Next SFF Author: Mishell Baker
Previous SFF Author: Frank Baker

SFF Author: Kage Baker

Kage Baker fantasy author(1952-2010)
Kage Baker wrote the popular science fiction epic The Company. She has received several awards for her writing and has been nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula award (among others). The name Kage is a melding of the names of her grandmothers: Kate and Genevieve. Kage Baker died of cancer on January 31, 2010. Here’s the SFWA obituary.



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In the Garden of Iden: Historical science fiction romance

In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker

Rescued from the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition, feisty little Mendoza is enrolled in a special school and becomes a cyborg agent of The Company, a group of immortal merchants and scientists who travel backwards in time in order to make money for The Company and to benefit mankind in various ways.

Mendoza is educated and trained as a botanist and, for her first mission, she’s sent back to 16th century Europe to document and study samples from the famous Garden of Iden in England.


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Not Less Than Gods: Rollicking and adventurous steampunk

Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker

Your reaction to the announcement of Not Less Than Gods by consistently excellent SF and fantasy author Kage Baker will probably depend to a large extent on how familiar you are with her The Company series. If you haven’t read any of the Company novels or collections, the story of the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society (GSS) and one of its operatives, Edward Alton Fairfax-Bell, sounds like an interesting and entertaining steampunk novel. However, if you’re familiar with the Company series,


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Rude Mechanicals: Free audio version at SubPress

Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker

I love pretty much everything that Kage Baker wrote — her concise to-the-point style, the ironic way she looks at the world, and her wry subtle sense of humor suits me perfectly, more so than any other author I know save Jack Vance. I’m sure that if I’d ever met Ms. Baker while she was living that she would have been one of my favorite people on Earth. I say this because I feel the need to warn anyone reading this review that I’m unlikely to ever think any of Kage Baker’s stories are bad…


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The Women of Nell Gwynne’s

The Women of Nell Gwynne’s by Kage Baker

Crack open the pages of The Women of Nell Gwynne’s and you will find action, mystery, and beautiful women. This novella by Kage Baker is everything a SF/F fan wishes the works of Charles Dickens had been.

The Women of Nell Gwynne’s is about an elite brothel in Victorian London. Though these ladies of the night provide pleasure to the notables of the city, that is not the primary reason for their existence;


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Nell Gwynne’s On Land and At Sea: Kage Baker’s last story

Nell Gwynne’s On Land and At Sea by Kage Baker

The “ladies” of Nell Gwynne’s work hard for their money, providing elite custom “services” to the important men who run England. These men think Nell Gwynne’s girls are very good at what they do, but they have no idea what’s really going on inside those pretty little heads. In actuality, all of Nell Gwynne’s ladies are thoroughly educated and quite accomplished because their “real” job is to spy for the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society (the predecessor of Kage Baker’s The Company).

Their work is exhausting,


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The Anvil of the World: Uneven, funny, promising

The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker

The first thing that should be noted about Kage Baker’s The Anvil of the World is that though it focuses on a very small group of characters and one main character throughout and follows them chronologically, this isn’t really a novel. Unless it’s one with some major transition problems. Rather, it’s three novellas with some large gaps of time between the three different adventures. Like any collection of stories, then, The Anvil of the World tends to be a bit uneven.


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Mother Aegypt and Other Stories: Kage Baker had a true gift for storytelling

Mother Aegypt and Other Stories by Kage Baker

When Kage Baker died from cancer earlier this year, I was regretful that I had never gotten around to reading any of her work. I had always heard good things about her writing, both from friends and from other writers, and had seen she had been nominated for a number of writing awards I value. I always intended to get around to it, but we all know what our reading piles are like and I never did. Wanting to read her work,


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The House of the Stag: Kage Baker was such a brilliant writer

The House of the Stag by Kage Baker

Kage Baker’s The House of the Stag is a stand-alone novel set in the same world as The Anvil of the World and The Bird of the River. In this story, the pacifist Yendri tribe has been enslaved by cruel invaders, and the half-demon foundling named Gard is the only one who will fight back. When he’s exiled from the tribe, Gard is captured by mages who live underground and set to work with their bound demon slaves.


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The Hotel Under the Sand: You’re not too grown up for this

The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker

Kage Baker left us on January 31, 2010, at the much-too-young age of 57. Those of us who read and loved her Company novels and short stories, beginning with In the Garden of Iden, will miss her more than we can collectively say — though many of us tried, in those last few weeks, to tell her what her work had meant to us.

Nominated for the 2009 Andre Norton Award for Young Science Fiction and Fantasy,


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The Bird of the River: Kage Baker’s last novel

The Bird of the River by Kage Baker

Eliss is a teenage girl living an itinerant life with her drug-addicted mother and young brother. Her mother, formerly a successful diver, now has trouble keeping a job because her drug habit has damaged her lungs, but she’s given a chance on the Bird of the River, a huge raft-like boat that travels and trades up and down the river on year-long journeys. Eliss shows some talent as a look-out, spotting blockages and snags upriver, and even her young brother Alder, who is half Yendri and has experienced discrimination before,


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The Best of Kage Baker: Please don’t ask me if you can borrow it

The Best of Kage Baker by Kage Baker

The more I read Kage Baker, the more I love Kage Baker. Of the hundreds of speculative fiction authors I’ve read, I rank Kage Baker in the top ten. Maybe top five. She’s that amazing. I love her clever imagination and her style which is unembellished, straightforward, and full of wit and charm. Which is why I was jumping up and down when the nearly 500-page story collection called The Best of Kage Baker showed up on my doorstep.


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SHORTS: Baker, Pinsker, McCarry

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about. 

The Bohemian Astrobleme by Kage Baker (2010, free at Subterranean Press, also included in Nell Gwynne’s Scarlet Spy)

The Bohemian Astrobleme is an entertaining Victorian steampunk novella about an adventure in the history of a rather underhanded and coldblooded group called the Gentleman’s Speculative Society.


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SHORTS: Baker, Chatham, Watts, Fawver, Liu

Sharing our finds in free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet.

“The Likely Lad” by Kage Baker (2002, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Starship Sofa podcast #23)

Kage Baker is one of my favorite authors. I love her sense of humor and sardonic voice. She’s at it again in “The Likely Lad,” a funny novelette that you can find in print in Asimov’s Volume 26(9) or free in audio format from Starship Sofa’s podcast #23 (which I listened to and recommend).


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SHORTS: Kayembe, Johnson, Baker, Swirsky, Walker

Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about. 

“The Faerie Tree” by Kathleen Kayembe (Nov. 2017, free at Lightspeed, $3.99 Kindle magazine issue)

Marianne’s family is in turmoil. Her sister, who always had such plans for her life, has come back from boarding school pregnant, moving back home with her husband. The real problem is that Marianne can see there’s something hugely amiss: Sister, who was so lively,


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Fast Ships, Black Sails: Pirates and adventure!

Fast Ships, Black Sails edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer

I was never a big fan of pirates (ninjas, on the other hand…) but nonetheless, the very word evokes adventure and the high seas. Fast Ships, Black Sails doesn’t really stray far from that expectation and delivers eighteen stories marked with action, treachery, and a sense of wonder.

A good chunk of the stories revolve around traditional concepts of a pirate, with only a few exceptions, such as “Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear & 


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Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance is the best anthology I’ve ever read. These stories will be enjoyed by any SFF reader, but they’ll be ten times more fun if you’ve read Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, because they are all written in honor of that fantastic work. Each tale is written in the style of Vance,


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The Book of Dreams: A small but satisfying collection

The Book of Dreams edited by Nick Gevers

The Book of Dreams is a small but satisfying collection of short stories that are thematically, albeit loosely, connected by the theme of “dreams.” The book features original stories by Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepard, Jay Lake, Kage Baker and Jeffrey Ford, and was edited by Nick Gevers for Subterranean Press.

Somewhat surprisingly,


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Sympathy for the Devil: A collection of bedtime stories

Sympathy for the Devil edited by Tim Pratt

Please allow me to introduce Sympathy for the Devil, a fine new anthology filled entirely with short stories about the devil… who is, as we all know, a man of style and taste. However, you won’t just find the smooth-talking stealer of souls here. In addition to that famous version of His Grand Infernal Majesty, you’ll also find funny devils, monstrous devils, abstract devils and strangely realistic ones. Devils scary and not-so-scary, devils who are after children’s souls and others going after old men.


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The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011: Sample the best SFF

The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 edited by Kevin J. Anderson

The Nebula Awards are one of the great institutions in science fiction and fantasy. Each year since 1965, the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have voted for the Best Novel, Novella (40,000-17,500 words), Novelette (17,500-7,500 words), and Short Story (less than 7,500 words) in SF and fantasy. Compiling a list of the nominees and winners for all those years would get you an excellent reading list and a comprehensive cross-view of the best that can be found in the genres.


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Twenty-First Century Science Fiction: Packed full of excellent SF stories

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction is packed full of excellent science fiction stories. I’ve been reading anthologies lately, partly to improve my own short story writing, and this is the best I’ve found so far. It contains stories by authors such as Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Catherynne M. ValenteJohn Scalzi, Jo Walton, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal,


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Next SFF Author: Mishell Baker
Previous SFF Author: Frank Baker

We have reviewed 8275 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

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