Steele Allen 01

Reviews & Overviews by Rod Cameron

Coyote - Allen Steele

I have not come across Allen Steele before, but he is an American journalist who has turned towards writing fiction. The planet, or strictly moon, Coyote is located in a solar system 40 light years from Earth. This first book, Coyote concerns the colonisation of this moon by a 100 people who are escaping from a totalitarian American government. They manage to hijack the government’s flagship spacecraft, travel to Coyote, land there and survive their first year in a hostile environment.
The emigrants are a mixture of dissidents and malcontents with the odd party activist thrown in. They are men, women and children who have a broad blend of experiences and attitudes. And this complexity is aided in part by the author’s style of writing. Originally a series of short stories in Asimov’s SF magazine, he has retained the interrupted flow by including narrative in a number of different styles from a number of different protagonists; including for example, diaries and journals, as well as more regular narrative. Although this does make the reading slightly disjointed, it does have the benefit of developing a number of the different characters very quickly.
All in all this is a very readable first book in a series, and I will be acquiring the second one on an urgent basis. Particularly with an excellent “cliff hanger” which sets out the main plot of the second book Coyote Rising. The third book is called Coyote Frontier.

Publisher: Orbit
Date: 2005
Pages: 550 Pages
Price: £6.99
ISBN: 1-84149-367-8
Format: Paperback
Reviewed by: Rod Cameron
Date Reviewed: January 2006

Coyote - Allen Steele
I have not come across Allen Steele before, but he is an American journalist who has turned towards writing fiction. The planet, or strictly moon, Coyote is located in a solar system 40 light years from Earth. This first book, Coyote concerns the colonisation of this moon by a 100 people who are escaping from a totalitarian American government. They manage to hijack the government’s flagship spacecraft, travel to Coyote, land there and survive their first year in a hostile environment. The emigrants are a mixture of dissidents and malcontents with the odd party activist thrown in. They are men, women and children who have a broad blend of experiences and attitudes. And this complexity is aided in part by the author’s style of writing. Originally a series of short stories in Asimov’s SF magazine, he has retained the interrupted flow by including narrative in a number of different styles from a number of different protagonists; including for example, diaries and journals, as well as more regular narrative. Although this does make the reading slightly disjointed, it does have the benefit of developing a number of the different characters very quickly. All in all this is a very readable first book in a series, and I will be acquiring the second one on an urgent basis. Particularly with an excellent “cliff hanger” which sets out the main plot of the second book Coyote Rising. The third book is called Coyote Frontier.
Publisher: Orbit Date: 2005 Pages: 550 Pages Price: £6.99 ISBN: 1-84149-367-8 Format: Paperback Reviewed by: Rod Cameron Date Reviewed: January 2006