Could it be..... Satan?

As we're rounding in to the home stretch of Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony, I have again suffered through For Love of Evil, concerning the office of the Incarnation of Evil, who's title of office is Satan.

It's an interesting book up until most of the last third. We meet Perry, adopted son of a local sorcerer, in a medieval village in Southern France right prior to the Avignon Crusade. Perry trains and falls in love with Jolie, a local village girl. The Crusaders come, the sorcerer winds up dead, Jolie ends up dead, but Thanatos comes to collect her, even though Jolie is a good person. Seems her death will lead to a great evil. Death does put a spot of her blood on Perry's arm, which allows her ghost to stay with him as he escapes the enemy sorcerer and becomes a monk.

He does eventually track down his pursuer, curses him, and finds out that Lucifer has a plot in motion that will destroy Europe. Perry eventually figures out it has to do with the death of the Great Khan, and switched messages that won't stop the horde before they overrun the West. Perry and Jolie go deep into northern Russia and switch one of the messages back, stopping Lucifer's plot. However, in the process of stopping the plot, Jolie does possess a woman, and the marriage is consummated again, which of course, violates several of Perry's oaths. Something that the demoness Lilah is quick to point out after Lucifer assigns her to corrupt Perry.

Which she does, particularly since Lilah's presence means Jolie can't be present. Prerry does his best to mitigate the evil he does, but it's still evil. On his death bed, he casts a mirror spell on Lilah, causing Lucifer to die. Perry assume the office, taking the name Satan. All the incarnations other than Chronos hate him, and Hell is a mess.

He does encounter JHWH in the Void after seeing how badly managed Heaven is. (Both afterlife destinations draw heavily on Dante's Divine Comedy. As such, Heaven is dull. Indeed, God can't hear anyone, because God in this setting is too busy in narcissistic contemplation to do anything.) JHVH does explain more about how Incarnations work, then suggests Perry pull a Karen and go talk to the manager. Which leads us to Gabriel, who makes a bet with Satan, that eventually leads to Niobe and Orb.

Which is about the point the book pretty much rehashes the previous volumes, with some getting a brief mention and others getting whole chapters.

The only bright spot in all of this is a bit of history changing one could only wish happened in reality. As a favor to JHVH, Perry stops the Holocaust by convincing Chronos that the Nazis will lead to Satan's ultimate victory.

Anyway, we do eventually get the epilogue to Gaea's book, finding out what happens to Perry after he goes up in flames at his second wedding.

In reflection, the book is better than I remember, but it does still have a feeling of rehash in the latter parts. It also manages to further muddle the timeline in favor of narrative, which gets annoying.