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Read Mendoza In Hollywood (2006)

Mendoza in Hollywood (2006)

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Rating
3.81 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0765315300 (ISBN13: 9780765315304)
Language
English
Publisher
tor books

Mendoza In Hollywood (2006) - Plot & Excerpts

Mendoza in Hollywood (aka. At the Edge of the West) by Kage BakerThis is the third offering in The Company Series and my second read of Kage Baker. I skipped Sky Coyote because I enjoy the Mendoza character and wanted to get more of her, but if I continue reading this I think I'll have to begin now to read them in order or things may not work out well. I'm getting a sense of this being one rather epic story being told in several novel size chunks. Based on some comments about that last few books in the series I would have to say that the only way I'll be able to judge properly is to try to get the entire picture in order to understand the ending of the series. In the final analysis of this novel I still have to say I'm hooked on the Mendoza character and would have liked to have been assured that she had a greater part in the remaining parts of the story.I love my fiction character driven, and that's what makes this and the Garden of Iden outstanding as novels. The story and plot in each seems somewhat incomplete although there is still that flavor of completeness extant. Unfortunately both novels have the tragic romance as the main arc in each; although there are differences in the loves she has, even if they could be twins.Upon having her first lover discover she's an immortal Cyborg and having him decide she's a devil and trying to take her with him when he allows himself to be burned to death for his overzealous religious convictions, Mendoza is content to stay clear of mortals. Unfortunately she keeps having nightmares that her lover is returning to her; and in most cases he's attempting to finish the job of killing her. Only her nightmares might be something more to do with Chrome radiation she emits that causes a distortion in time. When the twin to her lover shows up, over 150 years after the first is burned to death, she tries to be cautious about falling in love again; but fate won't let her off that easy.Though the story takes place mostly in the area that will one day be Hollywood and there are allusions to the streets and structures that will some day be in specific spots, there is one chapter that confused me a bit--meaning I may have missed something and I hope it wasn't important. Though it is 1862; Mendoza and her companions are all Cyborgs created by the people from the future who were originally testing immortality by altering non-significant people through out the ages in the past (what better way to do so than to go back in time and change people then check up on them in the future when you return). The Cyborgs are also then enlisted to secretly store things from the past that are known to have gone extinct or disappeared and caching them away for the Company. They also are trained in a facility that has many future features, so thus acquainted; it makes sense that they would have movie nights through the delivery of movies from the future. I'm not sure why, though, the movie Intolerance by David Ward Griffith ends up being discussed in length as they watch it.To get back to the story--at some point Mendoza realizes that this incarnation of her lover, though not as likely to have as adverse a reaction to finding out she's a Cyborg, does have a fatal flaw. His overwhelming dedication to his work makes her think he would have made a better Cyborg for the Company than she is. The rest of the story from here on seems to both complete the tragedy and contribute to foreshadowing the future. Too much discussion would spoil things and this novel bears reading..Kage Bakers blend of wry humor and historical references as before makes this a singular and entertaining read.This is a great SFF read for fans of Historical fiction and Time travel novels along with Romance (mostly those who don't mind the bit of tragic romance.)J.L. Dobias

Quite entertaining—BUT. About 3/4 of the book is Mendoza and her more-than-a-little-crazy Company associates, dumped on the outskirts of what will one day become LA but is currently mostly unspoiled Southern California. They go on about their various businesses, documenting mid-19th-c. life in this corner of the Wild West and saving soon-to-be-extinct species. They squabble, they joke, they watch classics of the silver screen from the mind-boggling perspectives of their own early mortal lives plus their 24th-c. educations, sitting in the desert that will one day be the soundstages upon which D. W. Griffith will film his greatest spectacles. They watch the youngest of them re-enact the existential tragedy of their own lives… except with a young condor that insists on riding on his head, and a psychotic bald eagle named John Barrymore.And then suddenly everyone except Mendoza is rudely bustled offstage, and we are in a completely different book. Mendoza's martyred 16th-c. lover reappears! Except it's not really him! But it is! And there's this zany plot involving the British and Catalina Island! And then it's all over with but the shooting (and a bit of shouting on the Company's part)!And… WTH?I would have given this two stars, frankly, except that Baker writes so charmingly, so amusingly, and so perceptively from the POV of her Company operatives. I loved the majority of the book, in which they're all interacting with this new/old world that will become Hollywood. But while the bit with Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax is obviously important to Mendoza, it left me cold and cranky.

What do You think about Mendoza In Hollywood (2006)?

Third book in the Company series; this book follows Mendoza, who is possibly the most worthless excuse for a protagonist I've ever encountered. Mendoza alternates between feeling sorry for herself, feeling bitter at everyone else, and mourning for her abusive ex-boyfriend who committed suicide two hundred years prior. (view spoiler)[About two-thirds of the way through the book, Mendoza's ex somehow shows up again, and she watches helplessly as he runs off and gets himself killed.(And then, once he dies, she goes berserk and kills everyone who was attacking him. Why couldn't she have done that before he got killed? Idiot, idiot, idiot.) Angst ensues. (hide spoiler)]
—Dan

The third and fourth books in Baker's light and entertaining Company series follow the further adventures of immortal botanist Mendoza. Located in the Los Angeles/Hollywood area, Baker lovingly recreates Civil War era California in Mendoza in Hollywood, where Joseph and his protege are reunited at a dusty, out-of-the-way stagecoach stop. While her fellow company agents keep busy, Mendoza is left own her own, still festering with hurt; it is unsurprising when the double of her long dead lover shows up and whisks her into a complex espionage plot.Mendoza in Hollywood maintains Baker's quick and sarcastic tone: her characters are pat and quirky, and the plot has nice mix of Company mystery and historical drama. Next to Elizabethan England, California clearly holds a place in Baker's heart, who relishes the chance to have her characters (and the reader) share her passion. This trick takes a tragic turn, however, when Baker devotes 22 pages to describing D.W. Griffith's film Intolerance and her characters' reactions to it. Mind-numbingly boring doesn't come close to articulating how painfully dull this chapter is; fortunately, once past this hump, the story resumes it's silly, breezy pace. Mendoza runs into a spy who is the physical double of her long dead lover, and unsurprisingly, drops everything to be with him, even aiding his espionage work. To her surprise, seemingly banal Catalina Island off the coast is key to her lover's mission, and she discovers, with devastating result, that even the Company is intensely interested in the island.The Graveyard Game takes up hundreds of years in the future; Mendoza has disappeared from the historical record, and Joseph is discovering that the future--especially the years after 2355--may not be the utopia that the Company is promising. Meeting up with Lewis, Mendoza's friend from Sky Coyote, the two begin tracking down other immortals that have gone missing. More serious than Baker's other three novels, The Graveyard Game greatly elaborates on the mystery and mythos of the Company, introducing a darker, doomsday feel to this fairly easy series.I liked both of these books, although I found Mendoza in Hollywood slow-moving at times. I've come to count on this series for when I need a quick, entertaining read and these two books fill that need well.
—Audra (Unabridged Chick)

I'm starting to lose faith in the book descriptions on the back of the re-published mass markets. They get the setting right, but the description of the plot totally off. 'finds herself in the midst of the Civil War'...not really, she repeatedly tells us that she's ignoring it, and she's in the LA area where nothing major happens. 'running into a man who strongly, compellingly reminds her of her lost love'...happens on page 250 of 334. 'She will soon find love again'...presumably happens soon after page 250?I'm becoming sure that Ms Baker's MO is to write a very long backstory and not have any of the 'real' action of the plot happen until the last 10th of the book (literally). I enjoy the settings she comes up with, I really like learning more about the world she's built (and wish there was more discussion of the science - though I think that lack of that is intentional on the series-plot scale), and I don't mind reading about characters at their kitchen tables (I loved Gratuitous Epilogue). But it does amaze me how slow the books' plots progress given how much time is covered in a given book and how few words are spent on most scenes.Also still a little on the depressing side for me. I'm sure that's very intentional.
—Emily Leathers

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