Customer Reviews

Bearing An Hourglass (Incarnations of Immortality, Book 2)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"Bearing an Hourglass" is the second volume of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, dealing with the Incarnation of Time. The series began successfully with "On a Pale Horse", but this instalment is a little more cautious in approach, and suffers somewhat from sequel syndrome.

Like several other characters from the Incarnations series, Norton is just an ordinary man who unexpectedly has the mantle of Chronos (Time) thrust upon him. He must learn to fulfil the duties of his office and deal with its peculiarities- such as living backwards in time!

The temporal quirks and paradoxes that Norton must explore create some added interest in the storyline. Overall, however, the plot lacks the verve and interest of the first book, wandering from the path in places and losing direction.

As a whole, the series is definitely worth reading, and "Bearing an Hourglass" is worth reading as a part of the series. As a stand-alone volume, however, it doesn't quite satisfy. Read it in context: the complex interlinking plots of the seven books that make up the Incarnations series are partially explained by this book, but it remains one of the weaker links in the series.

6 stars out of 10

I enjoyed the first "Incarnation" story "On a Pale Horse" very much, and hoped the rest of the books would hold up as well. The rest of the series follow pretty much the same format, but each tells the story of a different aspect of humanity and life: Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature and Evil. The stories vary in the way that the protagonists deal with adversity using the powers of their respective roles as these incarnations.

Bearing an Hourglass starts out in the usual story about the life of the protagonist, in this case a wanderer who doesn't think he'll ever settle down. The critical moment is when they are faced with the prospect of immortality in exchange for service to all of humanity, and in this case, the lead character is faced with saving his love from a sorrowful death in exchange for becoming the incarnation of time, Chronos.

The story takes many twists as Satan tries to take advantage of the new Chronos's lack of experience, as Satan tries deception after deception to prevent Chronos from foiling the doings of Evil.

I enjoyed the story very much, and would recommend the whole series to anyone familiar with Anthony's other work. It's also a good introduction to Anthony, though I would also recommend the 2 "Adept" series. Both "Incarnations" and "Adept" blend magic/fantasy and technology in interesting ways to create universes that stand out from typical sci-fi or fantasy.

This book is a talks of the Incarnation of Time, Chronos and his assumption of this office and his Battle with Satan. This book is by far more complex than any other book in this series because it deals with issues such as the Paradox, which this book is riddled with (Chronos is immune to the Paradox), the fact that once the office of Time is assumed the office holder must live in reverse for that is the nature of the office. Some of the conversation with charaters that he has not aligned with is tough. (?naem I tahw eeS)...His device of his office THE HOURGLASS is by far the most powerful the incarnations wield and his learning to use it is an essential key in this story.

Satan is a key figure in all of the incarnation books for as a new person assumes the various offices, he like to take advantage of their inexperiece to exploit them to his advantage.

Read this book slow and down't be afraid to re-read sections to get it all. It is an awsome book if you take it slow. The Other incarnation novels are not nearly as complex.

I've been going through this phase of re-reading books that I first read when I was younger, and like many pre-teens I had been an avid reader of Piers Anthony. It's interesting that I find now what I also found true then-- namely, that the first Piers Anthony book in any given series is always the best, with the following books becoming increasingly sillier and sillier. The first book in the incarnations of immortality series had some clever and original ideas, but past that it lapsed into the besetting Anthony sins of pre-adolescent boy fantasy and deeply goofy plot.

. . .from the first "Incarnations of Immortality" novel.

"Bearing an Hourglass" deals with the character of Time. While the introductory couple of chapters set the stage rather well, the remainder of the novel fails in its promise. Norton, in his role as Chronos, traveling backward and forward through time, encounters numerous attempts to dissuade him in his purpose -- to fight against Satan and the forces of evil.

However, the "encounters" don't seem realistic (even for a fantasy novel). The freshness of the first novel is almost totally absent, as is the depth of character development.

When I first read this volume some 8-10 years ago, I found it one of the weaker efforts of the series. A recent re-reading has not disabused me of this notion.

Worth a read as part of the series -- but standing alone, it is a grave disappointment.

I struggled throught this second book at first, mostly because i missed reading about Zane. After a while, though, i got over it and actually really enjoyed this one too. The only thing i didn't like was that they spent too much time in the "alternate reality" setting that satan sent Norton to. Other than that, i loved the beginning prior to him taking office with the ghost. I also liked the idea of chronos living backward. Drawkcab was the funniest chapter in a book i have ever read. If you have already read Death then read this for sure. if not, why the hell haven't you read death yet?

The first book in the series was great, full of interesting ideas and ponderings about the nature of good, evil, and death. This book was rather devoid of that. I ended up wondering whether the protaganist ever actually did his job, and if so, did it have more to it than taxi-ing Fate around time? The only point to this book, it seems, is to provide some background material for the climax of the series. Otherwise, it was just Norton playing fantasy games with Satan.

I personally loved the book, but reading some of these other reviews, I would have to agree with many of the negitive comments, but would like to put in a word for the book. I think that Piers Anthony has many great origional ideas, but does not take them really far. Second, True there may be, in some people's opinion a lack of climax. I think this just allows for inspiration of creativity and allows for the reader to easly think of how the story could be very different, or ideas could have gone other directions. Piers Anthony does not write soap operas. He writes from a personality perspective of the normal 'sci-fi geek' type. If you like to overalalyze the hidden philosophical meanings behind 'Star Trek', I would definatly recommend this book.

"Bearing An Hourglass" is, frankly, one of the best books I have ever read. Piers Anthony is a wonderful writer, continuing the series that began with "On A Pale Horse" (my personal favourite). "Hourglass" caused me to actually pause and think, which is something to be treasured when provoked by any means (I began to read Stephen King while blundering my way through the fourth grade). I took to slowly absorbing all the book has to offer, and still have not made my way entirely through everything. My favourite thought to turn over in my mind is this: Who initiated the relationship between Clotho (otherwise known as Niobe) and Chronos (Norton)? I shall leave you to mull it over for yourself...this question stole quite a few hours of sleep from me!

Bearing an Hourglass is an excellent novel, combining the feeling of classic science fiction with a story of a man who is searching for his place in the entire scheme of things. The same theme is present in this particular novel that is shown in the other four books of the first five. Many times during my reading of this book, I found myself trapped within the pages. I could not put it down. You will most likely finish this book in one sitting. But, a word of warning. Bearing an Hourglass may give you a headache :( . The fascinating plot will make you have to think very hard of what is actually being said. This is my personal favorite of the series and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.