- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Ace Books; 1 edition (Nov 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0441009743
- ISBN-13: 978-0441009749
- Product Dimensions: 22.3 x 17.1 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,049,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unputdownable. It's a word.,
By
This review is from: Coyote (The Coyote Series) (Paperback)
I really cannot understand why this book (and the trilogy as a whole for that matter) has been taking such a beating in the reviews. I thought it was outstanding.
The fact that this book is based on a number of short stories is obvious at some points, if only because a lot of facts are over stated unnecessarily, presumably to 'set the scene' and enable readers to read these short stories individually without needing to read earlier ones. I feel a little better editing could have rectified this, but it's such a small flaw in an otherwise incredible book that it's barely worth mentioning. Maybe it's also a testament to Steele's writing ability that these short stories work on their own and as part of a generation spanning trilogy? I feel that far too much SF these days is ridiculous and too unbelievable (I know, it is fiction after all) but this book and series gives you something that you can actually imagine happening. It doesn't bombard you with gobbledegook science, it just tells an exciting, imaginative and often emotional story. The phrase 'I could not put this book down' is an overused one, but I literally couldn't, and had finished the 3 books in the series in about 10 days. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard sf with character,
By
This review is from: Coyote (Hardcover)
I first came across Allen Steele a few years ago with his early novels,Orbital Decay and Clarke County Space,both of which I enjoyed enormously.Then in the May/June 2003 issue of Interzone I read a review by Nigel Brown of Allen Steele's newest novel,Coyote.The review was positive so I bought the book and I am glad I did. The novel is what is called in sf circles a "fix-up".Which means that its made up of a number of shorter stories,the majority of which in this case appeared in Asimovs Science Fiction magazine.This shows as each chapter does not flow smoothly from the one to the next.However this is also one of the strong points of the book as each chapter can be seen as an episode in the story of the departure from Earth of a starship and its occupants,their journey through space and their discovery and eventual colonisation of a new world.For me this worked well,it gave me the feel of a venture that was believable with characters that you care about. One of the most powerful chapters is "The Days Between",in which Leslie Gillis is woken from suspended animation three months after the voyage starts,and unable to re-enter sleep state he must spend the rest of his life,32 years and alone,on the ship.Allen Steele uses this story to convey the time and distance of the journey.There are no convenient warp drives or worm holes here for those who like near instantanious travel through space.He also portrays the despair and isolation that Gillis feels at times and we feel for the character. Many critics have compared Allen Steele to Robert Heinlein for his story telling,and I would have to agree.Many of Heinlein's novels are tales of galactic adventure,well told with believable characters and situations,and Allen Steele has no difficulty in acheiving this as well.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sci-fi for children,
This review is from: Coyote (The Coyote Series) (Paperback)
The first question that Amazon asked when typing this review was whether I am over 13.
I find it an extremely apt question. I can give this book two scores, based on the age of readers. Either a 4 for a 'rousing', tolerably well-written (for a children's book) and slightly thought-provoking children's book. Or I can give it one stars for a book that has a mature sci-fi reader shaking his head at every single turn of page. Perhaps not shaking, perhaps banging his head against a shelf of well-written sci-fi books. I'm sure children and teenagers will be engaged by this book and will enjoy it immensely. That said, they'd prefer Heinlein. I find it astonishing that this book was written only a couple of years ago. This is not a book that was written, in spirit, in the 21st century. Heinlein was writing better books, in the exact wagons-to-the-stars vein half a century ago. The 'inspiration' is obvious. Adults will be driven to frustration by one-dimensional characters, awful science, barely concealed political frustration, unoriginal plots, pandering to children and the absolute stupidity of plot events and character behaviour. A couple of examples of stupidity includes a laughable plot to steal a spaceship, a spaceship arriving to colonize a planet with no idea what to expect (so if the planet was hostile, the colonists would presumably have been doomed to eating each other in orbit), that spaceship being full of 'scientists' (a very 50s expectation) because agricultural experts were not foreseen, a planet with edible organisms that did not evolve from shared DNA (unexplainable), Marxist superhumans arriving to take over a planet (they have super-fast propulsion systems and cyborgs but forgot to take their food with them) and perhaps the most insulting part of all, a plot development in which a treacherous colonist reveals the colony location to the super-communists by sending them its location by radio. I can see my car parked on my street via Google Earth and I expect those that use zero-point energy could probably read the contents of this computer from orbit and they do not need traitors to find a primitive settlement on a planet. Help, my brain is imploding from this childish sci-fi! This is not hard sci-fi in any way. The science is atrocious This is not space opera, there is nothing epic about its descriptions of children canoeing around a sea on an alien world. This is a story of the American West being conquered by wagons, except it occurs in space.
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