336 pages, Ballantine Books,
ISBN-13: 978-0345338587
Incarnations of Immortality is the name of an eight-book
fantasy series by Piers Anthony, of which On
a Pale Horse was Book One. I was introduced to this series by my brother
Tom (um…Thank You?) and read each of the first five after he had had his way
with them (ah…Thank You?) and devoured them as fast as I could read. It was
1983 and I was 11-years-old, so I found the premise to be irresistible: eight novels, each based on one of the seven immortals (that would be Death, War,
Earth, Fate, Time, Evil, Good and...Night?). The plot here is a clever one, and from the
outset Anthony shows that he’s a very inventive world builder: when Death comes
for Zane, a young man contemplating suicide, said young man instinctively
shoots Death instead, and is thus called to assume the office of Death. We see
various aspects of Anthony’s cleverly-constructed world through the eyes of a
character who must travel all around it, looking at it through, as it were, new
eyes. This is great stuff, and a moderately competent writer could turn it into
pure gold. And when I was, in fact, 11-years-old, I found it to be pure gold,
as this once-mortal is “gifted” with immortality and given the power of Death
itself, with all of the consequent responsibilities and burdens it brings (with
great power comes great responsibility, after all). Oh, and he has to battle
Satan, to boot. Again, to my addled preteen mind this was heady stuff, and I
couldn’t wait for each new book to be unceremoniously shoved into my hands by
big bro Tom.
However,
looking back at this book and this series through my jaded post-pubescent eyes,
there is so much that is lacking with it, as is true with so much of Anthony’s
work. The first half or so of this book is mainly concerned with Zane learning
the ropes of his new job and along the way comes to question why things in the
afterlife are set up the way they are, where the Devil can seemingly do
whatever he wants while God is conspicuously absent. The latter half of this
book deals mainly with Zane’s interaction with Luna, daughter of a very
high-ranking magician who has arranged his own death just so Zane will be
forced to meet and interact with her. As Zane slowly becomes aware, Luna is
important, as she will be a major figure in determining the outcome of the
eternal battle between the Devil and God some twenty years in the future (if
she survives that long). Anthony does an excellent job of describing the
mechanisms and paraphernalia that are part of Death’s job, especially Death’s
horse, who is a character in his own right. The moral questions of what is
truly good and evil receive a fair amount of discourse, a discourse that
elevates this book above a light entertainment into something with some real
meat on its bones, although I found the points presented to be fairly
elementary.
But characterization is very light for everyone except
Zane, the absence of God in any of the events or moral questions was a definite
negative and the reasoning and set-up of the basic conflict of this work
confusing and not quite logical. I was also bothered by the fact that the
protagonist, although quick to learn that rules and preconceptions are not to
be trusted, never bothers to converse with God, and he doesn’t hesitate to
reach to the other incarnations or even to the Devil, for…God’s sake. Why is
that I wonder? Out of all the regulations and parameters he chooses to
successfully break or circumvent, the main character unquestionably accepts
that God will never bother to listen or interfere. I suppose it’s just a
personal point of view. Unfortunately that, along with the generalization of what
handicapped elderly truly desire, ultimately ruined the story for me…as an
adult. As I kid I though all of this was swell, and it made me think deep
thoughts about life, the universe and everything, so perhaps I’ll leave it at
that: a great introductory title to deeper themes and belief systems that a kid
with few friends and an over-active imagination will find intriguing. Yeah,
let’s go with that.
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