(no subject)
46/50 And Eternity by Piers Anthony
The seventh (and as far as I'm concerned, final) book in the Incarnations of Immortality series. And Anthony surpasses himself, in more ways than one. If it is at all possible, both the people who said this was a good book and the people who said this was a bad book are absolutely right.
Anthony has trouble writing from a woman's perspective, but I've preferred it to his men, since Anthony seems to believe that women are less concerned with sex (I leave you to decide the validity of this statement) so it doesn't take up as much print as in the previous books. (Though I must add some more parenthesis here to say that I think the books have had progressively more sex in them.) Of course, in this book Anthony bypasses this by having the women experience being men for a short time (and therefore to come to understand that MEN MUST HAVE THEIR SEX<-- please hear the sarcasm*) and also to enlist an underage prostitute as one of his main characters. He then allows the minor to have sex with an older (albeit otherwise upstanding) man and dismisses it as okay because they are in love. This I simply cannot agree with it. I can't really give a logical argument for it, but I found it morally reprehensible and would have been better without.
Other than that, I could not put the book down. Sure it was slow in some parts (how many times must Orlene's mission be explained?!) and there was no doubt, no matter how big of a deal they made of it, that Orlene was going to get everything on her "shopping" list. But in that way, it felt like a traditional hero quest, with short vaguely interesting episodes that made for a more or less satisfying whole.
It was the ending that really got me. The image of a God that has tuned out hit my doubtful little heart. And I feel like most everyone who has believed in God, believes in God, and will believe in God has doubted whether he's really listening. In the end, I feel the Incarnations of Immortality series is a powerful statement from an agnostic about good and evil. Just with a lot of *facepalm* sex.
*I can't really give an opinion on this matter either way, but it's more Anthony's generalization about the experiences of the sexes that offends me.
Next: One of the following: Silk, Specials, Ironside
Rest of My Reading List
The seventh (and as far as I'm concerned, final) book in the Incarnations of Immortality series. And Anthony surpasses himself, in more ways than one. If it is at all possible, both the people who said this was a good book and the people who said this was a bad book are absolutely right.
Anthony has trouble writing from a woman's perspective, but I've preferred it to his men, since Anthony seems to believe that women are less concerned with sex (I leave you to decide the validity of this statement) so it doesn't take up as much print as in the previous books. (Though I must add some more parenthesis here to say that I think the books have had progressively more sex in them.) Of course, in this book Anthony bypasses this by having the women experience being men for a short time (and therefore to come to understand that MEN MUST HAVE THEIR SEX<-- please hear the sarcasm*) and also to enlist an underage prostitute as one of his main characters. He then allows the minor to have sex with an older (albeit otherwise upstanding) man and dismisses it as okay because they are in love. This I simply cannot agree with it. I can't really give a logical argument for it, but I found it morally reprehensible and would have been better without.
Other than that, I could not put the book down. Sure it was slow in some parts (how many times must Orlene's mission be explained?!) and there was no doubt, no matter how big of a deal they made of it, that Orlene was going to get everything on her "shopping" list. But in that way, it felt like a traditional hero quest, with short vaguely interesting episodes that made for a more or less satisfying whole.
It was the ending that really got me. The image of a God that has tuned out hit my doubtful little heart. And I feel like most everyone who has believed in God, believes in God, and will believe in God has doubted whether he's really listening. In the end, I feel the Incarnations of Immortality series is a powerful statement from an agnostic about good and evil. Just with a lot of *facepalm* sex.
*I can't really give an opinion on this matter either way, but it's more Anthony's generalization about the experiences of the sexes that offends me.
Next: One of the following: Silk, Specials, Ironside
Rest of My Reading List