“Being a Green Mother (Book Five of Incarnations of Immortality)”, by Piers Anthony

320 pages, Ballantine Books, ISBN-13: 978-0345322234

Incarnations of Immortality is the name of an eight-book fantasy series by Piers Anthony, of which Being a Green Mother was Book Five – AND the last one that I read (sorry, man, but I just plumb lost interest). Orb (yup, that’s her name alright) always knew there was something special, something…otherworldly, about her musical ability: whenever she sang or played her harp she sensed a gathering of power that she could never quite grasp fully, so she dedicated her life in search of the llano, a song so powerful that it could manipulate nature itself. Her quest lead her around the world, finding and losing love, and ultimately to assuming the role of the Incarnation of Nature…but what about the fortuneteller who, when she was still a little girl, prophesied that Orb would marry Evil? Oh, and Orb is the Daughter of Niobe from With a Tangled Skein, by the way, AND her first true love is Mym, the Indian prince who becomes War in Wielding a Red Sword, so it’s interesting to see Anthony tie all of these characters and threads (heh) together in this fashion (and we mustn’t forget about Natasha, must we?)

As with all of the other books I read in this series, Being a Green Mother didn’t age all that well. The beginning managed to be interesting, while the last third or so was very well done; it manage to drag in the middle, though. And now for the bad news: BaGM just didn’t add much to Orb, in spite of the fact that we had met her earlier; every other book managed to display the powers that the specific Incarnation possessed and how they interact with other Incarnations. In this book, Orb doesn’t become Gaea until the end of the book and you didn’t really learn what she can do. You know that she is the most powerful Incarnation besides God or Satan, but you don’t see any of her powers (don’t TELL me Nature is powerful: SHOW ME!). Piers Anthony was obviously having trouble figuring out what to do with Nature – add to the fact that he just doesn’t write female lead characters very well and you have a very mediocre book (how many times can Orb dance the Tanana in a wet nighty?) *sigh* Overall a rather dull conclusion to the series, Being a Green Mother just doesn’t live up to the hype generated in earlier stories about Nature being the strongest of the Incarnations. The story plods along with trivial character interactions and no real development of the main protagonist – and then the one who becomes the book’s true protagonist is another one of the Incarnations, not even the main focal character of the story. To me, this felt like a significant let-down (but at least there was no building interest in the outcome, as I had lost interest in the plot several chapters earlier). Still, it’s worth a read, if only to finish out the series.

“Wielding a Red Sword (Book Four of Incarnations of Immortality)”, by Piers Anthony

313 pages, Ballantine Books, ISBN-13: 978-0345322210

Incarnations of Immortality is the name of an eight-book fantasy series by Piers Anthony, of which Wielding a Red Sword was Book Four. Mym, an Indian prince, defies his father’s plans for an arranged marriage and instead joins a travelling circus where he meets Orb, who teaches him to overcome his own handicap of a terrible stutter through song. He is soon discovered and his father arranges for him to marry a princess by the name of Rapture of Malachite. After fighting against this for days on end, he finally realizes that Rapture is worth loving, and so concedes to the marriage; however, a plot to separate him from her results in his decision to become the Incarnation of War…although, upon years-after reflection, the driving premise of this volume seems more concerned with finding a permanent love interest for Mym than it does with exploring the role/nature of the Incarnation of War – which is too bad, as Anthony raises the troubling concept that war is a necessary outcome of conflict within societies and strives to reduce the waste and injustice entailed. Deep, man, and a gauntlet thrown to the “war is never the answer” crowd. Thus, this book doesn’t really add much to the series as it read like a point-by-point retread of On a Pale Horse but with a protagonist that’s less sympathetic and more like, say, a little prick you’d like to kick repeatedly.

However, two interesting conventions are either expanded upon or introduced. The first is the tying together of the various characters, hinted at in the first couple of books, but emphasized strongly in this volume. Now we know some of what happened to Orb, introduced in the previous volume as the daughter of Niobe. It certainly appears that Anthony intended to unite all the Incarnations in one family (or love) relationship. The other is the idea of an Incarnation defeating Satan by threatening to bring down the entire world. In the previous three novels, the title character’s showdown with Satan never approached this level. Also expanded upon are the concepts of the “lesser incarnations”, a plot device which is (probably) necessary to explain the “Four Horsemen” which traditionally accompany War, but introduces a weakness in the integrity of the series as a whole. The worst aspect of this volume is that it neglects the qualities that are the strengths of the other books in the series: namely, Anthony’s delightful universe, wherein science and magic coexist with each other; and the quasi-religious framework of the incarnations, neither of which is properly exploited in the book, despite numerous opportunities to do so (additionally, the unifying plot of the series is only tangentially explored, leaving most of the book to rely on Mym’s antics). S’alright book, I guess, but with several glaring and, thus, distracting weaknesses.

“With a Tangled Skein (Book Three of Incarnations of Immortality)”, by Piers Anthony

404 pages, Ballantine Books, ISBN-13: 978-0345318855

Incarnations of Immortality is the name of an eight-book fantasy series by Piers Anthony, of which With a Tangled Skein was Book Three. Okay, so here we go: Niobe, a young Irish weaver, loses her husband Cedric to murder, all part of a devious plot of the Devil’s. So Niobe descends to Purgatory to appeal to the Incarnations and Satan himself for Cedric’s life; however, there’s nothing to be done, and so when the inconsolable Niobe is instead offered a position as an one of the Incarnations, she accepts and becomes the nubile Clotho, the spinner of the thread of life and the youngest of the three Aspects of Fate (along with the matronly Lachesis who measures the threads; and the crone Atropos who cuts them). As more facets of Satan’s enormous plot are revealed, the other Incarnations take a hand (readers will need good memories to recall what’s been happening in the previous books). Later, Niobe decides to retire and once again become mortal, and she remarries and has more children, all of whom are caught up in the plot. Then, as Satan becomes particularly threatening, Niobe is induced to emerge from retirement where, as Lachesis, she must thwart Satan one more time by solving a hoary set of brain-teasers tricked out in fantastical disguises.

As with the other books in the Incarnations of Immortality series, I read this book back in the day and thought that it was cleverly done…then. Not surprising, as it seems like this was written with the average horn-dog not-a-boy and not-yet-a-man teenage boy in mind. Most irritating, however, are the huge jumps in time that were accomplished it in just a page or two, unlike the other books in the series in which time took its toll. Understanding the reasoning behind this was to get Fate to the right time and place to best Satan, alongside the other characters in the series thus far; however, the first half of the book was all about Niobe as a mortal and her marriage to Cedric, and then a long view of her life as Clotho, the second half of the book spanned decades with brief explanations that played like the book was wrapping up only to begin again in one long final scene of the maze (which, I must admit, was still interesting as it used common brain teasers that have been used for generations, like the boat crossing and the weighing of coins, for example). Overall, though, a sprawling, inconclusive plot with a routine, rather lumpy drama, with none of the main issues fully explained or resolved. A frustrating affair that will appeal mainly to Anthony fans prepared to stick around for the complete series.