Incarnations of Immortality

[antryg]

Has anybody read the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony? I recently decided to reread the books after an 8 year interval. I'd like to get other people's views on the books. Atty-boy need not reply since I already know his views [img]smile.gif[/img] .

[Chewbacca]

Excellent and imaginative work. Piers Anthony has lots of good reads besides the immortal series as well!

[IronDragon]

I once read an article where Piers Anthony boasted he only wrote one draft, never revising his work. My initial thought was that this really shows in the quality of his writings. Just imagine how good these books could be if he took the time to flesh them out and really work at it.

Anthony has good ideas but the fact he is more interested in production tons of mediocre books rather than a smaller number of really good books shows through.

[Chewbacca]

I disagree Iron Dragon....If that's his creative style, I wont diss it.

Besides, I don't recall any glaring plot-holes in the Incarnations series, but it has been a few years since I read them.

Then again, I've always enjoyed a books concept more than it technical execution in general so maybe we just have different tastes. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[antryg]

In some ways I have to agree with IronDragon. Anthony doesbeat his chest about the volume of his production. However, since I'm not looking for the "great novel" when reading fantasy, it doesn't bother me. I enjoy the the wide flow of new ideas that Anthony brings to the table. So, on the other hand, I agree with Chewbacca, that the imagination shown leads to great stories.

One thing which I have wondered about is if anyone else has noticed an ongoing anger towards organized Christianity/religion in Anthony's work. In the Incarnation series it is most obvious in "Love of Evil" where God is shown to be totally narcissitic, lost in self-adoration and it is up to Satan to make things right. The premise and ideas brought forth are thought provoking but Piers' moral and philosophical arguements show, what I take to be personal anger, and poor logic.

[Morgeruat]

I've stated several times in arguements with friends over his books, that he starts with an initially good idea, and then proceeds to disgust, and repel me by the third book, I believe it was "with a red sword" in this case, or it may have been the moronic book about the Fates (a Tangled Skien) but the books (aside from the first one about Death(On a Pale Horse), and the second one about Time (Bearing an Hourglass) the rest were very poorly written, and the storylines degenerated into sex sex and more sex, this was a huge turn-off for me when I read them at the age of 14(can you say Puberty, the age the books were supposedly sold for), the book about the devil, and God were the two worst in the entire series.

I didn't mind that evil was essentially a recap of the previous 5 books(well ok maybenot the one about time), or that he decided the devil got approval rights on the new God(book 7), I was just frustrated by how little substance there was in the book, and how he tried (and failed) to replace substance with eroticism.

I do have to thank him though, that series of his made me decide to never again pick up another one of his books.

His Xanth series suffered the same problem (don't know about the new Xanth, I've heard it was better than the old series) the first one or two books work very well on the concept level, but when he starts cranking out more books after the first few, they degenerate into sex with a minor plot to try and distract you from the fact that you're reading poorly done fantasy porn.

I do also understand he originally wanted to write the Xanth series as a childrens novel set, but his editor suggested that by making it slightly more mature he could market it to young adults, and so to make it "mature" he added sex, or references to it (what color ARE her panties).

[Thoran]

I've read maybe a 15-20 different Piers Anthony books... back when I was a teen. I enjoyed them at the time, but I doubt I'd get much from them today. I believe his books are fairly narrowly targeted towards teens, not a lot of depth and a lot of silliness and sex.

[Azred]

<font color = lightgreen>I read the Incarnations series back during my university days. They were all-right, but by the third book it appeared as if Anthony had trapped himself in what was originally a good idea, but now he couldn't escape from it. Nothing to do but finish the series and move on to something else. I've read worse....</font>