The Sky People is the first book of a two-book series (plus novella) that asks the question, Hey! Wouldn’t it have been great if Mars and Venus was actually as inhabitable as the Golden Age of SF assumed that they were? – only it’s hard science fiction. It more or less assumes no change to our timeline until the 1940s or so, but after that the changes start to accumulate. In the meantime you get giant Venusian dinosaurs in this one (and Martian rapier fights in the sequel), which is really the important thing here. Extra points for a universe where Edgar Rice Burroughs is the unchallenged greatest literary figure of the Twentieth Century…
And so, adieu to Blood Maidens.
Warning: unfinished series. Tor declined to publish the third novel (http://www.pjfarmer.com/stirling.htm), so we never got to find out What Was Really Going On behind the scenes. Which is a goram shame, because both novels are wonderful.
They really are fun — I liked In the Courts of the Crimson Kings even more than I did The Sky People. (And it had ROUS!)
I suspect that What’s Really Going On is another variation of the gimmick behind the Emberverse.
Agree with the former. Not so sure about the latter.
Stirlng’s popular enough that he could self-pub it and still make a pile of cash. Assuming he’s not contractually prohibited from doing so, of course.
I think Stirling’s point is that “it” doesn’t exist yet. He could either write the third in the series and self publish, or he could write something else for a publisher and get an advance and royalties.