she has to spend time in Europe on an expedition to England. She finds that the expedition leader is Joseph, the cyborg who saved her. He is about 20,000 years old, having been recruited from the Basque region as a child when his village was massacred. Joseph is a Facilitator, a 'fixer', a top agent. He is also world-weary, cynical and irreverent. His passion is his work, like all the cyborgs, but he also has a deep-seated hatred of religious fanaticism, partly because his parents were killed by a cult, partly because of what he has seen in his long life. The group also includes Nefer, whose specialty is farm animals, and Flavius, a technician.
The mission is to travel to England as part of the entourage of Prince Philip of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
, who is going to marry Queen Mary
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
. Then they will go to the estate in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
of Sir Walter Iden, who has been persuaded to let them sample rare plants from his garden. Mendoza is not pleased by all this. She is already deathly afraid of all 'mortals' as she calls them, and is further dismayed by the prospect of going to cold, wet, violent, disease-ridden England.
When they arrive, without Flavius who stays in London, two things quickly change her mind. One is a hedge of Ilex tormentosum, or Julius Caesar's Holly, a plant with tremendous medicinal properties. It is already rare and, in the future, it is extinct. The other is Nicholas Harpole, Sir Walter's secretary. Nicholas is "tall even for an Englishman" and has a horse-like face but is very intelligent and well-educated. She is immediately attracted to him, and Joseph, always on the lookout for an advantage, encourages her to seduce Nicholas. This she does, and settles in for a long stay, having decided that the Garden is full of unusual plants that will take year to catalogue.
Nicholas, it turns out, has a dark past, having been a member of an ecstatic Christian cult that practised sexual freedom. Deciding that the cult leader was simply exploiting his fellows, he broke away and began preaching radical ideas, for which he was arrested and put in chains. Although Nicholas is illegitimate, he had well-connected friends and was freed with the warning to sin no more.
Mendoza also has problems. As she matures, she finds she emits "Crome radiation", a psychic field which can have unpredictable effects on time and space. This is not supposed to be possible for cyborgs, who are screened for such abilities when recruited. (In a later Company story, we learn that Joseph caused the tests to be fudged because otherwise Mendoza would be tortured to death by the Inquisition.)
As the novel progresses, she is increasingly torn by love for Nicholas and the need to lie to him, to play her assigned part. Nicholas himself is suspicious of Mendoza and her companions. Old Sir Walter Iden, having been given rejuvenating treatments by Joseph as payment for their stay, decides to sell the estate and move to London. The entire household is already amazed by his transformation from doddering old man to virile middle-age. Joseph is furious but can do nothing. Then, while the household is being inventoried for the sale, Joseph is damaged in an accident which would have killed a normal human. Though he talks his way out of the immediate situation with his usual skill, he is eventually found out by Nicholas, who sees him doing self-repairs to his internal machinery.
Nicholas, having been prepared to elope with Mendoza, confronts her, believing her to be a devil in human form. She admits that, even in her own eyes, she is no longer human. Nicholas flees the estate.
Later she learns he has returned to preaching in Rochester, and has been condemned to burn by the new Catholic authorities. She runs away herself to Rochester, but is unable to convince him to recant. At this point Joseph appears, having followed Mendoza. His only purpose now is to prevent her becoming a Company renegade. He denounces Nicholas as just another fake messiah who can only lead others to destruction along with himself. He reveals to Nicholas that he has lived many thousands of years and has yet to see anything resembling the Truth that Nicholas and his like preach. Telling Nicholas that "of all the burnings I've witnessed, this is one I will actually enjoy" he takes Mendoza away.
The next morning, they witness Nicholas' death. Returning to the Iden estate, Joseph promises to pull strings and get Mendoza sent to the New World, as she originally wanted.
In the final chapter, Mendoza arrives at New World One in the South American jungle. It is a secret Company base run like a luxury hotel, where the servants are Mayans rescued from sacrifices. She settles into her new air-conditioned existence, with an unknowable future.
Characters
- Mendoza, the narrator, is a "good machine". She obeys her masters except when her heart, mechanical though it may be, says otherwise. Mendoza does not actually know her real name, having been addressed only as "daughter" in her family. The Inquisition calls her Mendoza, the surname of the woman who pretended to be her mother.
- Joseph, the Facilitator who "recruited" Mendoza for the Company, is an ancient operative, a sly old fox who mistakenly believes the world has no surprises left for him.
- Nicholas Harpole is a tall, intelligent, devout Englishman with a dark past. He is reputedly the natural son of some unknown noble, raised by foster parents and supplied with a good education by his mysterious father. Although a man of his time he has unusual ideas which, if shared with the wrong people, are dangerous both to him and to them. In this he is at least 200 years ahead of his time. He speaks several languages, both Classical and contemporary. When not working for Sir Walter he spends his time in intense study, turning the pages of his books with machine-like regularity as he absorbs the text. He seems superhuman in some respects, more like the Company cyborgs than the people he works for. As the saga unfolds, Mendoza and Joseph discover how different he really is.
Major themes
This novel is primarily concerned with language, culture and personality. The darker side of "The Company" is only hinted at here, with Mendoza resigned to working for an entity that knows everything she is ever going to do, so anything that happens to her is more likely to be planned than accidental.The novel provides much detail on Elizabethan language and culture. Technological anachronisms, such as the cyborgs' superhuman abilities, serve only as background to the main action. The Company operatives' most important assets are Joseph's silken tongue and quick wits.
However, Joseph's guidance and actions also lead to Nicholas' downfall, and thus to Mendoza's crash. Having progressed from naïve child to boisterous cadet cyborg to dangerously besotted agent, she is twisted inside, though outwardly numb.
Joseph himself has been a loyal Company man for millennia, acting role after role and seeing all things as temporary. By the end of the novel it is clear that he regards Mendoza as a daughter, not just an operative playing that role for the Company.
A theme introduced here, and recurring in the later stories, is dislike of religious fervor in all its forms, from oppressive establishments to messianic cults and even, later, to fanatic pursuit of vegetarianism, abstinence, and animals' rights.