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.
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