# No wonder "Under a Velvet Cloak" didn't get published \[includes minor spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [August 26, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796 "2009-08-26T18:09:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/1 "2009-08-26T18:09:51Z")
OK, it did but by a small (maybe vanity?) company. The eighth (and third final) book of the Incarnations of Immortality series is about Nox and I just finished reading it. My headache is starting to finally go away. It reminds my of a later Heinlein book (viz. completely unreadable) in which: 1. Tons of digressive plot threads that make it hard to read. 2. All (and I mean ALL) of the main characters look for reasons to run around naked and have sex with everyone else throughout the entire book. If a character doesn’t want to be an exhibitionist and bang everyone (male and female) they meet, the main characters look at them like you look at your 6 year old brother that just smeared chocolate pudding on the dog. Look, I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination and it does make sense that Nox is a prostitute early in her career, but all of the time-travel makes no sense and gets the plot/canon/whatever so tangled that he has to handwave some of it away. The basic plot was good but could have been so much more simplified and made for better reading. Take out Jolie and the whole time-lines thing. The prostitution and vampirism was good and made sense and taints Gaw forming the MacGuffin. She is rebuffed by the Incarnations and wants revenge. Still good. Show her becoming Nox and working behind the scenes to get the Incarnations replaced. But how to replace the Incarnation of Good? She needs to manouver things so the right people are there to vote in Orlene. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/2 "2009-08-26T20:24:36Z")
I loved, loved, loved _On A Pale Horse_. Then each subsequent book got just a little bit worse, until we got to…oh, I dunno, maybe the fifth one, which I just tossed aside halfway through. Shame – the series had so much potential. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/3 "2009-08-26T20:28:32Z")
Piers Anthony has a patent on each successive book getting a little worse. Other authors who write series where each book gets a little worse have to pay royalties to him. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/4 "2009-08-26T20:50:32Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > I loved, loved, loved _On A Pale Horse_. Then each subsequent book got just a little bit worse, until we got to…oh, I dunno, maybe the fifth one, which I just tossed aside halfway through. Shame – the series had so much potential. Agreed except I thought \*For the Love of Evil \*was a good book. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/5 "2009-08-26T20:50:40Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > I loved, loved, loved _On A Pale Horse_. Then each subsequent book got just a little bit worse, until we got to…oh, I dunno, maybe the fifth one, which I just tossed aside halfway through. Shame – the series had so much potential. The one exception was the book about Satan. Weird, eh? I think maybe The Devil is the source of Pier’s sales and ability to wring the life out of any concept until it dies horrendously, and just wanted one last good one. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/6 "2009-08-26T22:32:40Z")
No, _For Love of Evil_ very emphatically continued the trend. I agree that the quality of the series went monotonically downhill, though for reasons of my own I preferred _Bearing an Hourglass_ to _On a Pale Horse_ (yeah, I’m sure that comes as a huge surprise, given my username). Through the first five, they were still worth reading, if nothing else to get a sense of completion and closure to the series. But there’s no good reason to pick up 6 or 7, and even if I had heard of _Under a Velvet Cloak_ before this, I’d have steered well clear of it. I must admit, though, I was a bit puzzled by the lack of existence of such a book. I guess it is possible for Piers to write a book so bad that publishers won’t touch it. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/7 "2009-08-26T22:53:34Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Agreed except I thought \*For the Love of Evil \*was a good book. Really? I got it in hard-cover from one of those cheesy “book of the month” club deals in 1988. Reading it was exactly like trying to nail your own head to the floor with a railway spike and a tack-hammer. It was this very book that inspired my quiet vendetta against Piers Anthony, in which I resolved to kick the man squarely in the nuts, should the opportunity ever arise. ---
**Author:** ![kirk1168](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@kirk1168](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirk1168)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/8 "2009-08-26T23:55:40Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > I loved, loved, loved _On A Pale Horse_. Then each subsequent book got just a little bit worse, until we got to…oh, I dunno, maybe the fifth one, which I just tossed aside halfway through. Shame – the series had so much potential. My experience exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/9 "2009-08-27T01:45:34Z")
I hadn’t read the Wikipedia entry regarding Nox before. I rather liked the idea that she had been the office since the beginning of time. Ugh, as much as I enjoy the series (plot holes and all) I think skipping this entry in the series was a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/10 "2009-08-27T01:54:35Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > Really? I got it in hard-cover from one of those cheesy “book of the month” club deals in 1988. > > Reading it was exactly like trying to nail your own head to the floor with a railway spike and a tack-hammer. It was this very book that inspired my quiet vendetta against Piers Anthony, in which I resolved to kick the man squarely in the nuts, should the opportunity ever arise. Well, I think we can agree to disagree. It’s interesting that people agree on most of the books, but argue over this one. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/11 "2021-08-29T23:29:31Z")
My completionist tendencies led me to read this one a few months ago. There are more sex acts than pages (by a rough count) - and the ultimate conflict is settled by what might be called a “sex battle” (and victory celebrated with an orgy). I wish there had been more time travel, leading up to the accidental erasure of the book ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wonder-under-a-velvet-cloak-didnt-get-published-includes-minor-spoilers/507796/12 "2021-08-29T23:40:25Z")
I liked a few of the books in the series. Didn’t like most, so I didn’t read Under a Velvet Cloak. Mundania Press closed in 2019. And given its name (Mundania, like in the Xanth novels) and the names of its imprints (Phaze Books, like in the Adept series) I’m not sure it wasn’t Anthony’s own publishing company.