The Sky People
From S.M. Stirling Wiki
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Tor, ISBN 0-765-31488-8, Nov 2006
[edit] Plot Summary
The first book in the Category:THE LORDS OF CREATION SERIES followed by In the Courts of the Crimson Kings (Tor, ISBN 0765314894, March 2008).
[edit] Characters
[edit] Spoilers
Steve Stirling is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors in the science fiction genre. He's a very thorough researcher, he can write very convincing action, he understands human nature at a depth many other writers never reach, and he's a genuinely good guy. I'm a member of an e-list that discusses his work; Stirling regularly participates and has always been approachable about his work, responding to both positive and negative criticism. You just don't meet many authors in any genre like that.
More to the point, he's the one guy you want around if you're ever stuck in a primitive, hostile environment. Granted authors should never be confused with their characters (Stirling himself has a good quote on this point*) but the knowledge Stirling has from all the research he's done over the years would ensure that you could not only survive on a deserted island but build your own civilization from scratch. Put this guy on Survivor and he'd win, easily.
Most of Stirling's point-of-view characters are tough, meat-eating men with balls of solid titanium who could look Satan himself in the eye and criticize the Dark One's fashion sense without any hint of self-consciousness in doing so.** Lieutenant Marc Vitrac, our hero in The Sky People, is no exception. He's a Louisiana bayou-born-and-bred combination of Tarzan, Natty Bumppo from Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, and the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin with a strong dose of Indiana Jones for good measure. Whether he's taming a dire wolf puppy, trying unsuccessfully to gain the romantic attraction of a research scientist, or fighting off hordes of AK-47-wielding Neanderthals, he does it in style and in pitch-perfect Cajun dialect. Vitrac can not only dispatch the velociraptor charging toward your desperate party, he can serve it up to you as a gumbo.
To sum the story up briefly: in the distant past, both Venus and Mars were terraformed and seeded with prehistoric animals. While telescopic evidence starting in the 20th century revealed both planets to be similar to Earth, it wasn't until a Soviet space probe landed on Venus in 1962 that the true nature of life beyond Earth was discovered. Subsequent expeditions revealed that Venus was inhabited by anatomically modern humans who had established cultures ranging from Mesolithic to early Bronze Age as well as surviving Neanderthals, still stuck in a brutish existence.
Flash forward to 1988, and we find that the United States has established a base on Venus, where Lieutenant Vitrac is a ranger--a survival specialist who's established extensive ties with the native population. He is made responsible for orienting a batch of new arrivals to the base, who include Cynthia Whitlock, a geologist who catches the eye of Vitrac almost immediately; and Wing Commander Christopher Blair of the RAF, a linguist who immediately gets on Vitrac's nerves. Blair is of course a threat, but not in the way Vitrac is initially focused on.
The Soviets have not been quiet during the past 27 years, however: they've managed to resolve their differences with the Chinese Communists and form the Eastbloc, which has less emphasis on redistribution of wealth and the workers' revolution but just as much emphasis on totalitarianism and dirty dealing. An Eastbloc shuttle carrying (among others) Franziskus Binkis crashes, and the Eastbloc base requests the assistance of the US base in locating the survivors. An airship carrying Vitrac, Whitlock, Blair, Binkis' wife, and a pilot whom we don't get to know very well is dispatched to the crash scene, six thousand miles away from either base. The airship eventually crashes (in a scene reminiscent of the ending of Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time series) stranding the survivors far from home amongst hostile Neanderthals who suddenly are carrying far more firepower than usual (thanks to the crashed Eastbloc shuttle's cargo and Binkis, whose orders aren't coming from the Politburo anymore...)
Alas, hope is not lost: the survivors encounter the Cloud Mountain People, a Neolithic tribe of modern humans led by their beautiful chieftain/priestess, Teesa. The crash survivors team up with the Cloud Mountain People and wreak havoc amongst the Neanderthals who've taken posession of the Cloud Mountain People's most holy site...a site that proves to have answers to many, many questions.
This is the first of Stirling's Lords of Creation series. The second volume, In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings, is due out early next year and will cover the Martian colonies. Stirling deliberately wrote this series as an homage to the pulp stories of the early 20th century, a time when both Venus and Mars were thought by scientists and writers alike to be not only life-bearing but inhabited by advanced lifeforms not unlike us. He did so beautifully, recapturing the innocence of that long-past era while maintaining the sophistication that modern audiences demand.
Some people have complained that Stirling gets into too much detail in his works. I for one have never considered that to be a problem. If anything this story could use more, but then again that may be my expectations based upon his previous work being carried over. It's a fun, fast read. Read it with another Venus-based novel written during the early 20th century (Heinlein's Between Planets comes to mind--comparing Stirling's knowledge of wilderness survival with Heinlein's depiction of guerilla warfare is pretty fun). If you're looking for an exciting adventure that, while it doesn't exactly delve into Great Truths, doesn't shy away from them either, this is the book for you.
- There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot. --From S.M. Stirling, in the introduction to his novel Conquistador.
- With the possible exception of the Draka, who'd instead insist Satan was getting it all wrong and attempt to annex the infernal regions to the Domination...
