Coyote by Allen Steele-a fantastic read! Sort of a short story based novel. I recently went on a science fiction/space opera purchasing spree. I had been looking to get back into science fiction novels and Coyote was my ticket! Any other lovers of this book. Sometime in the near future, I will devour the rest of the Coyote series.
You know, I've always wanted to get into the series (I've only read Spindrift), but it's pretty rough only having Amazon ratings to go on. I like having a series that uses actual stars and already discovered locations in space. Are there any other high points?
I looked up the amazon reviews...some of those people really berate it and I don't understand why. Their reasons for doing so were pedantic and secondary to the story, they speak of tastes spoiled by academic notions.
Its a really exciting and well done story, don't listen to the amazon reviewers.
I'm not an Amazon reviewer and I did not like Steele's few Coyote novels I've read. The first story in the series, IIRC serialized in Analog, is what I started with, and it was quite memorable. The novels were filled with descriptions of the environment of the new planet, and that to me was majorly uninteresting...in that the environments were so mundane, the wildlife so plain, the description so frontier period. It was written in a way that did not grab my attention, and the descriptions were overly long.
Spoiler:
I guess I can't understand. Hard sci-fi fans must have this tendency to get stuck on silly details, stupid academics...
I found the first three to be solid, page-turning, entertaining reads.
Think what he's tapped into is solid SF writing of the old-school. Allen looks at frontier issues in a slightly different way. The values are things we would recognise from 1950's SF, or even old Western novels.
Because the characters are easy to recognise they're easy enough to read. They can be seen as stereotypes, and rather basic.
But what Allen then does is work in the 'What-if?' factor.
They are a big hit with the Analog readers. Similar to Ben Bova perhaps or old- Robert A Heinlein, of whom Allen is a fan.
Mark
Mark
What do you mean, exactly? I would never bottle up human beings into categories and diss them afterwards. At least that's what you sounded like right there. Please explain.Originally Posted by clavichorder
I highly recommend the entire Coyote series for its wonderful depictions of very rich and diverse characters and their attempt to colonize a new world. Sure, Coyote is too uncannily like our own planet's Paleogene era to be likely in a hard-SF sense, but the events of the entire series are too much like parallel incidents in Earth history (especially the European conquest of North America) to be anything but fascinating.
edit, deleted.
I really enjoyed the first book for the colonization aspect of the story. You don't often get that in science fiction, or if you do, it's only as a sideline to the main plot. The next two books were enjoyable too though not as much. I didn't bother with the rest of the books as they seemed to get further and further away from the original premise.
I guess I was just a little pissed off, I really liked this book and was shocked to find it so berated. I apologize that I forget that its easy to be very rude on the internet with less inhibition.
Interesting. I was thinking I was going to plow through the series, but I suppose I'll decide for myself when I reach the third book.
Thank you clavichorder. Apology accepted.
Just like you, I really liked a particular book - Revelation Space - and was distraught that SFFworld had so many people disliking it from a thread I read, but just a few weeks later the opposite reaction popped up in another thread. That there's enough for everyone to go around is what I got from it
Really enjoyed the first Coyote book but found the reward lessened with each of the next two books. Have not bothered with any after that. I think Steele has a real knack with the blue collar sci fi characters that his books seem to revolve around.
Cheers
Lee
I completely agree, I stopped after the second book and I can't be bothered to read on. I even thought the first book started great and fizzled to a lukewarm ending.
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