In the Garden of Iden

A Novel of the Company, Book 1

By: Kage Baker

Narrated by: Janan Raouf

Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

The first novel of Kage Baker’s critically acclaimed, much-loved series, the Company, introduces us to a world where the future of commerce is the past.

In the 24th 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, Inc. One of these is Mendoza, the botanist. She is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. But while there, she meets Nicholas Harpole, with whom she falls in love. And that love sounds great bells of change which will echo down the centuries, and through the succeeding novels of the Company.

Breathtakingly detailed and written with great aplomb, In the Garden of Iden is a contemporary classic of the science-fiction genre.

©1997 Kage Baker (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Fasten your seat belt—you’re in for a wild ride.” (Gardner Dozois, editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction)

“Easily on a level with Le Guin’s or Resnick’s first novels.” ( New York Review of Science Fiction)

“Clever…[with] a generous dollop of antic wit.” ( San Francisco Chronicle)

great book

first in the series of the company. So sad that you only have. the first book and not the rest of the company series

cash rules everything around me.

Cream. get the money..Dolla Dolla bills y'all. immortal words that ring true in this story.

I was enveloped by this story!

I was worried from reading some of the reviews that this would be a long, boring novel about boring things. It turned out to be thoroughly engaging from the very start. Cyborgs living in medieval England! How intriguing! The narration is witty, casual, and pleasant to the ears. The story revolves around the love affair of a mortal martyr and an immortal "operative", but it never feels like a romance novel. The fantasy aspect never feels far fetched either. I believed this story from beginning to end. I think the best books are the ones that make you forget you are reading/listening because they just smoothly carry you away. I was carried away by this one and I'm so glad I've finally discovered the Company series.

Interesting Premise, Sympathetic Characters

Would you try another book from Kage Baker and/or Janan Raouf?

Possibly.

Truthfully, I got so tired of the constant and overwhelming beating of one point (God is a doesn't exist, religion is futile, all religious people are hypocrites and evil) that I thought this writer must have gotten all her instructions from Philip Pulman (His Dark Materials). The proselytizing of the Humanist Manifesto here almost overwhelms the potential of the plot and the cooler sci-fi elements of the story. And, she also almost kills a few good points she was making (zealotry and ignorance - no matter what their purpose) combined always make for bad results.

Once I was able to get past that, I was able to enjoy the very humanness of the main character and the quirkiness of her accompanying party. There is humor and some good observations of human nature in the book - as well as lots of thoughts being seeded for the later novels. The actual writing itself is well done, provides plenty of context and illustration without being overdone.

What do you think your next listen will be?

If it's available, it would be the next book - Sky Coyote. Alas, it seems like this author loves to put herself into heavily religious contexts, with that in mind, I may just read the summary on wikipedia and move on to the later novels.

Have you listened to any of Janan Raouf’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Janan's performance was one of the saving graces of the book. She's good (though there was a bit of a problem with some of the accents - in fairness - there were lots) and her voice is melodic and believable and she can pull off the male voices and give them more subtlety than many a male reader provide for the female characters.

Did In the Garden of Iden inspire you to do anything?

Yes. It inspired me to try and understand why wonderful writers and people with such vast imaginations can't imagine the possibility of God in the universe. It doesn't make sense to me that people that can contemplate the vast possibilities of the future, technology and so forth can somehow not consider the fact that God may exist. This staggers me considering that we don't know more than 4% of what the universe is made up of (though who even knows what we really don't know?) that smart people can out of hand reject the possibility.

Any additional comments?

I'd look for the reader again, not sure I'll look for the author again.

finally Dr,Zeus is here!

It's about time audible had "the Company" novels. This is the first in the series, and works well as a stand alone, so don't worry that they don't have the rest of them yet.

Old English ... yuck!

In the search for another outlander by Diane Gabaldon i came across this book. The author takes you to another world where life is cheap and mercy is rear. the story is interesting and since i love history i was entertained, and finished the book. The issues i have with the book are more to do my personal preference.
I'm not a fun of old English therefore i didn't enjoy the book. Not to crazy about the writing style it takes away from the flow of the story (the author uses a narrator to tell the story as if she is speaking to the reader).

Couldn't get into it.

Ok story but I just couldn't get into it. Would have done better to get more into the history of the times experienced.

An Engaging Tale of Time Travel

I think this is the beginning of "The Company" series; I have read only this book in the series. I love the way Kage Baker wrote. (Sadly, she died in 2010.) She spends more time on characterization and believable dialogue than most SF writers. This is a story of a child plucked from Spain of the Inquisition and trained by the Dr. Zeus Corporation ("the company"). It was a bit vague to me how the Company made its money, though apparently it is from bringing back extinct species of plants and animals that have vanished from our future (but pretending to "find" them in obscure corners of the modern world). Why other companies don't do the same, or how the time travel technology came about or how the Company keeps its secret is never explained--but that hardly interfered with an engrossing story of a newbie Company Agent scouting a Tudor garden for precious plants, and her tragic first love. The historical details are fascinating and, I assume, accurate. The narrator handled the various accents and archaic language gracefully, and I seriously enjoyed the book.

Not time travel really

Small amount of cute time travel asides, but mostly the story of an adolescent girls first love. Not a bad book, just not that interesting as first love stories go.