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Title: The Return of Santiago
Series:
Santiago #2
Author: Mike Resnick
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages:
278
Words: 122K
So, a hundred or two
years after the first Santiago
book, some small time thief discovers the original manuscript from
Black Orpheus and decides that he wants to become his successor, a
Dante. So he realizes that he needs a Santiago to center the
continuing poem around sets out to find one. With the help of some
colorful characters he attempts to recruit various bigger than life
characters to become Santiago only to realize that each one is pretty
flawed each time. Eventually, with the help of his co-horts hitting
him over the head with it, he realizes HE is the new Santiago.
Santiago was published in 1986 and was a completely standalone novel. Return was published in ‘03 and did a bit of fancy dancy stuff to make it possible to need a “return of Santiago”. While I still enjoyed this, it simply wasn’t in the same league as the first book and really felt like Resnick was trying to recapture the magic (and failing). Thankfully, he doesn’t recycle the same set of characters as was presented in the first book, so that was good. But none of them quite lived up the engaging’ness of the cast of characters we met in the first book.
If you liked Santiago, then I would recommend Return if you really need to be a completionist. However, I would strongly caution you to think twice, as this just isn’t as good. Not bad, but not as good.
★★★✬☆
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