Not Less Than Gods

January 18, 2010
The ninth Company novel (after 2007's The Sons of Heaven
) introduces Edward Bell-Fairfax, a child of mysterious origins who gradually discovers that he's not quite like ordinary people. Born to an unmarried aristocratic mother, raised by distant foster parents, and spirited away to boarding school by the sinister Dr. Nennys, Bell-Fairfax serves an unhappy stint in the military and afterward is inducted into the Company of scientists and spies. Using messages from the future and Charles-Babbage-meets-Maxwell-Smart “technologia,” Bell-Fairfax travels Europe with his mentor, Ludbridge, attempting to swing the Crimean War in England's favor and learning in the process that achieving utopian goals requires a great deal of dirty work. Plenty of cloak-and-poison-dart action gets the reader through the exhausting Victorian nomenclature (the Aetheric Transmitter, the Ascending Chamber) and discourses on the evils of misused technology.

February 15, 2010
The first in a new set of novels, set in the same world as the author's Company series.

Baker (The House of the Stag, 2009, etc.) is known for her series about The Company, a shadowy 24th-century group that uses time-travel and immortality-granting technology to obtain precious artifacts from the past. The original series' story arc culminated with The Sons of Heaven (2007), so Baker has embarked on a new series to explore some of its characters more closely. Here the author lays out the back story of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, a genetically engineered Company operative who first appeared in Mendoza in Hollywood (2000). The brilliant Edward is born into privilege in 1824 England. In his 20s, he meets the mysterious Dr. Nennys, who says that Edward was created to be part of a secret organization, possessed of amazing technology—and that Edward has important work to do. The novel's adventurous Victorian setting, full of anachronistic technology from automatons to night-vision goggles, is reminiscent of steampunk—and fans of that popular subgenre may find much to enjoy. Still, it's readers already familiar with Baker's previous Company works who will get the most out of this fast-moving novel.

A fine addition to Baker's Company mythos.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 15, 2010
An illegitimate child of British nobility, Edward Fairfax grows up among ice-cold tutors and doting servants, little noticing that he is bigger and smarter than other children his age. After a disastrous stint in the navy, where his idealism conflicts with military orders, he is recruited as a member of a secret society interested in making the world a better place regardless of politics and laws. Fairfax becomes one of the world's most dangerous mena spy and an assassin with uncanny natural abilities. VERDICT Set in a Victorian England that harbors secret advanced technology, this steampunk spin-off of the author's popular Company series ("In the Darden of Iden") features a likable, if deadly, hero and a wealth of proper conversation and improper actions. Baker fans will enjoy this fresh take on a familiar theme.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2010
Returning to the worlds of the Company novels, Baker delves into the history of a young man whose name has come up before. Edward Bell-Fairfax is an idealist ideally suited to the life of intrigue and derring-do that Redkings Club provides. One Dr. Nennys grooms him, then delivers him to a residential place at Redkings. In a Europe layered with secret societies and intrigue, riddled with astonishingly advanced technology, where the great powers are trembling at the brink of war, Bell-Fairfax and three other young men are trained to work as a team of spies and assassins. Then they are sent on a grand tour across Europe, where they experience marvels, and Bell-Fairfax proves that he was born for the work. Baker builds a fantastic alternate Europe with a deft historical touch and spins an excellent spy story around it. Not Less Than Gods is a satisfying addition to the annals of the Company that is also an engaging stand-alone novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)