The Final Ride

Many years ago, someone I haven't thought of in probably as many years, told me of a book series he was reading and how I should check it out. Thus how I was introduced to Piers Anthony and his Incarnations of Immortality series. I've read the series a few times in the intervening years, although the final book, released 17 years after what had been book 7, I've only read once. However, I had some Amazon gift cards and they had a good deal on the first 7 as a boxed set, so here we are.

On a Pale Horse gets attention quickly in chapter one, after showing us this alternate Earth where magic and science coexist fairly easily. Indeed, when we meet Zane, he's at a literal Sky Mall in a magic stone store looking for something to improve his existence. The proprietor, showing Zane stones that show Zane is destined to meet a great love and his own death within the hour, ends up talking Zane into using the love stone so that the shop keep can have his love in exchange for a wealth stone that will lead Zane to money. Zane makes the exchange, gets home to find his wealth stone is really a junk stone that finds loose change, and decides to fulfill the Death Stone prophecy with a gun he got off a mugger. As he pulls the trigger, Death himself walks in, which Zane reacts to by turning the muzzle at the last second, actually shooting and killing Death.

And thus begins our interactions with the Five major Incarnations; Death, Time, Fate, War, and Nature. Later on, in books 6 and 7, we meet Evil and Good, and book 8 concerns Night. But right now, we're dealing with Death, and ignoring the problematic timelines that come into play later. After killing Death, Fate herself shows up and informs Zane that since he killed Death, he now gets to assume the role. Kind of like The Santa Clause, only more entertaining. It takes a while, since the position doesn't come with an instruction book, and his pale steed, Mortis, isn't good at communication. Indeed, on his second or third collection, Zane saves his client from dying and tries to get said client to kill him and take on the position.

Eventually, though, we meet The Magician and his daughter Luna, which is when some of the greater threads come into play. The Magician is a Black Magician, and has put some of the smut from his soul onto Luna's soul, thereby bringing his soul into balance, as it's only balanced souls that get direct attention from Death (also known as Thanatos.) Most souls either find their own way to Heaven or Hell. Anyway, Luna is foretold to thwart Satan's plans in 20 years, so The Magician gives her to Zane as a gift, to protect her from Satan's wiles.

Which, well, Satan does have plans, and Zane does eventually figure out that the other 4 non alignment Incarnations set him up the bomb. He got chosen for this role, since he was one of the only candidates who would fight for Luna.

After all these years, I find myself still loving this book. Yes, I could live without Anthony's rampant sexism and belief in male and female archetypes, but he's still less obnoxious about it than other authors I could name, like David Eddings. I love the world building, and the PR campaign Satan runs on Earth to convince humans that Hell is the place to be in the afterlife. I love the meditations on Death that occur throughout, and how Death works. Even knowing where all of this eventually leads, and the formula that repeats quite a bit through the next few books, this particular volume still remains on my influential book list, and one I would highly recommend to folks.