“When you’re the most wanted man alive, your legend never dies.”
Santiago by Mike Resnick is an exciting take on what has become known as the space western. Properties such as Firefly / Serenity, Cowboy Bebop and even the original Star Trek, which Gene Rodenberry once termed a ‘wagon train to the stars’. The genre itself is defined by its focus on the individual characters and how they interact with one another rather than the universe shaking nature of any plot in which they may find themselves entangled.
I read a fantastic article a few months ago that tied space westerns together with three key elements: “exploring new and often lawless frontiers, “ragamuffin” motley characters, and a sense of community as those same characters are thrown together whether they like it or not.” (Ann-Marie Cahill, “THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS: SPACE WESTERN BOOKS”, https://bookriot.com/space-western-books/, October, 2022). Santiago has these in spades.
At its root, Santiago is a story of personalities as seen through the eyes of frontier poet, Black Orpheus. More Homer than Longfellow, Black Orpheus travels to the darkest edges of interstellar civilization and writes into his every expanding epic, the fascinating characters found there. Colorful names war with more colorful personalities, including The Angel, Jolly Swagman, The Virgin Queen, Virtue MacKenzie, Sabastian ‘Nightingale’ Cain and, of course, Santiago.
It is a simple story, one that has parallels in every culture and time. A villain arises, bringing with them fear and violence. A virtuous hero rises to bring the malcontent to justice. But what happens when the hero is not quite virtuous? What happens when those who place themselves in the role of hunter instead become the hunted? Santiago is a story of the patches of gray that exist between the beats of every legend, the places where romance meets reality.
Contrary to the operatic expectations that comes with most science fiction, Resnick keeps the reader’s focus on the characters. We get to know Caine, Virtue, Angel and Swagman intimately as each races against the others to find the elusive Santiago, scourge of the stars. Their reasons are varied as their personalities, but all are deadly series in their pursuit. It is this focus on not only the main characters but also the menagerie of rogues, killers and heroes they meet along the way that pulled me into this book. Once it has you in its grip, it will not let go.
Santiago is available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Santiago-Myth-Far-Future-Saga-ebook/dp/B0B8C67V7V?ref_=ast_sto_dp) but, in my opinion, it is best read in the most beat up, gloriously used paperback that you can find.
Full disclosure: Mike Resnick’s Santiago is a book that is very close to my heart. That may prevent my review of it from being completely unbiased. One rainy night, facing down the barrel of a LONG term grounding for not paying my studies the attention that they deserved, I discovered Santiago in the now defunct Jamesway in my home town.
I was immediately taken with the cover and the blurb. As I was not going to watching TV, visiting my friends or seeing the outside of my house for a while, I jumped as something besides Colonial History to fill my nights. Within its pages, I found a fantastic journey, half space opera – half wild west tale. It was from Resnick that I learned to let my writing breathe and see a story as a series of scenes out of the life of a character rather than forcing my plot into the lead role. I still read this book to this day and each time, I am flown back to that first time.
