Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Santiago

Sunday, February 12, 2023

The Return of Santiago (Santiago #2) ★★★✬☆

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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.

★★★✬☆

Friday, January 06, 2023

Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (Santiago #1) ★★★★★

Title: Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future
Series: Santiago #1
Author: Mike Resnick
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 328
Words: 116K

Another re-read of an old favorite and thankfully, this time it stood the test. Like other “favorites” I had read this in highschool and Bibleschool multiple times and loved it. Read it again in ‘12 and loved it then too. But after my time in November of re-reading a couple of old favorites and finding them wanting, I went into this very hesitantly.

And wonder of wonders, it was grand and big and all space shoot’y and awesome and everything that I wanted in a Myth of the Far Future! It’s a simple story with simple characters and a simple universe. If you want massive backstories explaining every single detail, forget it. If you want characters with bio’s running from their childhood to the present, forget it. Use your own flipping imagination for once and Resnick will give you the ride of a lifetime here. I can see myself moving beyond this like I have the other books, but I am reveling in the fact that right now, it is still the same fantastic book as ever.

The other thing I’m going to talk about here are the various covers.

This is the cover of the mass market paperback that I read back in the 90’s. That orangey yellow is what made it stand out on the revolving book rack in the library. The guy with the funny haircut holding out the paper with the spaceship in the background promised mystery and adventure and cool stuff and boy howdy, I got all of that.

When Resnick turned his books into ebooks, I believe he had to use new covers because he didn’t own the rights to the originals. So he went with this stock photo (and he used it for the sequel ebook too) and overall, it works well. We’re dealing with Space and the farthest reaches of where mankind can go, so something haunting like this feeds into that idea.

This is the ebook cover this time around. Resnick is now dead, so I don’t know if he chose this before his passing or it ended up the decision of his estate. Either way, it’s rather blah and very homecomputer graphics looking. Why you would choose to read this book based on that cover is beyond me.

And that should wrap things up. Cheers!

★★★★★