Company
by Kage Baker and Kathleen Bartholomew
I’ve read five of Kage Baker’s highly acclaimed stories about a group of
entrepreneurial time travelers from the 24th century, the first of which was “Noble
Mold” in Mar 1977. Of those, my favorite was “The Likely Lad” about young Alec
Checkerfield, abandoned by his blue-blood parents to be raised by the hired help; he
longs for adventure on the high seas, which he does obtain—but to be honest, I didn’t
think it was via time travel. (Perhaps none of the five Checkerfield stories have time
travel, even though the ISFDB indicates that they’re set in the Company Universe; I
shall have to read “The Likely Lad” again!).
In 2012, the first of the Company stories co-authored with Kathleen Bartholomew appeared.
For a while I lived in this little town by the sea. Boy, it was a soft job. Santa Barbara
had become civilized by then: no more Indian rebellions, no more pirates storming up the
beach, nearly all the grizzly bears gone. Once in a while some bureaucrat from Mexico
City would raise hell with us, but by and large the days of the old Missions were
declining into forlorn shades, waiting for the Yankees to come.
