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Black Projects, White Knights

by Kage Baker

Golden Gryphon, 297 pages, hardback, 2002

Before I talk about the book, a few words about the publisher. If I had to vote for which is the best publisher currently operating within the genres, I'd almost certainly opt for Golden Gryphon. Their books are produced with such care and love – not just for the subject matter but for production standards – that it gives a genuine thrill just to hold a Golden Gryphon book in one's hands. And, almost always, the contents live up to the rest, so I had high hopes of this collection by Kage Baker, an author with whose work I am (to my shame) otherwise unfamiliar.

Most of the stories are in her series about Dr Zeus Inc., otherwise known as The Company – a shadowy super-technology organization that could be thought of as lying at the heart of most of the relevant conspiracy theories. There are also some stories in another, slightly linked series, concerning a prodigy known as Alec Checkerfield.

The newly penned opener to this volume, introducing Dr Zeus Inc. to the unacquainted reader, is a firecracker piece of writing; surely no appetite could be left unwhetted by this piece. But thereafter, while each of the stories is a highly competent piece of magazine fiction, none of them seems outstanding; always I was left with that exasperated "nicely done, but so what?" feeling.

But it's a lovely, lovely book, from its splendid J.K. Potter cover all the way on through.

—Crescent Blues

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