In 16th-century Spain, everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition, as they have a well-known tendency to cart people off to their dungeons on trumped-up charges. What 5-year-old Mendoza, on the brink of being tortured as a Jew, is totally unprepared for is to be rescued by the Company—the ultimate bureaucracy of the 24th century—and made immortal. In return, all she has to do is travel through time on a series of assignments for the Company and collect endangered botanical specimens. The wisecracking, mildly misanthropic Mendoza wants nothing to do with historical humans, but her first assignment is to travel to England in 1553—uncomfortably close to those damn Inquisitors—with Joseph and Nefer, two other Company operatives. Their intent is to gather herb samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden, a foolish though generous country squire. (Kage Baker knows her Shakespeare: Sir Walter is the descendant of Alexander Iden, loyal subject of Henry IV, who slew the hungry rebel Jack Cade in that very garden in Kent.)

The cyborg trio poses as Doctor Ruy Lopez, his daughter Rosa (the irrepressible Mendoza, now grown), and her duenna, Doña Marguerita; Sir Walter's hospitality and discretion are bought for the promise of restored youth. (There are hilarious moments that call to mind the Coneheads, who claimed to be from France when caught doing anything peculiar.) Sir Walter's secretary, Nicholas Harpole, is immediately suspicious of and hostile towards the strange "Spanish" visitors, which prompts Mendoza to fall in love with him. Nicholas has his own badly kept secret: he's proudly Protestant at a time when Queen Mary and Philip of Spain are on a Catholicizing rampage. Mendoza knows Nicholas is probably doomed, and that as a Company operative she cannot meddle with his fate, but love makes people do desperate things. Baker surpasses even Connie Willis in humor and precision of period detail in this fresh, ingenious first novel.—Barrie Trinkle

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

Kage Baker's first novel, In the Garden of Iden, was a smart, funny, top-drawer read. Fans will be happy to find out that Baker avoids a sophomore slump with Sky Coyote, the second novel of the Company, and another superbly witty and intelligent book. Baker switches focus in this sequel to Joseph, the immortal cyborg who rescued Iden's heroine, Mendoza, from the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition. Joseph and Mendoza work for Dr. Zeus, otherwise known as the Company, a 24th-century operation devoted to getting rich off the past. To accomplish this, the Company turns orphans and refugees from the past into super-smart, nigh invincible cyborgs and sends them on missions to save or hide precious paintings, cultural treasures, and genetic information useful to the future world.

Sky Coyote begins in pre-Columbian Mexico, where Joseph and Mendoza are reunited at New World One, an extravagant Company retreat. When European explorers are scheduled to arrive in the New World, the Company dismantles operations, and Joseph is sent to California in 1699 to save a Chumash village lock, stock, and barrel, before Europeans arrive with smallpox and slavery. To prep the Native Americans for their voyage to a Company enclave in Australia, Joseph poses as Uncle Sky Coyote, a trickster-god of the Chumash, and tells them he's there to save them from certain doom at the hands of white men. But can Joseph convince the wary, savvy Chumash labor unions, lodges, and entrepreneurs that he has their best interests at heart, all without screwing up history? And will he patch things up with Mendoza, who still hasn't forgiven him for everything that happened in 1500s England? Kage Baker delivers a terrific story and a worthy sequel with Sky Coyote. —Therese Littleton