perelgut@utai.UUCP (Stephen Perelgut) (11/27/85)
With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony a Del Rey Book, 1985 (hardcover) This is the third book in the "Incarnations of Immortality" series. The first book, "On a Pale Horse", and the second, "Bearing an Hourglass", are both available in paperback. The first book is the best science-fantasy books I've ever read. If you haven't read it yet, go out and buy it now. Read it now. I'll wait :-) The second book is fascinating since it deals with an interesting variation of moving through time. Beautifully handled, but I wouldn't expect to love it the first time. Definately worth a second read. The third book retells much of what has happened in the first two books, starting from a time well before the first book, and ending after the second. This is interesting from a number of standpoints. First, the book retells a story from a different viewpoint, with inconsistencies consistently making sense (even if that phrase doesn't). Second, it take the reader back just far enough to understand some of the underlying motivations in the first two books. Third, it advance the plot to a point just ahead of where book 2 left off (started off??? - you gotta read it to understand that comment). The characters seem a little weaker than the first two books, but that may just be due to my own feelings about the people/incarnations involved. On a scale of -4 to +4, this book is worth a 3. The major flaw is that I enjoyed "On a Pale Horse" more (give IT +4 - there might be a better book, but I doubt I'd be entertained more). Buy this in hardcover or suffer until late summer when it's a paperback :-) -- Stephen Perelgut Computer Systems Research Institute, University of Toronto