Under a Velvet Cloak (Incarnations of Immortality, Book 8) (Paperback)

by Piers Anthony (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The eighth book in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. It is the year 500 AD. Kerena, a beautiful young girl living near King Arthur's Camelot, is apprenticed to Morely the Seer. Morely teaches her fantastic magic, but when he mysteriously disappears, Kerena finds herself out on the street and must resort to prostitution to survive. Kerena prospers as a skilled courtesan until she is taken into service by Morgan le Fey, the sorceress sister of King Arthur. Kerena's knowledge of magic grows as she is required to carry out nefarious deeds for the evil Lady Fey. One of her missions is to seduce Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, to prevent him from locating the Holy Grail. But Gawain and Kerena fall in love and she conceives his child, a child she discovers is cursed to die an early death. Using her Seer abilities, Kerena tries to locate the fabled Incarnations of Immortality, seeking their aid in removing the taint from her baby. Rebuffed by all seven major Incarnations, Kerena vows revenge. But revenge against such mighty immortals would require an even greater power...

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Mundania Press LLC (December 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594262942
• ISBN-13: 978-1594262944
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,858 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Short, and thankfully so, May 12, 2008

By	Life-long Gamer (Arlington, TX USA) - See all my reviews

When I saw an 8th book in the Incarnations of Immortality had been released, I was ecstatic. Piers is one of my top fave authors, and Incarnations is one of my favorite series of his.

That said, the 8th volume seems to have limped into existence. Primarily obsessed with sex (no surprise from Piers, yet still more so than ever before), it essentially adds a tiny bit of detail and back story to the series while recapping the events, or at least the origins of the events, of the previous 7 books.

It also explains the events of the previous 7 in a way that mutes the accomplishments of every prior protagonist as simply a manipulation of the latest.

Three stars overall if you're a superfan such as myself. Two at best if not. I'm not sad to have read it, but I'll be passing it on to another fan, not keeping it in my collection.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not one of Anthony's best works, April 8, 2008

By	drewg (PAC NW, USA) - See all my reviews

Under a Velvet Cloak tells the story of the girl who will eventually become Nox, The Incarnation of Night. It starts out in the Middle Ages, and goes all the way up to modern times. However it almost very quickly develops into a soft porn novel. Like the sixth book of the series, For Love of Evil, this book tells the events we are familiar with from Nox's point of view. We find out the origin of the taint on Gawain's family. All in all the book wasn't that bad but it could have been better.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Simplistic and contrived, September 5, 2008

By	P. King "bookbaron" (Dartford, Kent, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you've read the other books in the series, you'll be aware of Anthony's attempt to tie the incarnations in to one family. This book suffers from the same plot contrivance. The central character is a ghost-possessed magician-turned-whore, sort-of-trained by a perfunctory Morgan-Le-Fey, who elects to become a vampire while pregnant, cursing her child to the nth generation in the process. Spurned (rudely) by the incarnations, she vows revenge. Conveniently, the vampire group has a library to rival that of Alexandria, there are helpful ghosts (Thanatos getting lax?) who get together in a circus and can travel through time (Chronos getting lax?) and between parallel dimensions, and cameos from Lilith and a completely new incarnation Erebus.
The plot hangs together - just - but would benefit from fleshing out with details: magicians and their training, vampires and their history, characters more rounded and their motivations more layered, the nature of the curse (tied in with Fate?). On A Pale Horse was still the peak of this series.