Coyote Horizon by Allen Steele
Ace, $24.95, 357pp, hc, 9780441016822. Science fiction.
Warning: this review contains some spoilers of the book, because it’s difficult to review without going all the way to the end.
The sixth book in Allen Steele’s “Coyote” series is set on a colony planet that is finally coming into its own. In the more than 30 years since the first human mission settled on the Earth-like planet 47 light years from Earth. The subsistence-level settlement with modern technology has grown into a full-fledged society with several towns, industries, a civil service, and interstellar trade (thanks to the starbridge), not to mention being the sole point of contact for humanity’s relations with the other species inhabiting the galaxy.
But for all that growth, the planet with 100,000 residents is largely unexplored (the population is mostly confined to a few settlements within a few degrees of longitude), and the mega-wealthy Morgan Goldstein has decided it’s time to start checking out the rest of the planet. Well, he isn’t being entirely altruistic: one of the major nation-states back on Earth is collapsing, and Goldstein has the foresight to realize that more and more people will soon want to immigrate to Coyote, so it only makes sense to scope out the best land on the planet, snap it up, and make yet another fortune in real estate.
Meanwhile, Hawk Thompson, on parole after serving his prison term for murder, is living a dreary, meaningless life as an immigration inspector at the spaceport, stamping passports and going through the motions of living. Nothing happens in his one-day-is-the-same-as-the-last existence, and he’s, if not exactly satisfied, at least resigned to it. That is, until he meets the prostitute living across the hall. And then his uncle, retired President Carlos Montero comes to visit at work, because the hjadd are sending a new cultural ambassador, and the Federation has decided that all visitors must come through customs and immigration control, even if the hjadd don’t understand it. So Carlos and Hawk will smooth the process for the ambassador; no problem. Except that the ambassador sees something in Hawk, and gives him a gift, a book that changes Hawk’s worldview, and reawakens his soul. A book which causes him to jump parole, head out for parts unknown, and become a completely different person. The book, Sa-Tong, is more than just a religion: it’s a philosophy, a way of looking at existence, that, by its very simplicity, may just be the most insidious idea ever spread among people.
In addition to funding the Exploratory Expedition around Coyote, Goldstein is also looking for his friend and former equerry, Joseph Walking Star Cassidy. Cassidy up and disappeared into the wilds of Coyote some time back, and now Goldstein has had hints as to where he might be. But to find him, he needs to hire native guide Sawyer Lee. Together, they find the not-missing-but-hiding Cassidy in the backwoods of northern Coyote. He’s not simply hiding, but like the gang at Callahan’s Bar, he’s found a group that’s trying to get telepathic. And he shows Goldstein just how close to it they are. Goldstein accepts Cassidy’s demands, leaves the group in peace, and retains Lee as a guide on the Expedition, a new job which won’t last all the way around the planet, but will bring Lee together with Lynn Hu, the reporter from Earth who is spreading the word about the colony world.
The soul-awakening Sa-Tong, experiments in telepathy, and the good-or-evil question of contact with alien species all come together, as the reader has expected, in planet-shaking ways. Allen Steele knows how to tell a good story, and this is simply a continuation of a wonderful tale of colonization and growth. It’s a gripping, fast read that leaves the reader demanding the next volume.
But all is not sweetness and light, and there will always be some who reject the concept of a loving philosophy in favor of a vengeful god. And, as Dark Helmet said in Spaceballs, “evil will always triumph because good is dumb.” In this future, that evil is mostly misguided, rather than intentionally evil. Father Consenza knows a threat to his religion when he sees it, and the philosophy of Sa-Tong, if broadly accepted, certainly does spell the doom of organized religion. But Consenza isn’t merely going to pray for deliverance: he’s going to act. He hooks up with the one terrorist on the whole planet, and prepares a desperate Hail Mary (so to speak) to keep Sa-Tong from spreading, even if it means death, even if it means destruction, even if it means his own martyrdom. And unfortunately for Carlos, Hawk, and Coyote itself, it looks like evil really does triumph at the end of the book.
Steele has given us a messianic figure, one who wasn’t looking for the job, doesn’t want it, and isn’t sure what to do with it, but who realizes it’s his and he’d better do the best he can. And he’s given us an opponent to that messiah, one who looks for the job, wants it, and thinks he can do it, but who’ll do as much collateral damage as he can in the process. It’s a jarring ending to the book because, of the six he’s written in this universe, this one is by far the most devastating, unexpected, and seemingly unrecoverable. He’ll be writing another book in the series, if only because his screaming fans will demand it, and we’ll see what happens then. But for now, read Coyote Horizon, and maybe you’ll find yourself thinking about the philosophy espoused in Sa-Tong the same way it’s been worming its way into my head.