"The Sons of Heaven" by Kage Baker
Aug. 2nd, 2007 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuSo I've long since grown tired of Kage Baker's writing style, but I was hooked enough on the concept of the Company that I wanted to find out what happened on 9 July 2355 so I've been reading the main plot arc stories. The Sons of Heaven is the conclusion of the series, and I have got to say:
What a cop-out.
As if a deus ex machina ending weren't bad enough, she rubs our noses in it with lines like "We'd better be careful how we think of ourselves now that we've become omnitemporal; we don't want to end up like the stereotypical pure energy beings." or "The armies stood, expecting a bloody final battle. And if this were a science fiction novel, it might have turned out that way."
But no, the Father (Edward), the Son (Alec), and the Holy Spirit (Nicholas) --- the latter two originally with the Father in one body but borne by the Virgin (Mendoza) [and I mean "virgin" here to mean that they were implanted in her womb] --- become omnipresent, omnitemporal beings who suspend time at the moment before the battle and make all the weapons of the world disappear. Alec does a Lazarus on some innocent passerby who was killed before the main melee. Just in case we miss it, she points out the empty graves, the immortals talk about the End of Days, etc.
There are elements that had me wistfully thinking back to other, better novels. I was pining for Good Omens and the way in which its absurdity stuck to the rules that Pratchett and Gaiman set out --- even when they were more explicitly "Christ Stops Armageddon" than Baker is. Mendoza's bizarre menage a quatre with her two sons and their father-who-is-also-them made me long for the simpler incestuous bedsharings of Heinlein's characters. And so on.
So fine. The world doesn't end, the bad guys kill each other; the good guys agree to stop time traveling into and communicating with the past; Lewis and Kaligula (or whatever his name is) are back, healed, and happy.
But I'd have been happier myself if they'd had to work for it.
What a cop-out.
As if a deus ex machina ending weren't bad enough, she rubs our noses in it with lines like "We'd better be careful how we think of ourselves now that we've become omnitemporal; we don't want to end up like the stereotypical pure energy beings." or "The armies stood, expecting a bloody final battle. And if this were a science fiction novel, it might have turned out that way."
But no, the Father (Edward), the Son (Alec), and the Holy Spirit (Nicholas) --- the latter two originally with the Father in one body but borne by the Virgin (Mendoza) [and I mean "virgin" here to mean that they were implanted in her womb] --- become omnipresent, omnitemporal beings who suspend time at the moment before the battle and make all the weapons of the world disappear. Alec does a Lazarus on some innocent passerby who was killed before the main melee. Just in case we miss it, she points out the empty graves, the immortals talk about the End of Days, etc.
There are elements that had me wistfully thinking back to other, better novels. I was pining for Good Omens and the way in which its absurdity stuck to the rules that Pratchett and Gaiman set out --- even when they were more explicitly "Christ Stops Armageddon" than Baker is. Mendoza's bizarre menage a quatre with her two sons and their father-who-is-also-them made me long for the simpler incestuous bedsharings of Heinlein's characters. And so on.
So fine. The world doesn't end, the bad guys kill each other; the good guys agree to stop time traveling into and communicating with the past; Lewis and Kaligula (or whatever his name is) are back, healed, and happy.
But I'd have been happier myself if they'd had to work for it.