Mute

by Piers Anthony

Mute is science fantasy of mutation and psi: special mental powers. The protagonist, Knot, is a double mutant: he has a physical deformity, and the psi power to make others forget him. He s satisfied with his life--until the lovely Finesse walks into his life to recruit him for a dangerous galactic mission. She is aided by two small animal mutants: a telepathic weasel and a clairvoyant crab. Knot tries to resist, aided by his psi, but the woman s beauty and the animals powers doom him to a phenomenal adventure. The prior edition was cut; this is the complete version.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

440 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

reviews.metaphorosis.com

3.5 stars

Knot is the (psychically) forgettable placement officer for a minimal-mutant enclave. Despite reservations, he's enlisted as an agent of the Central Coordination Computer to fight an unknown agent. With the help of other talented CCC agents - Finesse (human), Hermine (weasel) and Mit (crab), he is quickly involved in a desperate struggle for the galaxy's future.

When I was young, Piers Anthony was one of my favorite authors. I liked his philosophy, his concepts, and his (usually) extensive author's notes. I came across him when I picked up The Source of Magic at an airport and loved it. Over time, though, my interest lessened, as Anthony seemed to follow the Heinlein route away from good writing and into lechery.

Mute is from the early period, and I remember liking it. Reading it now, I was sorry to discover that it may not, after all, be Anthony that changed, but me. The story is engaging, the characters generally likable, the ideas inventive. I found the tone a little more direct than I recalled - Anthony sets up a moral or physical puzzle, then solves it, usually while staying strictly within the parameters he began with. The protagonist spends a great deal of time in introspective and critical self-examination, re-evaluating where needed. He's incredibly well-adjusted and self-aware, without descending into the pathos that some writers put him through. Sure, some of the science is shallow or gimmicky, but there's no pretense of hard SF here - it's about characters and morality, and Anthony presents it pretty well.

There's a pretty big gap in the middle of the book where Anthony just skips forward. I'm not sure whether he was bored, didn't find that part necessary, or just had too long a story on his hands - for the early 80s, this was a pretty sizable book.

Puns, good and bad, run throughout the book. Sometimes a bit forced, sometimes a bit funny. There's also quite a lot more sex here than I remember, though minimally described. Probably thrilling for the teenage me, but looking a lot like wish fulfillment now. It's not really objectionable, just highly unlikely, and leaning towards juvenile.

Where Mute falls weak - and falls pretty far - is in rampant sexism. When I was in my early teens, that didn't trouble me. The older, wiser me is less forgiving. Mute follows in the strong man, rescued woman tradition of the pulps, but does it decades later, when SF was starting to know better. To be fair, there are strong, talented women. They're not weak and submissive, and they're not wise and all-powerful. They are, though, secondary; there's little doubt that, right or wrong, the man is the one in charge.

I found Mute to be more simplistic than I recalled, and a lot more sexist. It's still readable, but less so than I remember. I may go back to some other early Anthony to see whether they all follow the same style.

Ordinarily, I'd recommend this for YA readers - the simple style and direct grappling with moral issues head it that way. Unfortunately, that's exactly the wrong audience for ingrained sexism. So I'll say this - if you're a reasonably adult soft SF fan, you like puzzles, and you can pass over the (let's be generous) dated gender roles, you may enjoy this.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this was a good book. The story carried well, the characters were developed, and it kept me interested. It wasn't a book I couldn't put down, but it was far from being a book I didn't want to pick back up either. I read it a long time ago and glancing through it again has reminded me about it. There were a couple of parts I hadn't forgotten and I enjoyed reading it.
I also have to note that I did not read it five years before it was published. I have a copy of the original addition by Avon printed in 1981.

[Michel Clasquin-Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Acceptable space opera. But there's a problem right at the end. The hero gets sent forward in time to find out what the threat to the galaxy is, so it can be averted. But somehow he never gets sent back in time to deliver his message. Instead, he fights the enemy within to an unsatisfactory draw, then gets the girl and lives happy ever after in galactic chaos. Why set up such an elaborate time-travel scheme, then tell the rest of the story like a bad spy novel, with space ships and telepathic chickens?

[Foxtower · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!

[Janine Coleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to have a friend in high school who first introduced me to Piers Anthony with this book. I immediately was taken with it- the entire world that Anthony seemingly effortlessly creates as well as focusing on the more unfortunate denizens on outlying planets that have been mutated in some way. Of course in typical science fiction, we are almost always introduced to a beautiful female- the wonderful part of this book is that she is flawed and instead of relying on being rescued by the main character, Knot, she ends up saving herself.

Mute, amoung other psi-powers, also deals with time travel of a sort and utilizing this in order to best rule the galaxy, as task set to the CCC, or Central Coordinating Computer. Knot is originally recruited by CCC to help defend it against an unknown enemy which will ultimately destroy the planet that the computer encompasses. Knot uses his own personal mutation, causing a person to forget him, as well as the aid of a clairvoyant crab and psychic weasel to try an achieve this goal. He ultimately fails, allowing for the destruction of the CCC, something that I rarely see in novels and appreciated greatly in this one.

This is a good book to get a sampling of what Piers Anthony can do with a great stand-alone story. This isn't serialized like his popular Xanth series or a part of a trilogy like some of this other works- yet this is a wonderful introduction to Anthony's world of science fiction.

[Printable Tire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's a cool story that makes me look great: last fall I went to a pastoral arts festival where a library was having a big book sale under a tent. And they had a million scifi books! So many I was overwhelmed. They even had two copies of Mute, and I was tempted to buy one, knowing full well that as a Piers Anthony novel, the odds of it being completely stupid were about equal to it being weirdly compelling. But I couldn't decide which copy had the coolest cover so I left both of them there, thinking I could always get it out of the library. And in some brazen, half-cocked attempt at self-restraint I left the sale with only one book: The Best of Omni Science Fiction.

Well, it turns out the library didn't have a copy of Mute, and still possessing some nagging compulsion to read it, I went to my favorite bookstore downtown (sadly since deceased) knowing full well that Mute was exactly the sort of random slipshod scifi potboiler they excelled in carrying. Sure enough, I purchased a rather ratty old copy- for a whopping $1.25! At the library sale paperbacks were priced at fifty cents. You can imagine my shame.

Anyway, on to Mute.

Some day I'll have to come up with a flashy term for this kind of novel, usually though not always genre fiction, that was clearly written for some sort of looming deadline/contract obligation, and also obviously took as long to write as it does to read. There's a science, or at least an equation, to this sort of seat-of-the-pants, automatic writing. For one thing, characters have long dialogues with each other as they rehash the plot to remind the author of what's happening and to kill time; for another, characters interrogate issues raised by the plot and question potential plot holes, so the author doesn't have to go back and revise anything, so he can lay his cards on the table as it were and see where he should go from there, and, of course, to kill time. In essence, these sort of books are always talky padding.

The first section of Mute is really plodding; after that things get too fast-footed before settling down to an even-keel plodding pace once more that sometimes reads like the minutes to a D&D campaign. It's a heckuva weird book, one, despite evidence to the contrary, I really enjoyed reading, precisely because it was so weird. It'd make a great underground comix, along the line of Brian Chippendale or Powr Mastrs 1.

Here's a couple of passages to give you a sample of the weirdness, but keep in mind I am really only scratching the iceberg:


Actually, Knot thought, it would be a shame to mastectomize such a beautiful breast. She was a true mutant, not a genetic freak; her extra breast was directly between the other two and of equal size and configuration, except it was somewhat squeezed. She had quite a double cleavage, when she cared to show it! When nonmutant females had extra breasts, in contrast, they tended to be below the regular ones, like the teats on an animal, in parallel lines down the torso.
She caught him looking. "Did we do something last night?" she inquired brightly.

"We're in trouble," he called as he burst in. "I released some fighting cocks, and they're on the way here now. We need a barricade, weapons-"
Finesse's head jerked up. "You saw this in the future?"

They proceeded in leisurely but intense fashion to lovemaking, all the time conversing by assorted pressures of contact. In the end they were in the most intimate stage- and communicating through meaningfully rhythmic genital contractions.

The next hour was one of the least pleasant of his life. All he remembered later was being pitched about the cramped enclosure along with Thea, heaving out his guts, watching seawater overflow the floor, dilute and wash away the vomit, then heaving again. He fancied he was becoming something of an expert at analyzing the manner in which seawater dissolved vomit. There were all sorts of intriguing rivulets and separations and encapsulations as though a military horde were attacking a variegated bastion. Inevitably the horde encircle,d undetermined and swept away the bastion- but thereafter the horde was colored by the essence of the defeated force. From the the third time on, the heaves were dry, which spoiled his analytical distraction, and these were worse than the others. Thea tried to comfort him, but his sickness preempted his attention and anyway, she was not his woman anymore.


Oh, and it's a Piers Anthony novel so of course it's sexist in the creepiest way possible, though thankfully not full-on pedo this time around (see Var the Stick).

(An addendum to my earlier story: months later I discovered I already owned a copy of The Best of Omni Science Fiction, I just hadn't realized it because my earlier copy didn't have a dust jacket! There's a lesson in here somewhere, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.)

[Jenny T · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off good, but got very weird, very quickly. I loved the precognitive hermit crab, but the telepathic fleas and teleporting chickens were too much. I could detect early traces of Anthony's later Xanth series in the puns and the quest-like nature of the plot, but other than a few delicious moments, this book just wasn't very good at all.

[Ranthium · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book overall, but best to not read the last chapter and make it up in your own mind.

[Dex · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite book. I read it as a child so my taste was a bit different than now. It still has a fond place in my memory.

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a 50-cent used book from my local library, this book is a jewel. I totally loved this book. Piers Anthony went way out in this 80s sci-fi story. Some things were even happening that had no relevance to the main plot but were extremely clever while borderline believable. (100 years from now. Elon Musk will make it happen.) That, and the main story, makes this book, to me, a very enjoyable way to spend some quiet-time.

The main plot was simple enough (a fight over control of a world governing computer). The characters were witty and fun with all their psi stuff. What was extremely interesting however was the outcome. In a world, like we have today, where there has to be winners and losers to make progress, in this story everyone wins, even when they lose. People see another's point of view and reconsider their own staunch ideas about the progress of Beings. Some even concede. (Now that's rarely written. Now-a-days the other side has to die!)
I also like that the animals (critters) and insects all win too. They know, because they all have psi abilities, that they are essential partakers of the quality of life and living on their planet and with the humans, even with the mutant Uglies and Lobes. These psi mutant critters and insects help save the planet. And they do it on their terms. They too are considered essential Beings worth equal respect with all Beings. Cool concept.

There is so much in this book. And I read much more into it, because it allowed me to. Clever, clever writing. I'd give it 3 more stars just for pulling off sexism taboos without going over the edge too. All characters played the tilted card willfully, together. There was no hate involved. I'm ok with that. No hating!

"None of the creatures was obnoxious. Even the roaches were careful about where they deposited their droppings. Knot's original aversion to dealing with vermin disappeared; in fact, they stopped being vermin in his mind. They became animal acquaintances—as were Hermine [a weasel] and Mit [a crab]. Useful ones, too—for the roaches' sensitivity to danger would help a good deal as the group made its run for the space shuttle." (pg.330-331)

[Red Cloud · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as a kid, and it was a long time fave from a distance. Coming back to it as an adult, it is...way, way problematic. As others have noted, the female characters are less "characters" and more "wish fulfillment." They don't behave, at any point, realistically. They are objectified throughout, and I do mean almost every female character gets a lens of objectification thrown on them, either for the positive or the negative.

I wasn't really willing to let that go, per se, but there are aspects of the book I was specifically looking for, and so I kept reading to find them. And it just...kept getting worse. I'd noted repeatedly that where I'd expect, say, Clarke or even Heinlein to toss some gay shit in there, Anthony was avoiding it. At one point, there's a mention that a major point of space travel is husbands fucking other women while their wives watch secretly...and absolutely no mention of the reverse, of women together, of men together. The explicit tone is that the women are the source of entertainment, save the cuckolded wives, who are titillated by their husband's prowess.

And then, at one point, Anthony explicitly says that a character must be male, for no woman would conceive of marrying a woman, and I rocked back a little. I can hold to a convention of a biased narrator, even a third person biased narrator since the novel only shows the protagonists perspective ever, but the author being that explicit in an aside indicates that the views I'm reading are the word of god, not the word of a flawed character.

So, essentially, it is an incredibly sexist power fantasy couched in SF terms. All the moralizing always comes down to situational ethics, and amounts to precisely nothing. No lesson is gained, no progress is made, the story itself goes nowhere, and the vast majority of the going nowhere is done in the most sexist, bigoted way possible, even as the author attempts to look like he's discussing bigotry.

If you want any reason to read it, Hermine and Mit are it. But beyond that...not really worth your time.

[CD · Rating 4 out of 5]

The female characters weren't weak. The idea was that the protagonist was supposed to be diplomatic. Seeing things that one normally wouldn't accept or be comfortable with and dealing with them. Not every culture is the same. Just like not every person is exactly the same.
The book seemed juvenile, perhaps because the Author was, in a way, trying to teach a younger audience how to accept others. Not really my concern.
Finesse wasn't weak...she was trapped in a role and doing what she felt was the right thing. To most of the readers, it might seem ridiculous. but, to save the galaxy...what would you do?
Stepping outside your cage and seeing a different perspective is sometimes a good thing.
As for the ending...c'mon, do you really think that humans would be capable of running an entire galaxy without help? Look at Earth in 2020 and tell me what you think.

[James]

Mute is science fantasy of mutation and psi: special mental powers. The protagonist, Knot, is a double mutant: he has a physical deformity, and the psi power to make others forget him. He’s satisfied with his life--until the lovely Finesse walks into his life to recruit him for a dangerous galactic mission. She is aided by two small animal mutants: a telepathic weasel and a clairvoyant crab. Knot tries to resist, aided by his psi, but the woman’s beauty and the animals’ powers doom him to a phenomenal adventure. The prior edition was cut; this is the complete version.

[Steve R]

Set on alien worlds within a Galactic Empire, and involving actions of a mutant-bred exile, a seductive imperial agent, a psychic weasel and a telepathic crab designed to work within the confines established for them by the Coordinating Computer, this work involves, of course, the fate of humanity. Travels across space and time to thwart the motives of the renegade Piebald make for scenes of daring do in this hardly remembered one-off offering from Anthony.

[gordon musgrave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of my money

Wow I guess even a good writer can have bad books because this one is!! Could have been so much better but the writer did not try he went the easy route and put in stuff that just took up pages I guess the publisher was pushing him for another book!!

[Steve Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very Guardians of the Galaxy, but gets cluttered.

[K. Counihan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just OK

The first 200 pages of the story were good. The next 300 pages were were quite awful. I will thus give this one a 2.5 rating.

[Samantha Lupo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Half-baked. Interesting concepts that went to an ending that just felt kind of meh.

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book for the first time perhaps twenty years ago. I thought it was quite good back then and when I was adding my favorites to Goodreads it went on the list. I'm not sure it deserves that distinction. In fact, I'm certain it does not because I have changed the rating from a 5 star to a 2 star.

When I first read this book I was fairly new to science fiction. The novelty of the genre made everything I picked up back then seem mind-blowing. I was also a bit less sensitive to sexist tropes. Things I find bothersome now clearly didn't annoy me back then because, if they had, I would have remembered how much of this novel is clearly a male masturbatory fantasy.

There are couple of reasons I say this.

First, the author's treatment of the women in this novel is rather juvenile. All the ladies want to have sex with our mutant hero, even if they fully understand they won't remember the night's pleasure due to his psychic mutation, which will erase him entirely from their short and long term memories. One is even disappointed she can't have his baby, even though he has to remind her of who he is every time they get separated or she awakens from a night's rest.

Umm...what? Try explaining that faux-immaculate conception to your kid when they're old enough to start asking questions.

Then there's Finesse, the CC agent assigned to him for the duration of his mission. She is forced to "temporarily" divorce her husband and leave behind her child. This should be a huge obstacle but it's not. She's so in love with Knot that she's content to never see her beloved husband and child ever again. Sure, the author tries to rationalize her willingness to pretend that part of her life never happened, but it's ridiculous. As soon as she remembers her husband and child - especially her child! - there should be some major shifts in the plotting of this book. But Finesse isn't meant to be a fully developed and fleshed-out character. She's the fantasy obtained.

How did I miss all this the first time around? Well, I wasn't a mom when I first read this, so that might explain some of my willingness to buy what the author was trying to sell me.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mute is science fantasy of mutation and psi: special mental powers. The protagonist, Knot, is a double mutant: he has a physical deformity, and the psi power to make others forget him. He's satisfied with his life--until the lovely Finesse walks into his life to recruit him for a dangerous galactic mission. She is aided by two small animal mutants: a telepathic weasel and a clairvoyant crab. Knot tries to resist, aided by his psi, but the woman's beauty and the animals' powers doom him to a phenomenal adventure. The prior edition was cut; this is the complete version.

[Jason Kittredge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reread this for the first time in years. Wasn't as good as I remembered. The plot was interesting, and it had been long enough that I forgot a lot of the details. Like many of Piers Anthony's books, I found that it had a unique perspective.

I recommend it for any Piers Anthony fan. The ending seemed a little abrupt, and was a bit disappointing.

[Asa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Classic Piers Anthony: take one interesting concept, bury it under pulp tropes and dad-joke prose, then sprinkle a touch of moral epiphany to make you feel you’ve read something profound. It’s like discovering a psychic alien among your friends, only to realise he just wants to tell you he’s lonely and eat your lunchables.

[Shalon · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was weird. I couldn't read the last chapter because i felt that, somehow, when i finished it would affect my brain in some lasting way. i felt like the book was taking over my brain, mesmerizing me. vivid.

[Anastaciaknits]

Sucked

[Steel]

Seem to recall liking this... really can't remember much about it

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read April 30, 1981.

[D Calco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mute by Piers Anthony (1981)

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young adult 10-15

[Howard]

14

[Andy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Even for Piers Anthony, whose work I like less and less as I get older, this is a really clumsy ready.