Argentina Hotels Travel - Mendoza in Hollywood (The Company)
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List Price: $16.95
Argentina Hotels Travel Price: $12.71
Your Save: $ 4.24 ( 25% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Tor Books
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780765315304
ISBN: 0765315300
Label: Tor Books
Manufacturer: Tor Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2006-05-02
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: 2006-05-02
Studio: Tor Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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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 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. 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, and then Mendoza is in the midst of the Civil War, and runs into a man that looks disturbingly similar to her lost love. She is about to find love again, and be in more trouble than she could ever have imagined.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Somebody Get This Book Some Ritalin (tm)
Comment: _____I could've sworn I wrote up a full and decent review of this bland blathering book some time ago... Well, whatever: With some minutes before dinner, I'll just recap my thoughts on this text. It truly was boring for one thing. For another thing, the book was tangental--always and again popping from one branching plot development to another. Top it all off with how this book reads more like an anthology with a short attention span, and it does not even qualify as a novel. Having MENDOZA IN HOLLYWOOD published as a novel is something like labeling oatmeal a sweet and putting it on the candy-store shelf: a deceptive thing to do.
_____The deception begins when we get to meet a truly awesome set of characters--awesome a great selection of ways. The main protatonists are cyborgs. Meaning, they have computer-enhanced brains with access to remote knowledge, have bodies endowed with super powers, and they are immortal. One would expect a mighty assemblage of immortal cyborgs to be put to some amazing and appropriate test of abilties. One would therefore expect rip-roaring science fiction. So you are led to believe, ladies and gentlemen, so you are led to believe...
_____OF COURSE YOU DON'T GET AN AWESOME BOOK. This book, after the first several chapters, degenerates into a haphazard series of events that involve characters alternating between investigating the antics of gun-toting locals and watching movies. That's right: the super-duper immortal cyborgs spend maybe as much time munching popcorn and watching movies as they do in actually DOING something. I'll tell you what: If I was an immortal cyborg with super-powers and was sent back in time on a mission, you would not catch me wasting half of my time eating buttered maize. That, and my attention would focus on ONE PLOT DEVELOPMENT AT A TIME.
_____Yes, in terms of plot development, the book has a hard time getting and keeping a plot. So the protagonist is first sent to collect rare plants. Then the protagonist decides to go help sell some pie-safes. And then the protagonist investigates a time-cave thing (a la Stephen King's DARK TOWER series). This then meanders into the protagonist deciding to part-time it as a prostitute...among other things. Only at the very freaking tail-end of this donkey of a book do we a coherent and finalizing plot development--that which leads to the main protagonist's professional downfall. It was as if this book was just made up as it was being typed with no real sense of direction. By the way, we all know what comes out the tail-end of a donkey, right? That would pretty much match the quality of this book's construction--plotless, meandering, and pointless.
_____By the way, before folks think that I'm just a lone-star madman out to slam random sci-fi novels, have a look at comments posted by other reviewers regarding MENDOZA IN HOLLYWOOD. Was this book boredom-inducing--as claimed by another reviewer? Why, YES it was! "Meandering," somebody else said that. I'll drink to that sentiment as well. Was there a problem with only the best development in the book happening at the VERY END--like say, in the last seventy pages? I see that same problem, and I'll raise you a five-dollar gold-piece to boot. If you don't believe my cinnamon-tinged verbal antics regarding the awfulness of this book's plotlessness, then you are very welcome to browse around at other reviewers' posts. This guy is not alone in slamming this book.
_____Maybe the only saving grace of this book was that it had a coherent writing style. What do I mean by that? Well, there is a problem with a lot of the science fiction novels out of the 1990s. Maybe it is a problem with LSD, because a lot of novels from that decade and beyond have an acid-trip style of writing: writing styles so crazed and incoherent that a person has to pick through the pages like a psychiatrist digging through the dialogue of a serial killer or something. Damien Broderick, Julian May, those are just two authors that come to mind when it comes to mindless madness and senselessness in writing. Kage Baker actually managed to stay coherent for the duration of MENDOZA IN HOLLYWOOD. For that reason, I gave the book two stars instead of one. Now I'm off to get my dinner--not popcorn. And somebody get this book something to make it more focused.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Another Company title
Comment: I'm working my way through the Company series. The underlying story of the immortals and the "company" of the 24th century that produced them and the time travel involved fascinates and Baker seems to be able to carry it through. Easy reads,well written and hard to put down. A wonderful multi-faceted drama
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wandering Aimlessly
Comment: In this installment of the Company novels, Mendoza is stationed in the hills of Hollywood, California, during the early 1860's. Her task, as always, is to collect rare and/or valuable plant species that would not survive the centuries without the Company's help.
Beyond Mendoza's task to collect plant species for the Company, the plot in this installment was pretty thin. The characters just did not have much of a purpose...there was no cohesive plot holding everything together. And, while we do end up with a bit more information about the Company at the end than we had at the beginning...there was nothing to move things along to reach the climax of the story.
Overall, Mendoza's jaunt in Hollywood has been the biggest disappointment of the three Company books up to this point. I look forward to things hopefully picking up with the next installment.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Savour it slowly
Comment: kage Baker's rich and evocative writing makes this haunting tale of haunted "Mendoza in Hollywood" fascinating. Future and past revive in a strange never-never land of the soul, in which Mendoza is living, whilst interacting with her fellow Time Traveler colleagues. You'll feel the strange melancholy of the immortal, the whilst beiing entertained by Oscars' funny antics as he tries to peddle a curious piece of kitchen furniture, and you'll be intrigued and moved as another cyborg develops an attachment to the birds he's studying. A bit slow in climaxing, this book is nonetheless a joy for the reader.
Customer Rating:
Summary: look at Baker's Amazing review of "Intolerance"
Comment: If you live in Los Angeles, Baker's novel is replete with so many local references. Especially centred on the suburb of Hollywood. The setting in the novel is in the 1860s, while much of Hollywood is still chaparral and dirt. But Baker gives a crazy juxtaposition of that Los Angeles with its 20th century equivalent. So there are many remarks about, say, Hollywood and Vine, or the 710 freeway. Makes one wonder if Baker actually lives in Los Angeles. Either that or she has certainly done her homework.
The book is also distinguished by a very long and hilarious review of D W Griffith's Intolerance. Here I am, writing a review of Baker's book. But I tell you that in some weird fashion, her narrative review of Intolerance is one of the best reviews of a movie that you might ever read, in any context. Baker's descriptions of the plot of Intolerance are given in a fast paced style, reminescent of the idea behind MST3K. Baker uses the characters in her novel to spice up her analysis in a way that she simply could not otherwise do.
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