Lucky you…it was the only part of the damn book that stuck with me.
If I recall correctly, the depressed teen Corrine or whatever takes the fem Null on a journey through the mode. They essentially point the girl towards the direction that scares the crap out of her the most and go that way. Eventually they reach her fear which is a gigantic monster and enter it(?) to replay her rape scene about 20 times until they reach a conclusion she finds satisfactory and they head back to diaperboy. God, that book was terrible.
My experience with this series almost precisely echoes Hal Briston’s. I loved On a Pale Horse and Bearing an Hourglass, but by Mars I started to see Anthony’s plot/character cliches and Gaia lost me altogether; I don’t think I finished it. I vaguely remember being irritated by Anthony’s politics/worldview, too.
(Plus by then I was sick to death of the recurring subplot revolving that annoying woman who kept showing up and getting kidnapped by Satan – don’t remember the character’s name but she was always described as So Incredibly Important and Wonderful. (Was she Death’s girlfriend? Don’t remember.) I dunno, she reminded me of Susan Silverman in the Spenser books. The author’s version of the ideal woman.
Anyway. I didn’t know the series was still going on. And from all you guys are saying, it’s lucky I didn’t. But … pedophilia? Seriously? This must be an exaggeration, no? Damn, I’m almost afraid to ask for details, but my curiosity is getting the better of me. So how does this manifest itself in the Incarnations books?
I actually did do a chart in a thread a week ago or so in answer to a quiz. I can’t believe I still remember all that, including the incarnations human names. ::sigh::
But as to your other point, I think that is why Nature (Being A Green Mother) was so drawn out in her human life. He had spent the rest of the books describing Nature as the most powerful of the earthly incarnations, but never really saying what she DID. That’s probably why she only spent a couple chapters as Nature and the rest was the interminably long quest for the Llano.
And then in the 7th, you finally find out WHY she is so important and it’s like…really, that was all she did? Luna Kaftan, girlfriend of Death, daughter of Fate, eventual aunt of Good and US Senator who was only needed for ONE FREAKING VOTE.
(Is it somewhat sick that I still actually kinda like the series in spite of it’s major flaws?)
Hell, What’s-her-name didn’t become God until the last PAGE of her damn book!
True. Probably for the same reason.
Copy editors. I’m pretty sure he thinks copy editors are evil. His “revenge issue” of But What of Earth? was just embarrassingly petty. Each page had at least four footnotes mocking the corrections that the editors had made to the first edition of the book.
And Jophiel has stated my exact feeling about the IoI series. I read the first book when I was 13 and it launched a love affair with SF. I read the seventh book when I was 18 or 19, and it was so bad it actually put me off SF/Fantasy in general for a good ten years or so.
I don’t think (but you probably remember better than I) that she became Nature until practically the last few pages. The book had zilch to do with the actual Office in question. To my then teenaged mind, that was a real let down. You went into On A Pale Horse and had a fairly well written book about a guy reacting to being thrust into the role of Death and having to balance between the tradition of the role, his ethics and Purgatorial bureaucracy with the Satan stuff playing almost a secondary role to the “Hey, I’m Death!” aspect. Then the rest were increasingly “How Satan Is Screwing Me Over” and less and less about “Hey, I’m [Incarnation]!” Nature was a let down because he didn’t even try. And I can’t believe that Nature would have been harder than Time or Fate where Anthony at least made token efforts.
I wasn’t as impressed with Bearing an Hourglass as some but I also read that one out of order (after Death, Time & Fate) so I was already used to the plots. And the Princess, Astronaut & BEM were pretty cheesy. I did want my own Sning though as I assume everyone did. 
Oh HELLS yeah. I adored Sning. I just grinned remembering Chronos going into some dangerous situation, requiring absolute quiet, and asking Sning questions trying to identify what the problem was, which Sning answered as usual by squeezing his finger. When Chronos finally figured out the right question to ask, Sning let out a giant SQUEEZE!!! of emphasis/relief.
Still makes me chuckle, twenty years after reading it. Yep, Sning and Canth from the Pern books – my two favorite fantasy creatures.
(Unless you count Remus Lupin. ;))
In the paperback copy I have she becomes nature on page 235 of 301. Actually earlier than I recalled.
plot for those who who would like to know without having to wade through the book.
[spoiler]
The new incarnation of Good has determined that a parallel universe is heading for disaster. parallel universe right from the get go, hmm warning Will Smith danger danger A key player has been determined in this universe, and Jolie the ghost is sent to inhabit them about 1000 years in the past or so. She is supposed to influenece her host at key moments to ensure the parallel universe follows a path identical to that of Jolies original universe.
Her host is a 13 year old girl called Kerena. Wandering Seer comes through thje village and Jolie guised Kerena to apprentice herself to him. He is quite keen as she has nascnt seer abilities and also because they “See” each other and determine from the outset that they are going to be lovers. He pays her apprentice fee to her folks and off they go. Seer guy wants to wait a few years before the boffing commences, but our heroine is keen to get straight into it. He has already given her some ancient fertility statuette, which is basically used to prepare the “love passage” by using the thing as a dildo, which our heroine does nightly.
In fairly short order she is ready and seduces Seer guy, who didn’t take much persuading. He trains her up in the use of her power and then disappears. Our heroine wants to track down Seer guy but doesn’t know where to start. To make friends and influenece people she signs up at a local brothel in Camelot. Yep you heard me Camelot. As a sidenote she makes friends with one of the whores named Molly, who unfortunately has been cursed and dies off in short order. Slut girl quickly becomes the best whore in the city and gets taken home by some rich merchant who can’t sleep with his wife due to physical discomfort on her part. The merchant promises to use his contacts to help find Seer guy. Heroic slut passes on fertility dildo to merchants wife which cures her, at which point she decamps to work for Morgana Le Fey who has some jobs for her, and when she has done them will tell her how to find Seer guy.
The work for Morgana consists of seducing information out of men and her final big mission is to stop Gawain finsing the grail, by seducing him of cousre, as only a virgin can approach the grail. She talks her way into accompanying him in his quest, and they fall in love. She comes clean to him, and all is well because he loves her too. They end up screwing anyway so mission accomplished. Morgana teaches slut girl the uses of her velvet cloak (it can invoke invisibility, permeability and invulnerability, lastly taught after Gawain mission, it can be used to track people.)
Our heroine now sets off to find Seer guy, recruiting a guard to accompany her. Enter paedophile guy. They treck off into Scotland where they find Seer guy, who has become a vampire didn’t see that coming did you. Vampires in this reality are immortal, only need a sip of animal blood every month or so, and merely get bad sunburn if out in the daylight. They are however very sexually prolific Ok I bet you DID see that one coming and the vamp women enjoy sex just as much as the men, which normal women don’t, according to Piers.
Our heroine uses her seeing ability to determine she too must become a vampire to become a threesome with seer guy and the vamp who turned him. The complication is that she is 5 months pregnant with Gawain’s child. She is going to wait for the birth before turning, but Jolie guides her to do it straight away, which she does. She vamps out and in due course gives birth to Gaw ii, who is tainted. This is the same taint we saw in Orlene’s chils. Orlene’s Gawain was a descendant of the original, through slut girl. The origin of the taint is her turning into a vampire whilst carrying.
Our new side quest is to get the kid cured. She reads up in the conveniently present vamp library which contains books from libraries such as Alexandria, removed to ave them, before it burned down, like 100 years before. She becomes aware of the Incaranations and goes to see them. They are all arrogant twits and blow her off, by the time she returns 30 years has passed due to the Purgatory time dilation, and Gaw II is dead, but baby Gaw III is on the scene and is tainted. Slut Vamp then swears vengeance on the incaranations of Day, does her research into the origins of the incarnations - basically mortals wondered into energy swirls, and determines that the Nox energy swirl has never been claimed. Off she goes to claim it, which she does.
Nox’s power relates to secrets, but the secrets of everyone in the world is a lot to remember. She pops off to the future to find a technique to store all the secrets, and takes a course in relational databases. I am not kidding here by the way, that’s exactly what she does. As the top student she is conveniently awarded a database, powered by an internal nuclear battery. The database can also be split in two, with the second half registering changes to the 1st half, it’s essentially an off site back up.
She returns to her time. It seems she can split herself into multiple copies which she will need to do to find every secret on earth. She goes to boff Gabriel in order for some man management tips, then splits into millions of copies and gets everyones secrets. The off site backup part of her database becomes purgatories computer.
Time for the main plot There is also an incarnation of darkness - Erebus, he is Nox’s brother (they shag a lot and it is the best ever apparently) There are a multitude of universes, which Nox gave birth to (pre human incaranation days) as the mother she is present in all of them, he is not however and is jealous so wants to destroy them all. The universe is described as 3 branches - 1 pure science, 1 pure magic and 1 half and half. The series has been set in half and half universe withboth magic and science. Erebus wants to dstroy every twig on the branch of half and half so he can build it again in his image. We are now down to 2 twigs, the universe of the first 7 books, and the universe of book 8. Erebus is at an impasse as he can dstroy universe of book 8, but not that of the first 7, because the Nox there is too good for him. He gets them to agree to an all or nithing contest. If he wins he gets to destroy last 2 twigs, other wise they are OK and then T" will send out a jolie to rescue T3 etc etc which will restore the full branch. The contest is basically set in a foggy room, the fog randomly changes colour from blue to pink if you can “connect” with your opponent for one full minute, and at the end of the minute the colour favours you - blue for Erebus Pink for slut vamp, then you win, which she does, the end[/spoiler]
Damn, that’s just about every lame Piers Anthony plot device, all wrapped up in a neat little turd. All that’s missing are the endless telegraphed puns.
One And Only Wanderers, you have a stouter heart than I do to brave such crap. I salute you.
Tainted baby? Gaw II? Wow, he’s really stealing from himself.
Though reading that description I couldn’t help but think it would be funny to see what book Piers and Anne Rice would right together. 
Not to mention that when I read his first autobiography I realized I share a first name with one of his daughters. Then I saw something mentioning the naked chick on the cover of Ogre, Ogre was based on that same daughter.
scrubs furiously I’ll never be clean again!
I also read all of them as a young teenager (hell, I even read Letters to Jenny - the man also has a HUGE persecution complex) and the thing is, when you’re 13 or whatever, it’s really seductive because it matches up with what you think of yourself - that you’re so adult, that everybody treats you like a child for no reason, etc. And of course you’re interested in sex. I imagine that’s how kids get into relationships with real live IRL predators, too.
Now if I were to read a Piers Anthony book I think I’d throw up when I got to the “precocious little girl who’s the 40 year old man’s true soulmate and it’s just stupid cultural crap that won’t let them have the sexxins.”
How does his wife put up with all that shit? I want to send her a bouquet with a “you can do better” card attached.
I stopped reading Piers Anthony a long time ago, but even when I did read him I found that I usually only liked the first part of any series. For Incarnations I found that the first one was great and the others not so much.
One and Only Wanderers, I salute you. I’m impressed at your fortitude in continuing to slog through that mess. I feel all icky just reading your summary.
I remember being squicked out at the whole Ligea (wasn’t it Ligea?) the Concubine thing in War. The whole bit about wasn’t Satan silly for thinking that War’s wife would have a problem with a concubine? After all, it’s so much better to share those arduous bedroom duties with someone. It wasn’t the polygamy that bothered me, it was the thought process, that because he really loved her, he wouldn’t *inflict * himself on one poor woman all the time.
One and Only Wanderers, was there an Author’s Note in this book? Because if there is, I’m going to have to hunt this book down, just to read that bit.
Sage Rat, the thought of Piers Anthony and Anne Rice writing something together fills me with a fascinated horror. That would be smut of the highest (or lowest) order. Smut with puns!
I read some Xanth books and one of the IoI books (I think maybe nature?) when I was younger, but not any time lately. I’m curious - what are the worst (and redeeming) aspects of Piers Anthony’s work, more specifically? I can certainly take a guess (too child-molestery, too tongue-in-cheek, too simplistic, too punny?) but I’m interested to know exactly what everyone really agrees upon and for some reason, I don’t want to read the big spoiler box yet. I’m wondering whether my curiosity over whether the book is THAT bad over the fear that the warnings here are all spot on will win.