Being a Green Mother

Yeah, I think I'm about done with Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality. Being a Green Mother wasn't bad, per se, but I can't claim it was good either. The plot overlap with the first four books made it predictable and the writing style feels... well... simplistic. My copy of the book actually suffers from a printing defect where one section of 32 pages is in there twice and there's a missing section that should have been there instead. The page numbers jump, and that was jarring, but after picking things up I really didn't feel like I missed anything important.

I am very minorly interested in the perspectives of the incarnations of Good and Evil, but not enough to pursue those books at this time. I still feel the first novel in the series is the best. The others give different views of events, but they just don't seem to add much to the overall story in my opinion.

Comments

  1. tashiroMarch 29, 2011 at 5:53 PM

    I don't disagree. In fact, there's a slump until you hit For Love of Evil, which is where things really pick up. Basically, the first book was best, and then things kind of went 'eh' until you hit For Love of Evil. If I remember, Being a Green Mother is the lead-in for that, which is what makes it important.

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  2. kyn_elwynnMarch 29, 2011 at 9:21 PM

    So, six books in it gets "good again"? Yeah, pass.

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  3. tashiroMarch 29, 2011 at 9:25 PM

    Actually, what got the series started was using it to take a look at a society where magic and technology co-exist.

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  4. marinredwolfMarch 29, 2011 at 9:34 PM

    Which is sort of novel in the first book, if not really explored in-depth enough for me. The second book brings up a few more details of that aspect of the setting. Then... it pretty much stops mattering at all, from what I recall, unless you count the big plot point fish (all because someone has an aversion to buses) in book five. So even if you pick up the series "for" that aspect, most of the books are just plain unnecessary. :/

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  5. kyn_elwynnMarch 30, 2011 at 6:51 PM

    Dun matter. If the story isn't any good, if the characters aren't people I put emotional investment into, then what care have I in the paradigm of the setting? Good stories are character driven, and about their personalities first. The world setting, while important, comes second.

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