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Incarnations of Immortality

Incarnations Of Immortality

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1 On a Pale Horse (1983), 2 Bearing an Hourglass (1984), 3 With a Tangled Skein (1985), 4 Wielding a Red Sword (1986), 5 Being a Green Mother (1987), 6 For Love of Evil (1988), & 7 And Eternity (1990). Incarnations uses its premise to ponder questions regarding the nature of life. As each character goes from a mortal life to the "office" of an Incarnation, they are forced to contemplate their actions on a daily basis. Each Incarnation may use their office, within limits, as they see fit. This system humanizes what would otherwise be impersonal forces, leading to both extensive considerations of the effects of the incarnation's work and the impact it has on not only humanity but also the other offices of immortality as well. Another humorous side of Incarnations is the portrayed magic/technology duality. Most series emphasize one or the other means of understanding and manipulating the world, but in Incarnations each method is equal in usefulness and respect. This leads to a number of amusing parallels, such as competition between automobile and magic-carpet manufacturers. By the future time period of Norton, magic is referred to as the Fifth Fundamental Force, with its own primary particle, the Magicon (similar to a graviton). A few other series have used the technology/magic combined motif, notably Apprentice Adept, another series by Piers Anthony, and Four Lords of the Diamond by Jack Chalker, although that book had an actual technological basis for the explanation of its magic, in contrast to Piers Anthony's work. Anthony uses the number five extensively, often with things that exist in fours in our world. The five Incarnations are associated with the five elements (Death with Earth, Fate with Water, War with Fire, Nature with Air, and Time with Void), and often other items with fives (the previously mentioned Book of Five Rings). There are five fundamental interactions, magic being the fifth.

Book Set

First published January 1, 1983

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About the author

Piers Anthony

445 books4,241 followers
Though he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.

Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
Profile Image for Sean Michael.
13 reviews
March 26, 2014
I read these 5 novels somewhere between the ages of 11 and 14, and thoroughly loved them! I'm afraid to reread them for fear of being disappointed.
119 reviews
May 4, 2015
"On a Pale Horse" was a fantastic book and I was intrigued on how Anthony would put his take on various incarnations. To actually find all the books was an effort spanning several years and formats. While I still find the premise interesting, I found it very hard to read any of Anthony's storylines regarding the women. The difference of his writing and perspective between the genders is staggering.
7 reviews
July 25, 2022
This is the series over which I met my husband. The first time we met, he asked for book recommendations and I recommended this series. Lo and behold, he pulled On A Pale Horse (book #1) from his pocket and slammed it on the table! WOW.

The idea behind this series is what if death, fate, war, nature, etc., were actually jobs, and once a person dies, that job goes to someone else?

SO good!
Profile Image for Eric Konzelmann.
89 reviews1 follower
Read
February 7, 2022
Loved these as an early teen - don't want to give a star rating because it's been so long and I don't trust my memory enough to affect the aggregate rating here on Goodreads. Notable memories include being astonished by how well the author humanizes base human urges, instincts, and fears. Death and Evil were particularly appealing as a teenage boy.
78 reviews
July 2, 2025
If anything should win the award of great ideas but bad execution it is this series.

The idea of death, time, fate, war, nature, god, and Satan being offices taken up by humans is a fun one. There was a lot of really well done aspects. The discussions of ethics at the end of life, the idea that the office of time lives backward was really cool, and as someone who loves the movie Tenet, I was a sucker for all the time inversion. I genuinely think the on a pale horse philosophy of death was so ahead of its time and even relevant today. The discussions of war and evil also offered a really unique perspective. The world is a really cool fantasy world I want to be absorbed in!!

But oh my, some parts are just unreadable. There is so much extra fluff. It is incredibly annoying that he has these great ideas but focuses on the weirdest things.

Worst of all Piers Anthony comes off as a horny teenage boy. Full chapters of demons pleasuring men sexually. There is so much blatant sexism, rape, discussion of women’s breasts, using women solely for sex . The line “a product of its time” can’t even be used, it’s that bad. I thought Asimov was sexist but Anthony makes him look like the leader of the feminist movement.

If anything should be re written or remade into an HBO series it’s this. Use the great ideas but cut out the unnecessary fluff and absolutely cut out the sexism.
1 review
January 12, 2018
Starts off strong with the aspect of death, ends with pedophilia and 2 ghosts in a 14 year old prostitute.
492 reviews2 followers
September 21, 2017
Major Spoiler Alert:

1: On a Pale Horse: Zane, a guy of middling moral fortitude who's just been tricked into using magic to fritter away any chance of future happiness in his life attempts to shoot himself in the head, but when Death comes for him personally he freaks out and shoots Death right in the face, killing him! He becomes Death! Satan tries to mess up his job, but he perseveres and becomes a good Death!

2: Bearing An Hourglass: Norton tires to save his love, but gets tricked into taking up the mantle of Chronos, Incarnation of Time! He befriends Sning, a cool prophetic snake ring, and an actual alien from outer space, and is soon ensnared in a grand illusion of Satan, who is trying to steal his power! To escape, he witnesses the very beginnings and endings of the universe!

3: With a Tangled Skein: Niobe is a super beautiful woman from early last century who becomes not one, but two aspects of Fate, first Clotho, then Lachesis! Her tangled personal relationships begin to tie the series together! Her son becomes a super magician pulling strings behind the scenes, her daughter Orb becomes Nature in book 5, Orb's daughter is the love of Norton from book 2, and Niobe's other granddaughter via the Magician is the love of Zane from book 1.

4: Wielding a Red Sword: Mym loves Orb, but his rich family separates them... He has Sning to her! Later, Satan orchestrates world peace so that the old incarnation of War is replaced by a new one - Mym! - and sends demoness Lilah to corrupt him. However, Lilah falls in love with Mym instead and together they thwart Satan!

5: Being a Green Mother: Orb has a baby with Mym and gives her Sning! Orb has music powers, and when she's told she's fated to become the next Incarnation of Nature, she attempts to learn a special ubermagical song that controls nature... but ends up falling in love with Satan in disguise! However, it is true love, and Satan destroys himself by singing a duet of a religious Hymn! Orb, now Nature, is sad, but the day is won!

That really wrapped things up nicely! All throughout the series cool stuff was happening, punctuated with some of the characters hooking up or having rather risque experiences that served to enhance the story. Probably the weirdest sex related thing that happened was in book 4 when Mym sliced up the demoness... she was unkillable though, her insides were just a blank grey. She was still holding a calm conversation with him as he tossed her pieces into a box and sent her back to hell, if I recall correctly.

Based on the success of the first five books, Piers Anthony wrote two more. In book 6 he covered the antagonist of the first books, Satan.

6: For Love of Evil: Parry was a sorcerer, in love with Jolie, in the 11th century... but Jolie was killed and became a ghost! Parry then became a priest, but then Lucifer, Incarnation of Evil, sent the demoness Lilah to corrupt him, and she did, through sex! Lucifer came to take him directly to hell, but didn't realize Jolie was there too, empowering Parry to reflect Lucifer's own attack back at him, killing him and making Parry the new Incarnation of evil, to be named... Satan! Still basically a good guy who happened to have been born with magic and liked having sex, he tried to figure out how best to do his job, and soon found out that Hell was set up in an archaic way, and he discovered that a lot of things that were labelled as sins weren't all that bad! However, there was little he could do about it directly, so he tried talking about it with the the other Incarnations... but was rebuffed and humiliated by each one in turn! (Except for Time, who he befriended, but was replaced by another one who hated him later on). Finally he went to the Incarnation of Good, God, and discovered that he was basically a vegetable... he had tuned out from the problems of life on earth long, long ago, and just sat around beholding his own magnificence. Plus, Heaven was super boring... good people would get there, but not be allowed to do anything natural or fun, specifically, lovers couldn't have sex. Now, he had fended off a bunch of angels to get there, but ended up talking with the angel Gabriel, who was in charge while God was indisposed. They made a deal for power: If Satan could corrupt a specific person, or one of that person's descendants out to the third generation down, Satan would win and could change the status quo, otherwise not. However, Gabriel got to choose, and it was a person who lived centuries later! Niobe! At that point, the book recounted the events of the first 5 books, from his perspective, now revealed to be somewhat reasonable considering his goal. However, he was overcome by love and destroyed himself by singing with Orb/Nature! However, that freed Jolie, who was able to explain some things to the other Incarnations, along with input from Lilah, Gabriel, and so on, (plus, the office of Evil had gone to the most evil person in the world, a serial killer, who was not secretly a good guy) and they set Parry free from his prison in hell. He fought with the new Evil, and defeated him! Then he got to hook up with his new love, Orb/Nature, and his old love, Ghost Jolie.

So, in covering the Incarnation of Evil, Piers Anthony revealed that there was a secret backstory to all the fights with Satan in the first series. The recap chapters at the end were boring, but it seemed worth it. However, now we knew that this alternate view contained a new goal (replace God, redefine sin according to modern sensibilities), and that goal wasn't achieved! That brings us to:

7: And Eternity: Woo, the titles are a set! Orb's daughter Orlene is a very good person. For some reason, she enters into an arranged 'Ghost Marriage', to bear a child for an actual ghost named Gawain, after being impregnated by a sperm donor, Norton (we see his take on things in book 2). She has a baby, but had been convinced to have the baby's DNA altered to match the ghost daddy's. Unfortunately, Gawain's family possessed a curse to die early, and the baby now had the curse! And it died! Orlene finds out the curse was from the genetic tampering, and discovers that Nature (her own mother!) had facilitated that at the ghost daddy's request, but couldn't fix it. Finding that there was nothing she could do for her baby in life, she killed herself to help in in death! She was helped by Jolie, the ghost that loved Parry (now Satan) and hung out with her mom (Orb/Nature) a lot. Together, they end up finding out about, then going to Nox, Incarnation of Night, for help. We discover that at the dawn of what passes for time, all magic energy was a big swirl, that separated into a day swirl and a night swirl. The day swirl oversaw things that generally happened when people were active, and there was so much activity that it split into 7 parts, the other incarnations of immortality. However, night was less active, so it didn't split up. So, they figured it had quite a bit of power and could help. But when they got there, Nox already had the baby with her in ghost form! After a humiliating test, which Orlene failed (she was turned into a man and raped... Nox? Or maybe Jolie, it's been a while) Nox took pity on them and sent them on an extended fetch quest... a powerful item from each Incarnation that only they could provide, that would enable them to heal the baby's curse and bring him back to life. They were: A fresh soul from Death, a grain of sand from Time's hourglass, a thread of life from Fate, a seed of war from War, a tear from Nature, a curse from Evil and a Blessing from Good. In the meantime, the baby would stay with Nox, who could take care of it. Then the two ghosts got put in the body of a young prostitute, and the three of them went on some adventures, had lots of sex, and met all of the incarnations... all of them relatives of Orlene. Long story short, they got everything except for the blessing from God, who had tuned out. But! In the process of all of this, that status of God was revealed to all (except Parry/Satan, who already knew) and in a kind of parliamentary action, the Incarnations got together and voted out God! To fill the position of Good once more, a goodly judge that Orlene had met on her adventures was proposed, but he refused! But then, Satan himself proposed Orlene as the replacement, and his idea was so good that everyone agreed. The items that Orlene had collected were used to put her into office, and it was done! The world was made better... plus Satan had fulfilled his quest (from the last book) to either replace God with a better office holder or take everything over himself! Orlene, as the new God, had experienced many aspects of life, learning about modern morality, and now she could be an active Incarnation of Good, and update the list of sins so that everyone went to their proper place in the afterlife!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Maggie.
49 reviews24 followers
March 20, 2014
Incarnations of Immortality- Piers Anthony

I have read this series 3 or 4 times. There are 8 books, although the 8th is newly released and not particularly related to the first 7.

These books are placed in an alternate Earth future. Magic and science are prevalent and people are the same as people in all ages and places. An important fact is that any deity that has or had followers and believers exists. Their power is based on the amount of followers they have. This series deals with the Judea-Christian belief set.

In the beginning, fate goes into chaos and collects pure chaos to spin into the threads of life. She then begins weaving the tapestry of life (literal) with these threads. The point is to separate good from evil. The other incarnations make the world run smoothly with the assistance of other minor incarnations. For example: War is the incarnation and Famine is the minor incarnation.

Major Incarnations: Book Title
DEATH: On a Pale Horse
TIME: Bearing an Hourglass
WAR: Wielding a Red Sword
FATE: With a Tangled Skein
NATURE: Being a Green Mother
EVIL: For the Love of Evil
GOOD: And Eternity

The characters in these books are all interrelated. Everyone that is introduced has a purpose which is all explained in the last book. It has a great ah-ha! feel to the series. The puzzles and stores in each book are fun. Watching each incarnation (new to their office) being tested by the wily evil incarnation is fun and empowering. There are some interesting points on human nature made. It is enjoyable to see the ties between the characters deepen with each book, and the world built until you believe it is real. My favorite books in the series are Fate and Nature. My least favorite are Time and War. Piers Anthony is a wonderful story teller, and I highly recommend this series.
Profile Image for Nicole Kaare.
3 reviews
December 5, 2023
1,3,5&6 these are the books that make me say I like this series.
You could completely get away with only reading these and be satisfied.
If you want all of the intricacies and links between characters then read 2&4 as well but I found them the most eh and both almost turned me completely off the series in the drudgery.
I think it's best if you finish 1-6 to completely skip 7 as while it's rough dealing with the way the author writes his female roles throughout the series it culminates in the worst and most intolerable way in the 7th book and there was nothing I found redeemable about it and the series did not benefit from it in any way.

Overall the series Started with a bang and ended with an ugh
2 reviews
November 23, 2020
His books are often dismissed as cheap, formulaic pulp, but these are terrific reads: fun, with social commentary that has aged well, a wonderful exploration into the basis of faith, AND a depth of inter-connectivity and world-building that is quite clever. Each book stands alone, but after you've read them all you realized it was all a larger story all along. I'll admit the last 2 books got weaker and a little weird, but the original five are beyond outstanding.
18 reviews
April 23, 2020
I started out of order, with Wielding a Red Sword, and was hooked. This thoughtful prospective on politics and religion in a fantasy setting in masterful. Piers Anthony is one of my favorite authors and I owe it to discover of this series. So glad he wrote the last book, Nox needed her story told.
126 reviews
June 19, 2024
fun world, crazy misogyny etc etc lol. Sweet summer child of my youth
13 reviews
August 31, 2017
I first read these books in my late teens and early adulthood as I began to discover the wonderful, mysterious, inviting fun of reading fantasy as a genre. Piers Anthony and Roger Zelazny got me hooked; and so, it is to the Incarnations of Immortality that I turn to, (or the never-ending shades of Amber), when I need something familiar and enchanting to soften the more difficult histories that I usually read, ( being one of those persons who usually has 3 or 4 books open and in the way of being eagerly devoured.) The Incarnations of Immortality are rich with characters that come to life in one's imagination causing a natural sympathy for their plight and struggles and a rush of delight in their victories. I've read this series almost a dozen times through and am still drawn into the incredible picturesque landscapes that Anthony paints with his words. My only complaint is that books 1 - 5 are available digitally as is the latest in the series, book 8, ( " Under a Velvet Cloak" ), (which I am eagerly approaching - I just finished # 6, again!)My point being: when, oh!, when? Will books 6 and 7 be published digitally to avoid the awkwardness of Fire, Paperwhite, paperback, paperback, Fire!!!? As for the books, read them! They are wonderful!
Profile Image for Vincent Carmichael.
25 reviews
June 11, 2013
The particular "Incarnations of Immortality" book that I just read was, "Wielding a Red Sword" which isn't found (at least I couldn't find it) on Goodreads. Strange because I just read and found "Being A Green Mother" on Goodreads.
Profile Image for Stuart.
722 reviews350 followers
August 12, 2016
I really enjoyed this series as a teenager, and it was a fairly original concept, but the quality of story-telling quickly deteriorated after On A Pale Hors, and the last two volumes about Good and Evil were particularly weak, with all of Piers Anthony's creepy obsessions on full display.
Profile Image for Alex.
5 reviews
July 5, 2014
An absolutely wonderful series full of fleshed out characters. The story is long but each book adds layers to the previous books.
Profile Image for Janin.
418 reviews
April 2, 2011
One of my absolute favorite series. I read it at least once a year.
Profile Image for Kilzein.
5 reviews
May 15, 2014
My favorite series. Great stories and great characters.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews