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Mendoza in Hollywood (The Company) | 
 enlarge | Author: Kage Baker
Publisher: Tor Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 96714
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0765315300
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780765315304
ASIN: 0765315300
Publication Date: May 2, 2006
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Amazon.com Review
Ah, pity poor Mendoza. She's a botanist stuck in dusty southern California in 1862, with a broken heart, bizarre companions, lousy food (frijoles and steak again, anyone?), and no plants to study. On top of all that, she's immortal--a cyborg created and maintained by Dr. Zeus, also known as the Company. From its 24th-century headquarters, the Company sends orders back in time to Mendoza and her fellow cyborgs, who collect stuff from the past and send it ahead through time machines for inscrutable uses. But things go from bad to worse for our heroine when drought and smallpox decimate the region, leaving her with nothing to do but pine for her three-centuries-lost mortal love, the martyred Nicholas Harpole. But what's this? Along comes a British agent--the spitting image of Nicholas--hell-bent on upsetting the Union in its hour of need. Mendoza must decide whether to help him in his plot to ensure British rule of the Americas, thereby directly disobeying her Company mandates. She finds herself in a weird race against time itself in this story of science fiction adventure, mystery, and comedy, with not a few reverential in-jokes about SoCal culture thrown in for good measure. Kage Baker's style and wit make her novels among the best reads in science fiction today. Mendoza in Hollywood, the third book in the Company series (10 are planned) is simply delightful, with the focus back on dear, tragic Mendoza, and tantalizing hints of mysterious conspiracies aplenty. Lots of questions remain unanswered, but Baker weaves such a delicious tale, it's a pleasure to be teased. The series began with In the Garden of Iden and Sky Coyote. --Therese Littleton
Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 Somebody Get This Book Some Ritalin (tm) September 2, 2007
Elliot Bowers (Somerset, New Jersey)
_____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.
 Another Company title August 1, 2007
S. Hoffman (San Antonio)
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
 Wandering Aimlessly June 10, 2007
themarsman (Georgetown, TX)
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.
Savour it slowly February 20, 2007
Ventura Angelo (Brescia, Lombardia Italy)
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.
look at Baker's Amazing review of "Intolerance" July 15, 2006
W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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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