The Sky People | S.M. Stirling | Paen to the Pulps and Burroughs

The Sky People | S.M. Stirling | Super Reader

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The Sky People

	The Sky People S.M. Stirling Tor Science Fiction, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 40 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Marc Vitrac was born in Louisiana in the early 1960?s, about the time the first interplanetary probes delivered the news that Mars and Venus were teeming with life?even human life. At that point, the ?Space Race? became the central preoccupation of the great powers of the world.

Now, in 1988, Marc has been assigned to Jamestown, the US-Commonwealth base on Venus, near the great Venusian city of Kartahown. Set in a countryside swarming with sabertooths and dinosaurs, Jamestown is home to a small band of American and allied scientist-adventurers.

But there are flies in this ointment ? and not only the Venusian dragonflies, with their yard-wide wings. The biologists studying Venus?s life are puzzled by the way it not only resembles that on Earth, but is virtually identical to it. The EastBloc has its own base at Cosmograd, in the highlands to the south, and relations are frosty. And attractive young geologist Cynthia Whitlock seems impervious to Marc?s Cajun charm.

Meanwhile, at the western end of the continent, Teesa of the Cloud Mountain People leads her tribe in a conflict with the Neanderthal-like beastmen who have seized her folk?s sacred caves. Then an EastBloc shuttle crashes nearby, and the beastmen acquire new knowledge? and AK47?s.

Jamestown sends its long-range blimp to rescue the downed EastBloc cosmonauts, little suspecting that the answer to the jungle planet?s mysteries may lie there, among tribal conflicts and traces of a power that made Earth?s vaunted science seem as primitive as the tribesfolk?s blowguns. As if that weren?t enough, there?s an enemy agent on board the airship?

Extravagant and effervescent, The Sky People is alternate-history SF adventure at its best.

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Paen to the Pulps and Burroughs

This is of a totally different style for those who have read the "Nantucket" series and are used to a more 'realistic' Steve Stirling. This reads more like a cross between 'Buck Rodgers and the Mole Men' and 'John Carter on Mars'. It's written to be fun and very tongue in cheek so leave your Stirling conventions at the cover page.

What would life on Venus be like if it had an extra heavy oxygen atmosphere and a slightly (90%) lighter gravity; and in the past 'someone or something' had seeded the planet with dinosaurs, neaderthals and humans? When the east and west try to 'settle' the planet, politics raises its' ugly head, with the involvement of an unknown third party. It bad Commies and obnoxious Frenchmen (are there any other kind) versus the 'aw shucks m'am' Cajun. Who do you think will win?

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Super Reader

Planetary Romance, 1980s style?

A clever idea this, in that aliens have seeded Venus with life, including humans and dinosaurs - and all the large scale other fauna that goes with that - canines, bugs and more.

So, discovering this in the 60s the space race becomes all important, and other areas of science suffer a little more than our current situation.

Nuclear propulsion gets manned crews of the Eastern bloc and America and allies to Venus - the main part of the story has some reasonably well established groups on the planet.

The politics are pretty simple and ham-fisted, which fits this sort of story somewhat, the good guys and bad guys as far as Earth goes. There are some groaningly bad incongruous paragraph dumps of the 'Americans are the best, of course' type, but also one of two jokes as in 'Norman Mailer and crew are upset at being marginalised as Edgar Rice Burroughs is now easily the USA's most preeminent author.' One author is when Stirling has a neandernthal mow down a character of no-importance named Jondlar - who was also the prettyboy guy in Jean Auel's the Mammoth Hunters. Could be just a joke, or Stirling pointing out he really doesn't like those - wouldn't be a surprise from the other bits of this book.

The rest of the story is pretty good, as a crashed Eastern Bloc shuttle asks for help from the Americans - who send a crew out which includes an airship pilot who is an experienced resident, and a couple of newer arrivals, as wellas the captain, and the wife of one of those in the crashed shuttle.

Now is when we get to the fighting dinosaurs and neanderthals with machine guns, chatting up local smart priestesses and alien technology part. This is all pretty good, as the airship survivors try and make an alliance with the enemies of the neanderthals and their alien overlords.

Given I have read a few Stirling stories before and didn't like them at all, I did like this more than I thought I would.

A bit over 3.5 rating for this one, perhaps.

3.5 out of 5

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Very Good First in a Series

Currently, Stirling's "The Sky People" is the first in a two novel series. Unfortunately for me, I read the second one (In the Courts of the Crimson Kings) first. Well, it's unfortunate only in the sense that it makes it difficult for me to rate the book (since I know more than I should at this point). Anyway, I found the writing to be very well done. As others have noted, the book (series) is in the same stamp as the old Golden Age of Science Fiction material written by the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs (amongst others). It's just updated to more closely suit current times. My only problems with it are:

- Stirling tends to get a bit bogged down in descriptive details at the expense of furthering the plot.
- In a couple of cases, he has the protagonist go off on a side quest right in the middle of an important plot point. Granted, it's necessary stuff. But, I'd say it should have been done earlier.
- There are several points he introduces into the story and then just drops. If they were worthy of being introduced, then they should have been followed up.

But, regardless, I found the book to be very enjoyable and rate it a Very Good four stars out of five.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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