Steele, Allen: Coyote
Coyote
Writer: Allen Steele
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 431
Once upon a time (actually, last year), I got accepted to this little thing called the Odyssey Writer's Workshop. At Odyssey, there's a guest writer per week, and that guest writer has four private critiques with four students, and critiques three different student's work in class. Last year, I got a private critique from this crazy SF writer named Allen Steele, who also gave an interesting lecture on world-building.
Antcedote: we had to mail our work for private critique early, so when Allen Steele arrives for reception, and we all sit down for the Q&A session, the first thing he does is ask: "Which one of you is the Tennessee girl?"
Such things totally freak me out, but I raised my hand and then unintentionally monopolized his time for about five minutes. Turns out, he's a Tennessee guy too. I'd never read his work (save for a short story we were given earlier that week), but he was a really nice, funny guy who talked a lot about world-building in reference to Coyote, so I went ahead, bought the paperback (got it signed, whoot!) and stuck it on my shelf for a rainy day.
A year later, I pulled it down, sat down and started reading. And once I started, I had a really, really hard time putting the book down. It's one of those books that I shouldn't take with me to places where I'm not supposed to read, like work, but take it I did, and of course, was completely engrossed.
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 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.
So a major thumbs up, all the way. So much so that I'm putting off the book I was planning to read next so I can read Coyote's sequel, Coyote Rising. I was that gripped. So kudos to Allen Steele for excellent work: I'm looking forward to reading more of his books.