I picked The Sky People by S.M. Stirling from the library for the “alternate history” section of my 999 challenge. Based o the description I was expecting a combination of science fiction (set on contemporary Venus which has intelligent life on it) with alternate history. The later part came into play when the discovery of life on venus influenced human politics on Earth starting from the 1960s. As depicted in many other books (and hoped by the SETI crowd) such knowledge would make humanity realize that our local fights are so petty that they get abandoned. Other, more optimistic authors assume that humanity will just join forces in pursuit of learning more about the global outsiders. Stirling is more cautious and turns the cold war into a competition of who can get to the Venus first and establish presence there. But all of this is in the pat compared to the mainline of the book. Both the EastBloc and the US has establishments on the new planet while the EU is trying to catch up.
I didn’t expect the book though being so full of descriptions of nature walks, hunting with a mix of modern and way pre-modern tools and in general being so much focused on the natural environment. But as you can read it on page 140:
[on Earth] you always knew that you were really in an island of wild in a sea of civilization. Here [ on Venus] it was exactly the opposite. There was a world out there, and the base… and its cities were the islands. Tiny little islands, in a sea of living things, all of them mating and killing and eating just as they always had.
Looking at it from this perspective the book’s tone made sense. Too bad that hunting adventure stories are not my favorite genre.
Nevertheless the book was page turner, exciting and had enough twists for my liking. The linguistic, racial, gender and political mix was just right. Glad I read it; it was good entertainment, that didn’t make me think much.