And the final part of my reading list from the last three months. Continuing the nostalgia of re-reading old books, I dug out the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony out from under my bed (it was buried way, way back there). As you can see from the yellow pages, the books are probably some of the oldest I still own and it's been a while since I've read them. Each book in the series focuses on one mortal as they navigate their new role as an Incarnation of a concept that has guided mankind: Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil, and Good (this is also the order of the 7 books in the series).
On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony
"Time seemed to slow, and Zane could do nothing to about the suicide he had set up. Yet the shock of seeing the visage of Death himself had abruptly banished any desire Zane had to kill himself.
His finger muscles would not obey him, but his larger arm muscles did. Zane wrenched the pistol around. The muzzle came to bear on Death's head as the trigger tripped. The gun seemed to explode, kicking back against his hand.
The bullet smashed into the center of Death's face.
A hole opened. Blood flowed. Death fell heavily to the floor.
Zane stood aghast. He had killed Death."
In an age of science and magic, Zane is down on his luck having squandered away his money as well as love. With his future bleak, he decides to take his own life. As he begins to pull the trigger of the gun he is startled by the arrival of the specter of Death, and shoots the other instead. Having murdered Death, Zane must now assume the role as the Incarnation of Death and reap the souls of humanity until he too is murdered by his successor. As he conducts his duties, the other Incarnations reveal they manipulated his future to install him as the new Incarnation of Death as a means to foil a plot by Satan. Zane must now use his office and all the powers of Death to oppose Satan, or lose the woman he loves and allow the future of humanity to fall into Satan's grasps.
This being book one of the series, the story follows Zane as he assumes the role of Death/Thanatos. The beginning of the novel starts as more of a serialization of events as we follow Zane in his retrieval of different souls and the dilemma he faces when confronted with each task. I think it's about halfway into the book when the larger plot is revealed and Zane must actively confront Satan and foil his scheme using the powers of the office of Death.
The series is set (I'll try to make this the only time I talk about the setting so I don't repeat it for every book in the series) is in the modern age except that mankind has seen advances in both science and magic such that both are often seen competing with each other for the same roles, such as billboards advertising travel by car vs magic carpet. I guess the idea was very new and imaginative back in the 80s (or at least it seemed that way when I talked with my dad about it) but with all the media I've consumed from tv, video games, anime, manga, comics, etc, it's definitely something I've seen before. I think the genre would probably fall under Urban Fantasy in today's times, or maybe just Fiction.
Even though I know no one is reading this looking for a new book to read, I do want to share one turn-off and that's the sexism. Granted, the series was published in the 1980s so of course it was a different time and I guess socially acceptable to say things like that, but I do want to say that it is prevalent in this book and a bit more so in later books. Some of the examples in this book is the woman as a bad driver but the stereotype is taken further when compared to women driving magic flying carpets. Also the main female character stating that she's guided by her emotions and less logical as all women are.
Bearing an Hourglass by Piers Anthony
"'If I attempted to simplify this particular life - which I could indeed accomplish - it would only lead to a greater mischief for other lives. God and Satan are at war - have been since time began - and the fallout from their strife is with us always. It is not for me to dictate on whom that fallout shall fall; it is only for me to mesh it properly. I am the servant, not the master - and so are you. We must do what we must do, implementing the rules that exist.'"
Norton is wandering through the woods when a ghost approaches him with a proposition: assist him in siring an heir. When he meets the ghost's bride, Norton is instantly smitten. Following a tragedy caused by the meddling ghost, Norton resumes his vagabond lifestyle until approached by the ghost once again. To make up for his error, the ghost offers Norton another opportunity to possibly regain his love: by taking up the office of Chronos, the Incarnation of Time. Upon assuming the office, he finds that though he is able to manipulate time, he is still bound by its constraints and not able to regain the life he once had. He is also bound to live an even lonelier existence as he lives his life backwards until time of his birth when he will pass the office to his successor. Satan naturally picks upon Norton's inexperience and loneliness, and tempts him with a new kind of adventure to other worlds throughout the galaxy as evil exists everywhere. Caught up in the distractions, Norton misses Satan's ploy and must use all of his magic to undo changes made in time.
Set in the same universe as On a Pale Horse, I guess this would actually be my first experience with a shared universe (you know, like Marvel is doing now with their movies and tv shows). Bearing an Hourglass is set in the future from the first book as Zane has held the role of Thanatos for a while, and Luna has already become a US Senator primed to balk Satan's goal.
I'd like to mention that compared to the first book, this one is much more ... technical I think is a good word to describe it. Holding the office of Time, Norton will need to know about vectors and force and gravity and other science-y stuff (I'm dumb). There are sections that deal with the rotation of the Earth as well as position within the universe at any given moment, and I'm the kind of reader who still laughs when I read the scene involving a guy going to the bathroom backwards (people aren't happy when Chronos sets time in reverse and things begin to go in when they were once going out). These technical aspects are important as they explain how Norton is able to work himself out of trouble but they were kind of boring to read through.
Finally, in regards to these two and the rest of the books in the series, if you were looking for who to blame for those last sections following my stories I write, well it's probably these books. Most novels just come with a page or two of acknowledgements, people the author would like to thank for helping the story get written, edited, and published. The end of these books though come with a long chapter about how Anthony wrote the books and how each particular theme affected his life at the time of writing. I didn't read them this time, but I did the first time I read it. To be fair, most of the writing process is boring. No one cares about it, and no one should. I can't stream my writing process or else you'd end up watching me stare at a blank page for a while, write a few lines, get bothered by something else that needs to be done instead, watch some videos on Youtube, repeat. Still though, it does feel nice to talk about it, to discuss the struggles so you know you're not the only one going through it.
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