8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting theme, July 12, 1999
By A Customer
Piers Anthony, in his Incarnations of Immortality series, has done what no author has done before (or, at least not as well). He described some of the most difficult to explain aspects of our existance. Of course, he does that from his point of view, but it is very surprising, and, in the end, amazing, how much thought is put into each of the books.
Anthony has had difficulty coming up with appropriate event sequences in prior books, as is most apparent in the 3rd one, The Tangled Skein. However, he links it all briliantly, and creates feelings and emotions that few other authors can. Of that, the relationships between incarnations, natural as well as supernatural, are exemplary instances.
I have waited 7 books to finally read about the Incarnation of Good. I was, to say the least, a little disappointed, but then it struck me: Anthony speaks true, once again! For many years, few have ever believed that a prayer has been answered, or that a worship has been appreciated. Anthony explains that so simply, it's laughable. The Incarnation of Good was, after all, everything I expected Him to be, just not exactly in the same manner.
Because some who have not read the book may be reading this, I attempt to give away none of the plot, but I definitely recommend this one, and all the other Incarnation series.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Incarnations of Immortality series, April 16, 2008
To sum up the entire Incarnations series: good premise; poor delivery.
The basic concept is great; have normal mortal people become temporary immortals in order to fulfill the job duties of each "office" (death, time, fate, war, nature, good, evil). The offices are unknown to ordinary people; they don't even know they exist. Piers Anthony does an excellent job of establishing the mechanics of how such a bureaucracy operates, and how the different offices interact with and affect one another. Each book has its share of wit and humor, and is interesting and thought provoking in its own unique way.
These are the strengths of the Incarnations books; now for the one weakness. Every book in this series suffers from what I call the "Piers Anthony Puppeteer Effect" - an anomaly where all the main characters are basically Piers Anthony himself disguised by a background story. I must admit I have not read any other books by Piers Anthony, so maybe this is true for all his books, and maybe some people like this type of characterization. I just found it hard to believe that characters of such widely varying ages, sexes, cultures, countries, ethnic backgrounds, time periods (modern to medieval), etc, all have the same thought processes, outlooks, speech patterns, etc. In other words, the characters behave too much alike to be believable.
For example, in this book (And Eternity), we are introduced to a teenaged girl named Vita. She is a drug addict and prostitute in a desperate situation, yet she thinks and acts in a far too sophisticated manner. As the story unfolds, Vita "shares" her body with two ghosts: Orlene, a modern-day mature woman; and Jolie, a medieval peasant from France. Because all three share basically the same perspective, there is really no way to distinguish between them, other than by remembering that Vita is sort of a nymphomaniac, Orlene is on a quest after killing herself, and Jolie is the "responsible one."
Basically, you can substitute any mortal officeholder for another in any of the books and the story wouldn't change significantly, because all the characters are just puppets through which Piers Anthony speaks. And all of them use the word "balk." Couldn't ONE, just ONE character in any of the books use the word stop?... prevent?... block?... ANYTHING else besides balk? As I read through the series it got to the point where I would groan out loud every time any character used the word balk. It became very distracting, and actually led to my discovery of the "puppeteer effect." Maybe a drinking game for every time the word balk is used?
So, overall, I give the series 3 stars - the average of 5 stars for concept, 1 for the one-dimensional characters.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The worst of the series., July 8, 1998
I find it odd that this book got so many good reviews. I have read and reread all of the books in the series save this one.Anthony said he at first thought that good and evil were best left to our own imagination, he was right about this one (good) but did succed briliantly with evil.If you are just starting this series stop at #6, I wish I had.
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