March 11, 2006

  • Weird Thing I Saw Today: You know those Bratz dolls? They seem to now have their own (computer animated) Saturday morning cartoon. And it’s bad. REALLY bad.


     


    Okay, now onto some more stuff I was gonna write about yesterday. On Thursday, I finished And Eternity, the final book in Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series. I definitely wasn’t disappointed, but I was a little sad to be at the end of such an excellent series. For those of you who don’t know, the seven-book Incarnations of Immortality take place in essentially our society (mostly at various points in the 20th century, but a good chunk of For Love of Evil takes place in medieval times) with a few differences, the most important being that magic and technology exist side by side. There are other somewhat trivial differences. For instance, professional football is played by women instead of men, and World War II never happened (there is an explanation for this one). The books focus on the personification of Death, Time, Fate, War, and Nature, as well as Evil (Satan) and Good (God). Each book has a different Incarnation as its main character, usually a mortal who has just stepped into the role (and the focus of each book is in the order in which I’ve listed them). Originally, Piers Anthony was just going to write about the first five on the list, but he got so much fan mail begging for more that he decided to write books about Satan and God, and you definitely notice the transition. The first five books are excellent, perhaps thought-provoking, clear-cut stories of good versus evil. However, it’s the last two books that really set the series apart. They add a whole different dimension to the story. Suddenly, things aren’t as clear-cut as they used to be, and the series becomes an interesting take on the “good versus evil” theme. I highly, HIGHLY recommend this series. If you’re going to read it, you do have some flexibility in the order. I’d suggest you read book #1 (On a Pale Horse) first, but books 2 (Bearing an Hourglass), 3 (With a Tangled Skein), and 4 (Wielding a Red Sword) could probably be read in any order. However, I strongly advise that you save books 5 (Being a Green Mother), 6 (For Love of Evil), and 7 (And Eternity) for last, and that you read them in order. For now, I’m back to working on Piers Anthony’s Xanth series (which is his most famous series).