Today, as I write this, it is June 10. That makes it the birthday of Kage Baker (1952-2010). She had a short career. Her first story was published in 1997.
It’s been said that some people’s careers are so short because they are so bright. That was certianly the case with Kage Baker. Most of her work is set in a future called the Company future. The main part of the series involved immortal time-traveling cyborgs.
Can it get much better than that? Maybe, but there aren’t many contenders. The series involves cyborgs working in the shadows of history. Things believed lost for years, manuscripts, paintings, artifacts, stuff like that, are suddenly found. Because a cyborg agent hid the item. They can do this because the item has vanished from the historical record. They don’t try to change the past.
The series has amultiple characters that interact throughout novels, movellas, and short stories. There is an overaching storyline. The cyborgs know that something is going to happen several hundred years from our present, but they don’t know what. The finale of the series is sthe big reveal.
She was beginning to write in other series than the Company and in spin-offs in the Company future after she brought the Company series to its conclusion. (I was disappointed with the finale.)
Kage Baker is one of my favorites. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Armadillocon 25 a few years before her death from uterine cancer.
Her work has mostly fallen out of print but should be available in electronic editions and on the secondary market. Kage Baker had a unique voice, and I’ve not read anyone like her before or since. She is one of the writers whose work I tend to buy when I come across even though I have most of her books in the original hardcovers. Reading copies are always welcome.
I remember reading her work in Asimov’s back when I had a subscription. It is a shame she didn’t live longer. Some artists don’t get the time they deserve. It was a tragedy when REH killed himself but at least he was really prolific. Same with the death of Karl Edward Wagner. Darwyn Cooke one of the most talented writer/artist in comic books also died too soon and that field (which isn’t in the best shape) would be a lot better if he lived.
I agree with everything you say here.
I was googling for details about a story of Kage Baker’s I just read. I also am a fan of hers and I’m not done reading all her works. As a historian myself, I love the grand historical sweep of her books, and I love how she’s able to discuss history, politics, economics, really the whole of human existence- she’s better at grasping the big picture, summarizing It, and doing so with humor and pathos. I love her books and have read many of them. My goal is to read them all. My only quibble with Baker is that she’s rather existentially bleak at times. I remember that at the end of “Garden of Iden”, I related so well to Mendoza’s angst about the loss of Nicholas and the chasm between herself and the human race that I was thrown into a funk of sadness that lasted days. My mother even said at the time, “Stop reading that woman, she makes you upset.” LOL! I think my favorite book of Baker’s so far is “Empress of Mars.” It’s probably the least cynical of her works and has an unambiguously happy ending. But I love everything she wrote. Didn’t she die of uterine cancer, rather than a brain tumor?
Thank you for your comments, Mark. She didn have a bleak outlook at times.
You are correct. It was uterine cancer, not a brain tumor. I’ve corrected the post.