The Graveyard Game (Paperback)

The Graveyard Game opens in 1996, with one of Mendoza's best friends (Lewis) wondering what happened to her, especially after he briefly encounters a version of her that was inexplicably thrust forward from 1862 (before she ran away). He tries to recruit Joseph into his search, who is more than willing to join. It seems he thinks he saw Mendoza and her lover in 1923, plus he feels responsible for her. Years pass as their investigation continues, and they uncover more and more dirt on the Company. Why do some operatives disappear with no record? Why, as the 24th century approaches (this book actually ends in the late 23rd century), do secrets become even more impenetrable? Why is there little record of what happens leading up to 2355? Why does Mendoza's lover keep reappearing, and what is his connection to the Company? And, most importantly to Lewis as events unfold, who are the people who seem to know about the immortals and also seem to know how to damage one?

Baker throws us a bit of a change-up in The Graveyard Game. Despite there being a lot of personal interaction (especially between Lewis and Joseph) that Baker excels at as usual, the most interesting thing about the book is the world that Baker has created. As time passes in great chunks, she is able to show us how much the world has changed, and it's not very pretty. Britain has enforced veganism, personal interaction is almost forbidden. The birth rate has plummeted as people spend more and more time paying attention to their inner child and not having any real ones. It's against the law to do anything that might be bad for you (heaven forbid if you have a beer!). People get around this by living in the wilds, or out on sailboats in international waters.

Every time the scene shifts years, Baker takes a bit of time to tell us what's going on in the world. The best part, though, is that it's not as much of an infodump as it might be. All of this is told in the context of telling us what Lewis is up to, or Joseph. Many of the details slip out in the narrative. Sometimes it's used to explain just what the other immortals are thinking, especially as we get nearer the time of "The Silence" in 2355. They see this world as it approaches, and they have to wonder just what they are saving all of this stuff for.

Factions are starting to form inside the Company operatives, and many of them are just disappearing. Joseph seems to know a bit about what is going on, but his investigations get increasingly dangerous. He tries in vain to keep Lewis out of most of the danger, and watching Baker handle the relationship between these two is great. Lewis is a bookish, Noel Coward type who is at home in a library. He just won't let his investigation of Mendoza's lover go, despite Joseph's warnings. Joseph is the same character we've known and loved in the previous books: sarcastic, intelligent, witty and dedicated. You can tell that he feels deeply about Mendoza, almost like a father-figure (since he did recruit her into the Company) and he's increasingly horrified as he uncovers more and more about the Company he's serving. He's also very loyal, both to Mendoza and his own father-figure who disappeared a long time ago.

The Graveyard Game features these two immortals at the expense of everybody else. There are some other immortals in the book who are well-characterized, but they don't get the extensive treatment. We do see some familiar figures from past books throughout the course of Joseph's search, and that's always a pleasure. Baker handles them all deftly, giving us just enough information so that we think we know them without having to delve too deeply into them. She also handle the switch from personal to action very well, with a vivid description of a battle between three immortals and a Roman unit that was obliterated in England in the 1st Century.

I can't say enough good things about The Graveyard Game, or this series in general. You owe it to yourself to pick it up. Don't let the second book get you down. Just read it and absorb the Company politics, and then move on. If you do, then you'll be rewarded with wonderful books like Mendoza in Hollywood and this one.

David Roy

The Company is a shadowy organization (officially called Dr. Zeus) that has mastered time travel and immortality, and the cyborgs they've created as a part of their immortality process are the stars of the series. Mendoza, the heroine of the first and third novels, is this novel's macguffin. Her arrest at the end of Mendoza in Hollywood is unknown to all but a few Company operatives, and when, in the year 1996, Facilitator Joseph (who rescued Mendoza when she was a child, and views himself as her father), and Literature Specialist Lewis (who has been in love with Mendoza for centuries) find out about the arrest, they set out to discover what happened to her.

Of course, since the Company monitors its agents remotely, and since few know what has happened, their quest spans hundreds of years, and starts to uncover the vast conspiracy that was only hinted at in Sky Coyote. Joseph already knew something was amiss -- the Enforcers, a group of Company operatives from the old days, when violence was a more common tool of the Company, have all vanished. Joseph's own "father," Badu, is among the missing, and he left an encrypted clue about his fate with Joseph (from which the book gets its title).

Lewis, meanwhile, is uncovering even more unsettling news about Mendoza's fate, and that of her second human lover, Edmund Bell-Fairfax. Events that had previously been thought to be coincidences now appear to have been contrived by the Company. And the Company itself seems to have dark origins that were only hinted at previously. As Lewis and Joseph delve further into the conspiracy, and as the 24th century (and the official creation of the Company) approaches, the book takes our heroes down a paranoia-laden path, as they find reasons to distrust both their human masters at the Company and even some of their fellow cyborgs.

Although Baker takes us through three centuries of conspiracies and tragedy (especially as we discover the fates of Mendoza's colleagues from the previous novel), she paces The Graveyard Game wonderfully, fleshing out Lewis and Joseph as genuinely interesting characters, providing some wonderfully humanizing (and humorous) moments along the way, including a delightful scene in which our heroes go on a chocolate bender -- chocolate having the same effect on them as alcohol on mortals. Lewis's love of Mendoza (and his obsession with Bell-Fairfax), and Joseph's anguish at losing both his father and his daughter, add a depth to their quest for the truth about who they are, and who they work for. This makes the tragic denouement all the more poignant.

Baker's writing style has come a long way over the course of four novels. She has moved from writing fun romps to writing some of the best character-driven science-fiction out there. With The Graveyard Game, she has proven that she deserves to be placed on the same shelf as such writers as Connie Willis, John Barnes and Nancy Kress. It would be a delight to see her shortlisted (and even winning) a World Fantasy Award in the near future.