Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Idea...but not one of Anthony's best, May 31, 2005
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.
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11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pure trash, April 12, 2004
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rainy Day Read, April 22, 2009
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, a family, in order to truly survive.
In this light, the characters' dysfunctionality enhances the story because a new view of "survival of the fittest" is presented here - our characters survive not because they individually are "fit", but because they are "fit" as a group, a combined whole, and the strengths of each character outweigh the weaknesses of the others. Each main character has a potentially fatal weakness, but it is the group as a whole that works 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 Galt-clones.
I highly recommend this book for a rainy day read. Note, though, that this book is probably not for small children - "Rings of Ice" includes, among other things, cannibalism 'a la Donner party' and a wonderful transvestite character whose inclusion may raise questions from young readers.
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