In Nomine

So, as the library finally found me a copy of the final book of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality, I found myself racing through the penultimate book, And Eternity. Which used to be the series finale, but ya know....

Anyway, thanks to the revelations of Satan in the previous volume, we're mostly following around Satan's first wife Jolie as she works on secret missions on behalf of Gaea. Unfortunately, Satan had her also working on observing someone, who just happened to be Gaea and Mars's bastard child, Orlene, Who had a baby by Chronos prior to him becoming Chronos, and who's grandmother is currently one of the faces of Fate, and who's cousin Luna is shacked up with Thanatos.

As we saw back in book 2, Orlene kills herself. So Jolie drags her ghost around for most of the book. Which works out, since Gaea needs Jolie and her shadow to check in on a teenaged hooker who's mother works for Luna. This leads us to Vita. We also see more of Nox, the incarnation of night, who has the soul of Orlene's baby, and who presents a quest to Orlene to recover said soul. Orlene only need to gather something from each of the seven Incarnations of Day (which we find out more about that split later on... Basically the Day incarnations split into 7 areas, while Night remained undivided.)

Anyway, after getting Vita off drugs, away from her pimp, and under the supervision of a juvenile court judge who she ends up sleeping with, the three (and on one occasion four) of them wind up seeking out each Incarnation, slowly revealing their relationships with Orlene and showing quite a bit of what each of their offices concerns.

In the end, after securing the items from six of the Incarnations, Orlene, Vita, and Jolie ascend to Heaven and find, like Satan did, God is so busy contemplating his own divinity that he no longer pays attention to the world. As such, Luna's big moment is due to come, as her destiny in thwarting Satan is to provide the deciding vote in declaring the Office of Good vacant. Indeed, one of the best scenes in the entire series, basically a throwaway, happens here, where Satan causes a traffic snarl to prevent her from voting. Which Death's white steed takes her through.

And in the end, the vote on who gets the office happens, and at last Satan and Nox's true plans come to light. And as Jolie swore early on, God kisses Satan while all the Incarnations applaud.

Of note, this is also the only book in the series which I've actually done more than skim the Afterward on. In it he talks a bit about he feels as if good is really not present in the world anymore, and feels good really only works if people work to bring it forward, which I kind of agree with.

I know some folks really hate this volume. While I get that, and I understand, since Anthony's conclusions on the nature of men and women is annoying, I rather enjoyed this reread. I enjoyed the idea that sometimes, if a system is broken, or really doesn't work, the time comes to stop and restart and find a new way. Something I think more than a few of us can associate with.