b2@magic.UUCP (07/09/85)
Someone wondered if Piers Anthony was a taboo author in net.sf-lovers.
Since he has been writing "light" fantasy recently instead of "hard"
sf, I suppose some might say a review of his latest novel doesn't
belong there. Phooey on them.
A Short Review of "Bearing An Hourglass" by Piers Anthony
I picked up BAH as soon as I saw it in the library. It is the 2nd
in a series of ... hmm, 5 or 6. 5, I think. The main character of
each novel is an Incarnation, a mortal who personifies one of the
great forces of existence. They include Death (the subject of the
first book in the series, "On a Pale Horse"), Time (this book's
emphasis), Fate, Nature, and War. 2 immortal Incarnations also figure
in the story, Good ( played by God, whom we never see or meet ),
and Evil ( played by Satan/Lucifer/Beelzebub, whom we see quite a bit
of ).
The basic plot of each book seems to go as follows: a more or
less ordinary mortal finds himself selected to become the next
personification of the Incarnation that best fits the book's title.
He (no women so far, Fate and Nature will come later)
flounders about trying to control and use the powers of his office,
getting help and cryptic advice from the other mortal Incarnations.
He finds out Satan is trying to do something dastardly but is
rather ineffectual and Satan turns on his charm and makes you the
reader a bit tense. The new Incarnation, however, learns a lot about
his powers and how they interact with the world (in which magic and
science are equally well developed) and where he fits into it all,
so he ends up confronting and battling the Devil, trying to foil
his evil plans. Each book ends similarly, with the Devil either
winning or losing ( No sir, no spoilers here! ).
I enjoyed OPH very much. It had many interesting touches,
allusions, and puns. Since the Incarnation in OPH was Death, Anthony
presented the reader with quite a few interesting questions
concerning mercy killing, babies going to Limbo, life extension at
all cost, death and war, etc. I enjoyed BAH much less. For one thing,
there wasn't the same sort of interesting moral questions to delve into.
Anthony also spent a lot of time explaining how Time's equipment
worked, and shifting the new Time around. I didn't find this very
entertaining. There were some very interesting minor characters in
OPH. I remember quite a bit about the details of the plot of OPH.
Off hand, I can barely recall any minor characters in BAH that weren't
also in OPH. I can't remember much about the plot , even though I
read it much more recently. I guess the problem is that Death makes
a much more interesting and believable main character than Time does.
So, I was disappointed with BAH. But I am going to
to read the next books. I think BAH failed for me because Time, and
discussions about time arrows, living backwards, etc. just didn't hold
my interest. The other Incarnations, however, might be presented better.
Fate, Nature, and War all seem to have quite a bit of potential.
One last note. At the end of each book, Anthony has an
"Author's Note". He discusses his motivations and what he is currently
doing and where he got some of his ideas. The Note after OPH was
especially interesting, since he described his own brush with Death.
One could clearly see the influence of his day-to-day life on
his writing. In keeping with my statements above, I can't remember
anything about the Note in BAH.
b2
{backbone}ihnp4!bellcore!b2brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (07/11/85)
> > One last note. At the end of each book, Anthony has an > "Author's Note". He discusses his motivations and what he is currently > doing and where he got some of his ideas. The Note after OPH was > especially interesting, since he described his own brush with Death. > One could clearly see the influence of his day-to-day life on > his writing. In keeping with my statements above, I can't remember > anything about the Note in BAH. > > b2 > > {backbone}ihnp4!bellcore!b2 I can't hold back on this one. I have rarely been more put off by anything I read than I was by the afterword to On A Pale Horse. It was bad enough that, on reading it I felt it was slow in places, but he had to go on and tell me that he had padded it--mostly in places I thought were slow. I read the book and decided it was a good read. Then he put in this afterword explaining that it was really a better book than I, the reader, thought it was. And, to top it off, he explained that he was writing the afterword becuase the book was still too short. In some sense, it is refreshing to see a writer who is not troubled by the smallest hint of integrety, but all in all it was the most disgusting thing of its sort I have read since David Gerrold's preface to Diane Duane's first novel. -- SKZB
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/20/85)
In article <228@hyper.UUCP> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) writes: >I can't hold back on this one. I have rarely been >more put off by anything I read than I was by the >afterword to On A Pale Horse. Agreed. I think it was Lester Del Rey who said that stories ought to live or die by themselves, not by their introductory notes. For every author note I read in a book or story, I read two or three that drive me up the wall (I wasn't particularly thrilled to hear all about harlan ellison's vasectomy in Croatoan, for example...) >I read the book and decided it was a good read. Hmm... I liked On a Pale Horse enough that I bought "Bearing an Hourglass" (the second book in the series) in hardback just after it came out (THAT is a testimony that comes all too rarely...). I'm waiting on the third until it shows up in paperback, perhaps through the SFBC (that is a testimony that comes all too often....) -- :From the carousel of the autumn carnival: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA Your fifteen minutes are up. Please step aside!