Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future
by Mike Resnick
Santiago (1), Far Future History (2), Birthright (11)
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When you're the most wanted man alive, your legend never dies. An adventure of interplanetary law and disorder from the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author. Santiago is a legend, known far and wide across the galaxy as the greatest killer and thief alive. He's the subject of songs, the faceless wanted poster on the wall, the bogeyman that parents name to scare their children into behaving. And he's the target of every bounty hunter in the universe. Sebastian Nightingale Cain has show more quite the reputation himself. Known as the Songbird, he's a former revolutionary who has killed hundreds of criminals for the right price. But one has always eluded him: Santiago. Now, Cain has gotten a lead on the elusive outlaw, and it's too hard to resist. In a race against a rival bounty hunter, Cain's quest will take him to the far-flung Frontier planets, where he'll encounter aliens and evangelists, journalists and cyborgs-all of whom have a stake in finding or protecting Santiago. But unraveling the threads of Santiago's life might get Cain tangled up in something far bigger than he ever imagined... "This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-duplicated stories that ensnare you in such a wondrous universe that you never, ever want to leave. It will spawn a half dozen sequels and two dozen or more imitators that will feed on our enrapture... but there will be only one Santiago." - The Evening Sun show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
A really interesting set of characters; the colorful characters kept me reading to the very end, even though this sort of novel (kind of a wild west, transposed out into space) is not my usual favorite.
As you get further into the novel, you start to realize there are some interesting moral questions, which turn in the end into a fascinating conclusion. Not at all what I expected from this novel, but I liked it. A lot.
As you get further into the novel, you start to realize there are some interesting moral questions, which turn in the end into a fascinating conclusion. Not at all what I expected from this novel, but I liked it. A lot.
This was one of the better of Resnick's stories. It's set in his regular quasi-Old West universe where everyone is colorful and somewhat larger than life. These have a samey-samey feel to them after a while but I enjoyed the fact that not everyone was what they seemed aspects of this story.
Santiago is such a pleasure to read. It has some of the most colorful characters in a sci-fi novel that I have read. The plot is engaging and there is a decent twist at the end.
The book follows Sebastian Nightingale Cain, much to his anger called the Songbird. He is a bounty hunter on the trail of the most notorious outlaw on the space frontier. The book is interspersed, at the beginnings of chapters mostly, with the ballad of Black Orpheus, who writes about the various characters on the frontier. This is followed by a short few paragraphs with information on that character and the manner that Black Orpheus met them, which turns into an interesting way to introduce whoever shows up in that chapter.
Cain has to deal with other brigands show more and is in a race against the best known bounty hunter in the galaxy, the Angel. The pace of the story is quick and it is a very easy read. One could get through this book in a weekend, I think. 5/5 show less
The book follows Sebastian Nightingale Cain, much to his anger called the Songbird. He is a bounty hunter on the trail of the most notorious outlaw on the space frontier. The book is interspersed, at the beginnings of chapters mostly, with the ballad of Black Orpheus, who writes about the various characters on the frontier. This is followed by a short few paragraphs with information on that character and the manner that Black Orpheus met them, which turns into an interesting way to introduce whoever shows up in that chapter.
Cain has to deal with other brigands show more and is in a race against the best known bounty hunter in the galaxy, the Angel. The pace of the story is quick and it is a very easy read. One could get through this book in a weekend, I think. 5/5 show less
This is one of my favorite books of all time. After reading it I got hooked on Mike Resnick, even though (I.M.H.O.) none of his other books quite measures up to Santiago.
Fairly simplistic science fiction folk tale with standard SF tech. Full review here.
A bounty hunter on the galactic inner frontier in the very distant future. A well-told tale by a master storyteller.
This is one of my all-time favorites.
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Author Information
574+ Works 14,724 Members
Mike Resnick was born on March 5, 1942. He sold his first article in 1957, his first short story in 1959, and his first book in 1962. He attended the University of Chicago from1959 through 1961. Resnick began writing stories under various pseudonyms and churned out more than 200 novels, 300 short stories and 2,000 articles, from1964 through1976. show more He edited 7 different tabloid newspapers and a pair of men's magazines, as well. Beginning with Shaggy B.E.M. Stories in 1988, Resnick has also become an anthology editor, and was nominated for a Best Editor Hugo in 1994 and 1995. His list of anthologies in print and in press totals more than 20. Since 1989, he has won four Hugo Awards, a Nebula Award, and has been nominated for 19 Hugos, eight Nebulas, a Clarke (British), and five Seiun-shos (Japanese). He has also won 10 Homer Awards, an Alexander Award, a Golden Pagoda Award, the Seiun Award (Japanese), a Hayakawa SF Award (Japanese), a Locus Award, an Ignotus Award (Spanish), a Futura Award (Croatian), the Tour Eiffel Award (French), the Prix Ozone (French), two Sfinks Awards and a Fantastyka Award (both Polish), and has topped the S. F. Chronicle Poll six times and the Asimov's Readers Poll twice. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Gallimard, Folio SF (137)
Présence du futur (540-541)
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Contains
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1986
- Important places
- Birthright Universe
- Dedication
- To Carol, as always.
And to my agent, Eleanor Wood,
For advice, encouragement, and money. - First words
- They say his father was a comet and his mother a cosmic wind, that he juggles planets as if they were feathers and wrestles with black holes just to work up an appetite. They say he never sleeps, and that his exes burn bright... (show all)er than a nova, and that his shout can level mountains.
They call him Santiago. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Come, child," he said gently, reaching out his bandaged right hand to her. "I am Santiago."
- Blurbers
- Brin, David; Foster, Alan Dean; Chalker, Jack L.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 698
- Popularity
- 40,715
- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (3.99)
- Languages
- 8 — Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Polish, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 14
- ASINs
- 7
