On a Pale Horse

this series is one of my very favorites. set in an alternate earth where magic and science co-exist the incarnations, Death, Time, Nature, War, Fate, Satan, God, and Night, are humans who have taken an office. ( )

Continuing my rereads of Piers Anthony novels that I now suspect I really don't want to own...

It's a thoughtful book in many ways. There are some compelling arguments for a right to a chosen death, and I suspect it shaped much of my thinking on legal euthanasia. And the near-future magic-and-science world he describes definitely has its charms. But these positives are now, for me, vastly outweighed by the negatives of the rampant sexism that I just can't overlook anymore.

On a Pale Horse opens, in finest Anthony tradition, with two men dickering using a woman as currency. She is literally just a bargaining chip - we never learn anything of her personality, only that she's pretty, rich, and will apparently fall for just anyone. This didn't appall me when I was ten, but it certainly does now. The main female character, Luna, is disposed of in exactly the same way - as a bargaining chip, with no real agency of her own. She's intelligent, which makes her scenes marginally less icky, but only marginally - she's introduced to the protagonist nude, offers to ensorcel herself so that she would find sleeping with him palatable, reveals that she "fornicated with a demon of hell" (which gives the protagonist some pause, because she's not "pure" anymore) and is generally described whenever she's on-scene as a particularly tasty morsel.

There's also constant and tedious gender stereotyping, culminating in a scene that startled and confused even me as a kid, where Anthony explains that an adult woman sleeping with a ten-year-old boy was only wrong because society made him feel guilty about it - otherwise, being male, he'd be totally willing and thrilled.

This is not a totally fair review. I really did like this book when I was a kid, and I can still see why. But there are things I can't stomach anymore, and this book is full of them. ( )

Fun book to read to my four year old. ( )

In a world that mixes magic and technology, Zane is a loser on all fronts. Not only has he gambled away his savings, but he also wastes his last few dollars on a magic stone that is supposed to show him money, but it is really a dud, only leading him to small change. He also missed the opportunity to buy a gem that would have led him to the love of his life. In despair, he decides to end his life. Just as he is about to shoot himself, Death appears on the scene. So Zane shoots Death instead.

Zane is forced to become the new Death, inheriting the powers of his predecessor. Admittedly, this is not a terrible idea for a fantasy novel, and having been written in 1982, it predates Terry Pratchett’s Discworld ‘Death’ by a few years. But Pratchett is a much better writer than Anthony, both conceptually and stylistically. Anthony seems to throw in ideas as they come along, often leading to contradictions and non sequiturs. His mixture of magic and technology also seemed unnecessary, to say the least. I would have found the book more interesting if it was based in the ‘real’ world, without the magic. Anthony could still have made an exception for Death as anthropomorphic being, leading to a more coherent book. After all, the book does not really focus on the magic in the world; most of Death’s encounters are with very normal people in normal circumstances. Why Anthony needs to introduce flying carpets, dragons, etc. is beyond me.

On the other hand, I did find the use of the different Incarnations of Immortality absorbing. I also thought the introduction of a Christian eschatology interesting, but Anthony fumbles this, as much else, by being too much of a teller than a shower. Satan is extremely clichéd, which is not really a bad thing, but his interaction with Zane is predictable and somewhat boring. I also thought that Anthony’s handling of Zane’s relationship with the main love interest, Luna, could have been handled more interestingly. I liked the idea that Death goes on strike, refusing to reap Luna because Satan has cheated in order to get her to hell. That was fine. It was Anthony’s awkward style and leaps of logic that irritated me.

I realise that this was Anthony’s first real attempt at a more ‘serious’ book after the success he had with his Xanth series. And it is not utterly terrible. Death has a few interesting conversations with the dying, the most interesting being one with an atheist. To a degree, I wish that Anthony had added some humour to the book, as it seems that this is what Anthony is really best at. Anthony also has an incredibly long and tedious note at the end of the book. He relates his own experiences with mortality while writing the book, which is fine, but then goes into excruciating detail about his life, his children, fans, the writing process, and so on. It could easily have been cut to about five pages, instead of the 25 page monster that it ended up being.

So, I may be tempted to read some of Anthony’s humorous books, but I will be avoiding more of his Incarnation series. ( )

In retrospect this book reminds me a little bit of Terry Pratchett's Mort, though On a Pale Horse predates it. The idea of Death as an office rather than an entity was very original at the time and the adventures of the protagonist in this book as a rookie Grim Peaper is a lot of fun. The main difference between this book and Mort is the tone, the emphasis of this book is on action and adventuires rather than comedy. This is the first of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series and is possibly the best one. As I recall the series went downhill a bit after 3-4 books (it did pick up with For Love of Evil though, then nose dived after that).

Piers Anthony is often criticized for poor writing style, but in reality his prose is just utilitarian without being elegant or poetic. He is no Le Guin but then his books are generally more fun (without ever being important). His writing style is easily accessible and suitable for the sort of romp that he writes. At his best Anthony's books are wonderful escapism and he really is on top form with this book. ( )