Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Ace (2003), Edition: Reprint, 448 pages
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML:Coyote marks a dramatic new turn in the career of Allen Steele, Hugo Award-winning author of Chronospace. Epic in scope, passionate in its conviction, and set against a backdrop of plausible events, it tells the brilliant story of Earth�s first interstellar colonists�and the mysterious planet that becomes their home�.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RobertDay
(Warning: this review may contain minor spoilers.)
This fix-up novel concerns a colonising starship launched, as a vanity project, by a near-future dystopian US Government, which is hijacked by dissidents in the crew and the tech support teams so that they can escape to found a new colony free from
The local life-forms, created by the late Jack Cohen (noted British xenobiologist, responsible for the aliens in 'Alien' and Niven & Pournelle's 'Heorot' books, amongst others), can be pretty nasty, and there is a fair amount of attrition early on, though at least the colonists don't go around treating the alien world like a petting zoo. But I have to say that as the body count went up, with some characters we'd already invested some time in getting written out messily, my main reaction was to mentally cross those characters off a list. I had no empathy for them, and they did little to deserve it. For me, none of the characters came off the page or were anything more than fairly flat stereotypes.
In the final segment of the book, we meet a second wave of colonists. And: Shock! Horror! They are Communists! Or at least, collectivists. They overthrew the nasty oppressive Government not long after the first ship left, but now they've come to follow where the first ship went and collectivise them, too.
Science fiction is supposed to be a literature that explores alternatives to traditional ways of thinking; but as far as Allen Steele is concerned, when it comes to alternative political systems, he can do little more than come out with the same old stereotypes. That one group of scientists - those who planned the original flight - would just guess that an alien world would somehow be hospitable to human settlement without any firm evidence beyond photographs and spectrograms stretches credulity; that a second group would make the same assumption, and then jump further to think that a group of 100 colonists who went out four years before without a lot of agricultural machinery, just a few embryonic beasts and a supply of seeds would be ready to support another thousand colonists just stretches credibility to breaking point. Like it or not, at least Communists make plans, and those plans rely on knowing what resources you are likely to have to start with.
There are big expository lumps here and there; the Prelude in particular reads like a popular science text on detecting exoplanets, and only in its last few pages do we get a transition into the fictional future America and its politics. That the novel was assembled from short stories becomes quite clear; there is a lot of repetition, especially in characters' internal monologues about their pasts. And whilst there's a nice schematic of the starship, either the attached orbital shuttle is the size of a Boeing 747, or the ship is nowhere near as big as the novel makes it out to be.
I acquired this from a charity shop and so did not pay full price for it; on the strength of this first novel, I'll be unlikely to seek out the others in the sequence, unless I find them in the same place. Otherwise, I'll be giving this a miss.
This fix-up novel concerns a colonising starship launched, as a vanity project, by a near-future dystopian US Government, which is hijacked by dissidents in the crew and the tech support teams so that they can escape to found a new colony free from
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the boot of the oppressor. Of course, not everyone is on the same side; and the world they travel to, a moon around a gas giant some 40 or so light-years from Earth, has its own quota of indigenous life-forms. Fortunately, (for the purposes of the plot), it is (mostly) capable of supporting human life. Well, there's a relief...The local life-forms, created by the late Jack Cohen (noted British xenobiologist, responsible for the aliens in 'Alien' and Niven & Pournelle's 'Heorot' books, amongst others), can be pretty nasty, and there is a fair amount of attrition early on, though at least the colonists don't go around treating the alien world like a petting zoo. But I have to say that as the body count went up, with some characters we'd already invested some time in getting written out messily, my main reaction was to mentally cross those characters off a list. I had no empathy for them, and they did little to deserve it. For me, none of the characters came off the page or were anything more than fairly flat stereotypes.
In the final segment of the book, we meet a second wave of colonists. And: Shock! Horror! They are Communists! Or at least, collectivists. They overthrew the nasty oppressive Government not long after the first ship left, but now they've come to follow where the first ship went and collectivise them, too.
Science fiction is supposed to be a literature that explores alternatives to traditional ways of thinking; but as far as Allen Steele is concerned, when it comes to alternative political systems, he can do little more than come out with the same old stereotypes. That one group of scientists - those who planned the original flight - would just guess that an alien world would somehow be hospitable to human settlement without any firm evidence beyond photographs and spectrograms stretches credulity; that a second group would make the same assumption, and then jump further to think that a group of 100 colonists who went out four years before without a lot of agricultural machinery, just a few embryonic beasts and a supply of seeds would be ready to support another thousand colonists just stretches credibility to breaking point. Like it or not, at least Communists make plans, and those plans rely on knowing what resources you are likely to have to start with.
There are big expository lumps here and there; the Prelude in particular reads like a popular science text on detecting exoplanets, and only in its last few pages do we get a transition into the fictional future America and its politics. That the novel was assembled from short stories becomes quite clear; there is a lot of repetition, especially in characters' internal monologues about their pasts. And whilst there's a nice schematic of the starship, either the attached orbital shuttle is the size of a Boeing 747, or the ship is nowhere near as big as the novel makes it out to be.
I acquired this from a charity shop and so did not pay full price for it; on the strength of this first novel, I'll be unlikely to seek out the others in the sequence, unless I find them in the same place. Otherwise, I'll be giving this a miss.
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LibraryThing member Moby46
In the year 2070, America is in the grip of a right-wing dictatorship. A group of rebels steal a prototype starship, which reaches Coyote, a moon of Bear, a gas giant planet orbiting 47 Ursa Majoris, 230 calendar years and 46 light-years later. The crew and colonists are revived and begin life on
At over 400 paperback pages, Coyote is a wide-ranging tale told from differing viewpoints. It works, at least for me. All of the pieces save one originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine between January 2001 and December 2002.
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their new home.At over 400 paperback pages, Coyote is a wide-ranging tale told from differing viewpoints. It works, at least for me. All of the pieces save one originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine between January 2001 and December 2002.
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LibraryThing member nbmars
Captain Robert E. Lee, great grandson of the Civil War general, commands the URS Alabama in the year 2070. The URS is a new country formed after another U.S. revolution that resulted in a New England republic, a Western republic, and the United Republic Service, an ultra right-wing country
The crew goes into biostasis for the 226 years it will take to reach Coyote, except for one, Leslie Gillis, who wakes up by accident after only three months and has a long and boring life (for both himself and the readers) all alone on the ship. Other crew members include Eric Gunther, a Republic loyalist who tries to sabotage the trip and is killed; his teenaged-daughter Wendy who is then adopted by the chief physician Kuniko Okada; Jorge Montero, the electrical systems engineer who made the take-off hijack bypass possible; Jorge's wife Rita; their children Marie and Carlos (the latter, a teenager, rapidly takes up with Wendy); Colonel Gill Reese, stereotypical southern thug and leader of a five-man contingent sent to stop the hijacking who, with his fellow soldiers gets taken along for the ride; Jim Levin, the exobiologist; his mentally fragile and aptly-named wife Sissy; their kids Chris and David; and others.
Down in Coyote, the settlers farm, struggle through winter, and in general act like early Americans. They run into huge predator birds they call boids, creek cats they use for their skins and intestines and fat, birds they call swoopers and whales they call catwhales.
Finally another ship from Earth arrives, this time from the Western Hemisphere Union formed in 2096. In this new government, North America is only one of many provinces operating under social collectivism. Their ship, “Glorious Destiny” was launched in 2256 earth time using advanced technology. They have come to share, in the collectivist manner. Carlos leads the colonists off into the wilds of Coyote to freedom.
There are some clever motifs in the book, but it’s actually a compendium of short stories, and this shows in the constant changing of tense, the disjointedness, and the repetitiveness.
(JAF)
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consisting of most of the former South. A repressive regime has suspended most civil rights, and dissenters plot a hijacking. Lee, the leader of the DIs, or Dissenting Intellectuals, steals away with 100 crew members to Coyote, a habitable moon orbiting a gas giant 46 light years from earth.The crew goes into biostasis for the 226 years it will take to reach Coyote, except for one, Leslie Gillis, who wakes up by accident after only three months and has a long and boring life (for both himself and the readers) all alone on the ship. Other crew members include Eric Gunther, a Republic loyalist who tries to sabotage the trip and is killed; his teenaged-daughter Wendy who is then adopted by the chief physician Kuniko Okada; Jorge Montero, the electrical systems engineer who made the take-off hijack bypass possible; Jorge's wife Rita; their children Marie and Carlos (the latter, a teenager, rapidly takes up with Wendy); Colonel Gill Reese, stereotypical southern thug and leader of a five-man contingent sent to stop the hijacking who, with his fellow soldiers gets taken along for the ride; Jim Levin, the exobiologist; his mentally fragile and aptly-named wife Sissy; their kids Chris and David; and others.
Down in Coyote, the settlers farm, struggle through winter, and in general act like early Americans. They run into huge predator birds they call boids, creek cats they use for their skins and intestines and fat, birds they call swoopers and whales they call catwhales.
Finally another ship from Earth arrives, this time from the Western Hemisphere Union formed in 2096. In this new government, North America is only one of many provinces operating under social collectivism. Their ship, “Glorious Destiny” was launched in 2256 earth time using advanced technology. They have come to share, in the collectivist manner. Carlos leads the colonists off into the wilds of Coyote to freedom.
There are some clever motifs in the book, but it’s actually a compendium of short stories, and this shows in the constant changing of tense, the disjointedness, and the repetitiveness.
(JAF)
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LibraryThing member devilwrites
There's a lot that can be said about this book. Style is first and foremost: there's a certain ease to Steele's writing that blows me away and reminds me of my own and what I'd like it to be. He ignores conventions such as chapters, presenting the novel in chunks, and writes in all kinds of point
And Coyote is so good. While my absolute favorite part was the first chuck, "Stealing Alabama", other chunks also gripped me: "Across the Eastern Divide" and "The Days Between" stand out particularly. But in truth, this book...gah, it's hard to articulate: it's a large cast list, but you're never confused, and all the characters just work. You never feel at a loss for connecting with a particular character, because that's how well drawn each and everyone of them is.
The politics. The world-builiding. Wow. Granted, thanks to Steele's lecture, I know the work that went into this novel, but even the political situation on Earth, which he didn't talk about in his lecture, blew me away. Maybe because it strikes close to home these days, on some level, but it was everything a dystopic society should be. And then there was hope. The only thing that actually threw me was the ending: it was the last thing I expected, even though Steele prepared me for it. And it didn't throw me in a bad way: I just didn't expect the direction, even though I had no idea how the book would end.
I would disagree with people who say this is actually more science fantasy than science fiction. Granted, the hard science stuff (or some soft science stuff) is solely and the beginning and the end, bookmarking the tale, but this is by no means a fantasy. Frontier fiction? Maybe. Ultimately, this is simply solid character-driven work that made me incredibly happy to read. People talk all the time about what they want out of their science fiction, and for my two cents, at least at this venture, I will be a very happy devil to get more science fiction like this.
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of view: third person present, third person past, first person past...and it works. Amazingly, this works. Maybe it's because he was already an established writer when he pulled this sucker off, but Coyote will remain, to me, an example that you can do whatever the hell you want stylistically, and you can pull it off, as long as it's good.And Coyote is so good. While my absolute favorite part was the first chuck, "Stealing Alabama", other chunks also gripped me: "Across the Eastern Divide" and "The Days Between" stand out particularly. But in truth, this book...gah, it's hard to articulate: it's a large cast list, but you're never confused, and all the characters just work. You never feel at a loss for connecting with a particular character, because that's how well drawn each and everyone of them is.
The politics. The world-builiding. Wow. Granted, thanks to Steele's lecture, I know the work that went into this novel, but even the political situation on Earth, which he didn't talk about in his lecture, blew me away. Maybe because it strikes close to home these days, on some level, but it was everything a dystopic society should be. And then there was hope. The only thing that actually threw me was the ending: it was the last thing I expected, even though Steele prepared me for it. And it didn't throw me in a bad way: I just didn't expect the direction, even though I had no idea how the book would end.
I would disagree with people who say this is actually more science fantasy than science fiction. Granted, the hard science stuff (or some soft science stuff) is solely and the beginning and the end, bookmarking the tale, but this is by no means a fantasy. Frontier fiction? Maybe. Ultimately, this is simply solid character-driven work that made me incredibly happy to read. People talk all the time about what they want out of their science fiction, and for my two cents, at least at this venture, I will be a very happy devil to get more science fiction like this.
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LibraryThing member publiusdb
Allen Steele obviously has a political ax to grind. It's too bad it colors his ability to write a great story and hurts the plausibility of the characters. That's why it gets only three stars.
"Coyote" is, as Steele bills it, a story of interstellar colonization. Fleeing political oppression, the
The hardest thing to swallow was the political ax/commentary that Steele seems to want to grind. The political oppression fled by the colonists is a future world where gun-toting-stay-out-of-my-business conservatives have been transformed into big-brother-is-watching dictators. In contrast, [spoiler alert:] when the second wave of colonists catch up with the first wave, several years after their arrival, it is a Utopian version of social collectivism that has overthrown the oppressive conservatives that makes it possible.
Yeah, go figure. I don't know what world Steele lives in right now, either, let alone how he envisions that it gets to where it does fifty years from now.
All that aside, I sure did enjoy the science and the fiction part of it. Once the opening chapter is out of the way, the story moves without more than occasional political comment, and the colonists, upon arrival on the new planet, form a more libertarian and democratic lifestyle that harks back to what might be more plausible from Steele's characters and today's reality.
I'll probably read the sequels.
"Coyote" is, as Steele bills it, a story of interstellar colonization. Fleeing political oppression, the
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colonists hijack a cutting edge space ship destined for the stars, and escape to Coyote, moon of a ringed Jovian size gas giant orbiting a distant star. Although a bit disjointed because the story is really a series of short stories from the various perspectives of the colonists, the format works to build an intriguing adventure. However, as creative as his ideas are, I found the understanding and portrayal of human nature to be, at points, a thin on reality, or at least plausibility. Steele seems to get how individuals would react, interact, especially young and teens. However, his villains are caricatured, his politics lack reality, and his understanding of the nuance of human relations, as well as of the rational that motivate them are simplistic and superficial. The superficiality shakes the necessary suspension of disbelief, and I occasionally found myself saying, out loud, "yeah right."The hardest thing to swallow was the political ax/commentary that Steele seems to want to grind. The political oppression fled by the colonists is a future world where gun-toting-stay-out-of-my-business conservatives have been transformed into big-brother-is-watching dictators. In contrast, [spoiler alert:] when the second wave of colonists catch up with the first wave, several years after their arrival, it is a Utopian version of social collectivism that has overthrown the oppressive conservatives that makes it possible.
Yeah, go figure. I don't know what world Steele lives in right now, either, let alone how he envisions that it gets to where it does fifty years from now.
All that aside, I sure did enjoy the science and the fiction part of it. Once the opening chapter is out of the way, the story moves without more than occasional political comment, and the colonists, upon arrival on the new planet, form a more libertarian and democratic lifestyle that harks back to what might be more plausible from Steele's characters and today's reality.
I'll probably read the sequels.
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LibraryThing member jaygheiser
Very enjoyable story about interplanetary colonization, with political themes
LibraryThing member clong
I’ve previously enjoyed a few of Allen Steele short stories (most memorably the wonderful “The Death of Captain Future”), but this was my first novel from this author.
Steele is an effective storyteller who keeps the action moving, gives us reasonably natural dialogue, and captures the sense
The chapters in this book had all been previously published as short stories, leaving the book with a mosaic novel feel. To my surprise I found the second story, “The Days Between,” the tale of a lone crew member who is irretrievably awakened while everyone else sleeps on in hibernation, to be the best part of the book.
Having said all that, I found basic plot elements of this book wildly implausible. This government wouldn’t have undertaken this mission, and no government not facing an Armageddon scenario would have sent such a mission with so few human, scientific, and physical resources, and hence so little margin for error. I also found it implausible that the colonists would make so little effort to explore and understand their new home. The characterization is fairly pedestrian, with Wendy and Carlos being the only characters given any depth.
Still, I’m definitely interested enough to move on to book 2.
Steele is an effective storyteller who keeps the action moving, gives us reasonably natural dialogue, and captures the sense
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of wonder that is such an important element of this sort of book. The plot is driven by a nice balance between a steady stream of surprises thrown at the party by their new environment, and the inevitable inter-party human tensions that would crop up in such a setting. While there are hard science elements, the book is more an adventure saga than a serious exploration of how the first human interstellar colony might fare. It felt to me like a bit more relaxed take on the issues explored in the Niven/Barnes/Pournelle novel The Legacy of Heorot.The chapters in this book had all been previously published as short stories, leaving the book with a mosaic novel feel. To my surprise I found the second story, “The Days Between,” the tale of a lone crew member who is irretrievably awakened while everyone else sleeps on in hibernation, to be the best part of the book.
Having said all that, I found basic plot elements of this book wildly implausible. This government wouldn’t have undertaken this mission, and no government not facing an Armageddon scenario would have sent such a mission with so few human, scientific, and physical resources, and hence so little margin for error. I also found it implausible that the colonists would make so little effort to explore and understand their new home. The characterization is fairly pedestrian, with Wendy and Carlos being the only characters given any depth.
Still, I’m definitely interested enough to move on to book 2.
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LibraryThing member Neilsantos
Read this on M's suggestion. I liked it, I'd read a lot of Steele's stuff when I used to read Sci Fi. This isn't really as much Sci Fi as pioneering. I totally don't see the Robert Heinlien connection, I think its more like Mark Twain's Roughing It.
LibraryThing member twiglet12
I hadn’t heard of Allen Steele before picking the three coyote books up in Oxfam but I gotta say I rather enjoyed this novel (or is it a collection of short stories set in the same world?) I especially enjoyed the two stories (The Days Between & Lonesome and a Long Way From Home) that deal with
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being alone; whether it be alone on a spaceship or alone in a unexplored and dangerous new world. It all felt a little like some of the boys own adventure stuff I loved as a kid; Lost World, Journey to the Centre of the Earth etc. I also liked the political aspects and the pioneering spirit and how the book ended. All in all I’m looking forward to the next instalment…. Show Less
LibraryThing member RBeffa
Coyote is a novel told in 8 parts. I have read a couple of short stories set in the Coyote milieu and other short stories written by Steele and enjoyed them quite a bit so I wanted to tackle the novels at some point. Coyote is built off of a number of stories previously published, and I had some
Overall I consider this an average novel, but I enjoyed this book well enough that I want to read the later novels in this series. The episodic nature of this story made it very easy to read. This is basically a space colony story with political overtones, especially in the beginning. The story begins in the year 2070. The United States no longer exists, having had a "second revolution" and is now fractured. Looking at some reviews by others on the net I see a huge variation in likes and dislikes. Some favorite parts are what others hate. Some people are really bent out of shape by some of the politics in the book, or at least what was implied. Note to self: When I write my great science fiction novel I will not name the space shuttles in my totalitarian police-state country the "George Wallace" or the "Jesse Helms". I will also not rename Cape Canaveral/Kennedy "Gingrich".
I won't discuss the storylines. Some of the characters in the story are a little cartoonish, and the character development for some was OK and for several here really failed for me, which caused me a bit of trouble keeping track of who was who. I liked the first part of the novel, before the starship arrives at the planet Coyote the best, and felt it bogged down quite a bit with the initial colonization. I did find most of the storylines interesting and involving as a reader. The plusses in this book are more than the few minuses. There are some surprises that stretch things a bit, but I'm glad I read it.
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old familiarity from having read parts of this in some issues of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine a decade ago. It was much better reading this in sequence.Overall I consider this an average novel, but I enjoyed this book well enough that I want to read the later novels in this series. The episodic nature of this story made it very easy to read. This is basically a space colony story with political overtones, especially in the beginning. The story begins in the year 2070. The United States no longer exists, having had a "second revolution" and is now fractured. Looking at some reviews by others on the net I see a huge variation in likes and dislikes. Some favorite parts are what others hate. Some people are really bent out of shape by some of the politics in the book, or at least what was implied. Note to self: When I write my great science fiction novel I will not name the space shuttles in my totalitarian police-state country the "George Wallace" or the "Jesse Helms". I will also not rename Cape Canaveral/Kennedy "Gingrich".
I won't discuss the storylines. Some of the characters in the story are a little cartoonish, and the character development for some was OK and for several here really failed for me, which caused me a bit of trouble keeping track of who was who. I liked the first part of the novel, before the starship arrives at the planet Coyote the best, and felt it bogged down quite a bit with the initial colonization. I did find most of the storylines interesting and involving as a reader. The plusses in this book are more than the few minuses. There are some surprises that stretch things a bit, but I'm glad I read it.
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LibraryThing member JudyGibson
Competent fiction, but not really sci fi, in my opinion. Aside from riding a spaceship to get to their new home, this was simply a novel about colonizing a new place. Hardship, conflict, teen angst, ho hum.
LibraryThing member Cataloger623
386 pages Science fiction. America has been taken over by a religious right wing oppressive government.This government has built Earth's 1st space ship capable of reaching a worlds that humans can live on. This is how the book opens up. The next 350 pages tell a gripping story of hijacking and
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exploration. Allen Steele writes one heck of a yarn. This book kept me involved from the 1st to the last page.A complete story in and of its self , this book is the 1st of 3 books that explore the ideas of Freedom , revolution, and colonization. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jefficus
In a repressive America, beggared by their despotic dream to plant the seeds of zealotry on a new world, a group of dissident intellectuals dream a dream of their own: to steal the colony ship and start the new world themselves, even though none of them have been trained for the task.
That's how
It's a good story with some interesting developments but it never really grabbed me. I think the structure of serial short stories prevents it from having a developmental story arc that emotionally engages us from start to finish, and the lack of a clear and consistent protagonist makes it harder to stay connected to the drama as it unfolds.
If you like serialized short stories, or colony-world adventures, this should be right up your alley.
That's how
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this story begins, the first in this series of connected short stories. In the ensuing stories, we journey across the stars with the escaping colonists and then live with them throughout the first few years of life on their new planetary home, dubbed _Coyote_.It's a good story with some interesting developments but it never really grabbed me. I think the structure of serial short stories prevents it from having a developmental story arc that emotionally engages us from start to finish, and the lack of a clear and consistent protagonist makes it harder to stay connected to the drama as it unfolds.
If you like serialized short stories, or colony-world adventures, this should be right up your alley.
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LibraryThing member orkydd
Allen Steele may well be familar with Jefferson Starship's 'Blows Against the Empire' which counter-culture revolutionaries steal a starship from 'Uncle Samuel' and go out into the universe to find freedom.
Allen Steele's Capt Robert E Lee in instrumental in a plot by political dissidents in the
Because the novel was assembled from a series of short stories, there is a an element of repetition which should have been eliminated with better editing. The stories are littered with basic errors of science, but the story rolls along in an unthreatening enough way. Many reviewers have a go at Steele's rather lackadaisical writing, and point out the errors for our edification. (My favourites include varying length of day & night on a moon without axial tilt, and a failure to remember tides, plus of course the lack of planning for eventual colonisation by the repressive URA - more guns and bullets than food!)
Allen Steele's Capt Robert E Lee in instrumental in a plot by political dissidents in the
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space industry to hijack the USS Alabama, prototype starship of the repressive United Republic of America, built at ruinous cost to the economy to immortalize the government's ideology by planting a colony of fanatics on another star's planet. Because the novel was assembled from a series of short stories, there is a an element of repetition which should have been eliminated with better editing. The stories are littered with basic errors of science, but the story rolls along in an unthreatening enough way. Many reviewers have a go at Steele's rather lackadaisical writing, and point out the errors for our edification. (My favourites include varying length of day & night on a moon without axial tilt, and a failure to remember tides, plus of course the lack of planning for eventual colonisation by the repressive URA - more guns and bullets than food!)
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LibraryThing member Joanna.Conrad
It was disturbing, and I'm still not really sure what happened at the end. Most of it took place in the protagonist's head. But I liked that it was written in small bites. And I enjoy a book I have to think about to understand.
LibraryThing member LisCarey
It's 2070, the political situation in the US is appalling and the economy is no prize either, but we're finally about to launch our first interstellar mission, to colonize an Earth-like world, Coyote, a moon orbiting a superjovian planet of 47 Ursae Majoris B, 46 lightyears from Earth. The
Captain R. E. Lee, commander of the USS Alabama, and some of the other crew and colonists, have even more carefully planned a hijacking of Alabama, to leave most of the armed enforces of the political status quo at home.
They succeed, but it's not smooth sailing from there. After the excitement of getting away, and the long trip in hibernation, they have a moon to colonize--and their own political structure to work out, with some of the colonists and crew strongly supportive of the regime left behind. The crew, the colonists, and the small security detachment that couldn't be ditched all have to learn to work together if they're going to survive.
Because Coyote is "Earth-like," more or less, but the weather is like nothing they've dealt with before, and they arrived with no advance knowledge of what the flora and fauna would be like. They build homes, they work out a functioning government, they start to build the customs and habits that will let them survive.
Then one of their teenagers decides he needs to take one of their boats and circumnavigate their gigantic island. And the follow-up expedition, that's supposed to arrest the hijackers and bring the colony back into line, arrives.
This is a very well-plotted, well-written book, with excellent character development despite the large cast of characters that Steele and the reader have to keep track of. Coyote is a fascinating world, with really interesting life forms for the colonists to deal with, and some surprises lurking that will confound everyone.
Recommended.
I received this book from a friend.
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governance of the colony is carefully planned to keep it under the repressive political thumb of the current right-wing powers that be.Captain R. E. Lee, commander of the USS Alabama, and some of the other crew and colonists, have even more carefully planned a hijacking of Alabama, to leave most of the armed enforces of the political status quo at home.
They succeed, but it's not smooth sailing from there. After the excitement of getting away, and the long trip in hibernation, they have a moon to colonize--and their own political structure to work out, with some of the colonists and crew strongly supportive of the regime left behind. The crew, the colonists, and the small security detachment that couldn't be ditched all have to learn to work together if they're going to survive.
Because Coyote is "Earth-like," more or less, but the weather is like nothing they've dealt with before, and they arrived with no advance knowledge of what the flora and fauna would be like. They build homes, they work out a functioning government, they start to build the customs and habits that will let them survive.
Then one of their teenagers decides he needs to take one of their boats and circumnavigate their gigantic island. And the follow-up expedition, that's supposed to arrest the hijackers and bring the colony back into line, arrives.
This is a very well-plotted, well-written book, with excellent character development despite the large cast of characters that Steele and the reader have to keep track of. Coyote is a fascinating world, with really interesting life forms for the colonists to deal with, and some surprises lurking that will confound everyone.
Recommended.
I received this book from a friend.
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LibraryThing member nx74defiant
Really good story of colonization. Originally published as a series of short stories.
LibraryThing member Mrdrewk
scifi, I almost wish I hadn't read the trilogy so fast now...
LibraryThing member mkfs
Pretty straightforward tale about the colonization of a remote world. Being that it's Steele, we're given copious amounts of technical detail, and events are firmly grounded in reality. This is hard SF after all.
It's one of those novels which is good enough that you start to notice its
But it doesn't come across as a lack of preparation. Steele goes to great pains to show that he knows things could have turned out differently, but that this combination of events is what would make for the most interesting novel. This results in a sort of blooper-reel or series of alternate endings going through the reader's head: What if nothing on the planet was edible? What if the local vegetation was not suitable for lumber or firewood? What if the soil couldn't support terran vegetables? What if a local virus found the human immune system easy prey? What if a faster ship left earth years later and had already established a colony when these guys arrived? And on and on.
So, it's a fun read. Ending was a trifle off-putting, but that just means I won't bother with the sequels.
It's one of those novels which is good enough that you start to notice its
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shortcomings. Why are the governments all bogeymen? When a death is foreshadowed, why are you always sure it will be one of the rapdily-disappearing unlikeable characters? How come nobody is growing penicillin? Will that baroque calendar system really work in the long-term? Why does the planet seem more like an undiscovered continent than an alien world?But it doesn't come across as a lack of preparation. Steele goes to great pains to show that he knows things could have turned out differently, but that this combination of events is what would make for the most interesting novel. This results in a sort of blooper-reel or series of alternate endings going through the reader's head: What if nothing on the planet was edible? What if the local vegetation was not suitable for lumber or firewood? What if the soil couldn't support terran vegetables? What if a local virus found the human immune system easy prey? What if a faster ship left earth years later and had already established a colony when these guys arrived? And on and on.
So, it's a fun read. Ending was a trifle off-putting, but that just means I won't bother with the sequels.
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Subjects
Awards
Prometheus Award (Nominee — Novel — 2003)
Locus Recommended Reading (2002)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2002-11
Physical description
448 p.; 6.7 inches
ISBN
0441011160 / 9780441011162
Other editions
Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration by Allen Steele (Hardcover)