Incarnations of Immortality Series by Piers Anthony,
      Published by Grafton books, price around œ4.50 each.

                Reviewed by Kjell Robertsen

Piers Anthony is probably best known as the author of the Xanth
series, but he has written many other books such as the Cluster
and Adept series.

The Incarnations series of seven books deal with characters of
Greek mythology:  Death, War, Fate, Time (who lives backwards!),
Gaea and God and Satan thrown in as controlling characters.  Each
book in the series deals with one of these subjects.

Anthony has created a world where both magic and science work side
by side.  Death, Fate, Time, God, War, Gaea and Satan are normal
people who do these characters' work.  They change all the time.
Apparently their real job is to determine which people go to
heaven and which to hell, the balance between hell and heaven must
be kept or all will be chaos. Satan advertises the pleasures of
hell everywhere.  If he can get more souls than God then the
ultimate power will be his.  God obviously doesn't care about the
mortal world at all, he does nothing to persuade people to go to
heaven.  Satan tries to persuade the other incarnations (except
God who refuses to see him) to work for him, but they are on the
side of God and try to prevent him from gaining power.  The books
are fascinating and very well written.  They are also unique.
No-one else has dealt with these subjects before.

Anthony has used the Greek myths almost unchanged, the three
aspects of Fate are correctly done. It's also a little confusing.
I wouldn't have liked to share one body with two other people.
Anthony has also taken myths from the Bible (I don't believe in
any religion so I call it myths), Jonah the whale is here, but he
is not a whale but a magic fish.  One of the main characters, Orb
who is a musician, uses him as transport, she lives with her band
inside him. With magic everything is possible.

Anthony has done what many modern authors do, taken myths from one
mythology and mixed them with myths from another. But in this case
it is necessary, Zeus would have made a lousy god if he was used
in this series, he is too war-like.

Unfortunately, Anthony has gone further than that by introducing
flying carpets from the far east, they are used alongside
aeroplanes.

What happens to the soul of an atheist?  According to Anthony it
is destroyed immediately but if God and Satan really do exist,
then I don't think one's belief would matter. I am an atheist and
I think I'd probably go to hell so I'd better be right in
believing that they don't exist.

Anthony has succeeded in creating truly believable characters in a
world that unfortunately is a little less believable because of
the mixed-up mythologies, but I enjoyed these stories
nevertheless.

Each book is a finished story in its own right but it's best to
read all the books to understand the whole idea.  The end of the
last book, And Eternity, is unexpected if one hasn't read the
others, at least I found it so because I read the last book first.

All in all, the Incarnations series is modern fantasy at its
best.  They're number two on my list of best modern fantasies.
Number one is Edding's Belgariad.

Both these series are books that can be read many times, and I've
read them more times than I care to mention, I do, after all, read
other books too.