Customer Reviews

Rings of Ice (Avon SF, 19448)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The idea behind this story is an interesting one, but you can tell this is his first novel. The idea is that a large comet(s) are exploded and diverted in such a way as to bring some additional rain to Earth. The ill conceived plan goes drastically wrong, and the earth is once again deluged with non-stop rain. Cilivization and the environment break down, and Anthony's band of misfits - being led by a man with a vision in a Winnebago - try to survive.

If you are a die hard Anthony fan, you should read this to help you understand his evolution as a writer. If not a die hard fan, you may want to avoid this one and try some of his other Sci-fi - like his Orn, Omnivore, and Ox trilogy, or Kirlian Quest Series.

Rings of Ice / 0-380-00036-9

I'm a moderate Piers Anthony fan, although goodness knows he has his flaws from time to time. I do enjoy his stand-alone science fiction, though, and "Rings of Ice" definitely delivers a punch.

Though it is a valid criticism of the book that several of the characters are somewhat shallow and one-dimensional, I think it is important to note that the individual characters here are not meant to be the main focus of the story. When the world begins to disastrously flood in a standard "science gone wrong" scenario, these dysfunctional and one-dimensional people must come together as a group in order to survive.

In this light, the characters' dysfunctional personalities enhance the story because a new view of "survival of the fittest" is presented here: our characters survive not because they are individually "fit", but because they are "fit" as a group. The strengths of the combined whole must outweigh the weaknesses of the individuals. Each main character has a potentially fatal weakness, and the group must work to overcome those weaknesses. This in of itself is a fascinating departure from standard fare survival fiction, where He-Men heroes and She-Ra heroines survive because they are just such ruggedly awesome people.

I definitely recommend this book for a rainy day read.

~ Ana Mardoll

I had a feeling going into this novel that it would be kind of trashy, but I am a sucker for apocalyptic/end-of-the-world stories, so I thought I'd read it anyway.

Bad, bad idea.

The writing is incredibly juvenille and amateurish (I cringed at how Anthony abuses the poor exclamation point), yet the content is often very adult and gruesome and not something I would recommend to young readers. The only remotely likeable characters are killed off and I just wanted to slap some sense into the rest of them. A rather nasty misogynistic thread runs through the entire piece as well. Parts of the story that could have been interesting are glossed over or rendered entirely unbelievable by the way they are presented. I honestly can't believe that crap like this could have gotten professionally published.

Don't waste your time or money on this one.

I am a loyal Piers Anthony reader and enjoy all of his works.. This one in my opinion was not one of his better efforts. It failed to do anything really exciting or interesting. I did want to find out how the survivors of the disaster fared however, which means it did capture my interest to some extent.

Man, this book was bad. I mean BAD. I don't know what the other reviewers were reading, but this was just...I have no words.

Why did I pick it up? Piers Anthony supposedly can write a decent standalone novel, I really liked the early books in all his adult series, I am fond of "end of the world" stories...the book was thin. I had hope. That was my fatal mistake.

All six people are dysfunctional - Zera is whiny, annoying and takes forever to catch on. Gus is pathetic - hydrophobic, lazy, lacking in social skills and constantly leering at the women. Gordan/Gloria is another fine example of Anthony's misogyny - Gloria is only good at girly things, Gordon is great at manly things. By the end of the book, I hated them all and hoped they'd just die.

The interactions between all of them are immature and in many places, just plain unrealistic. The storyline was dull and uninteresting, the ending, disappointing, and the writing was very clunky and amateurish.

If you've figured out that Anthony's older science fiction is some of the best ever written, then by all means find this book, as it's right up there in quality with Macroscope. It's a disaster, end-of-the-world story that's quietly moving and darn good.

I read this book when I was 15, on a rainy weekend in Florida. The book was a bit far fetched but most novels by Piers Anthony are. I was thrilled to find the book 13 years later on Amazon.com. I loved the book and have often thought what if the rain did not stop? Piers Anthony opened my mind to what changes could happen in a chaotic explosion of evolution, whom is fit to survive? what does it take to be the fittest? The Darwins of the world can rejoice! A Definite read for the thrill seekers that seeks to challenge their mind through a writers evolutionary fantasy.

I found this to be one of Piers Anthony's hardest books to put down, despite the middling reviews and criticism. I suppose it is possible it wouldn't hold up as well to a second reading many years later, but the story moved along at a good pace, the stakes were high, and I was involved with the characters. I would say this one is worth the investment.

While the writing might not quite match that of Piers Anthony's more recent works, I like that this book stands alone. Too many science fiction and fantasy works today offer subtitles like "Book Two Billion of a Multi-Billion Part Saga in Nine Hundred Stages." If you like high-concept science fiction, then look no further. After rainbows of ice formed around the Earth, they began melting, leaving an unlikely band of people to save themselves and each other. I enjoyed the frequent action sequences, and the growing relationships between the characters. I especially liked how the attitudes toward the transvestite character slowly changed, and how all the survivors learned to work together.

It's hard to believe these days, but Piers Anthony used to write his books one at a time, or in trilogies of no more than three volumes. In fact, he was considered one of the best of Science Fiction's "New Wave" of writers of the late 60s and early 70s

Rings of Ice, while not as "edgy" as much of the literature of the New Wave, is a fine example of the form -- thoughtful, character-driven, often intensely moving. The characters are deftly and realistically drawn, the action gripping but plausible.

With everything else Anthony has ever written, edited or used to prop up a rickety table filling the shelves at all the major bookstore chains, it's astonishing that Rings of Ice has remained out of print for so long. Seek it out.