Reviews

Chaos Mode by Piers Anthony

kingofspain93's review

5.0

Every book in this series feels fresh and exciting. Chaos Mode, like the others, is clearly a combination of whatever Anthony was interested in at the time (in this case, it’s writing Burgess Shale fanfic) and his continuing devotion to his readership. That said, the novel does a great job of building on what came previously and is the first in the series to see Colene really come into her own as a leader. It’s refreshing to see a story where the male characters, while having strengths of their own, are not all brilliant thinkers or rippling with physical prowess. Instead, Colene is increasingly called upon to step into the role of tactician and strategist, her ability to think quickly, logically, and at a planetary level becoming her own form of magic that the other fantastical voyagers lack. In Chaos Mode Colene also continues to struggle with depression and suicidality, with confusion and pain as she faces difficult choices, and with the extreme fear of feeling like she is not worth enough to the people in her life.

To his credit, having written a complicated heroine whose emotional and interpersonal situation is nuanced and touching, Anthony doesn’t ever create artificial comfort or easy answers for her. He does not diminish her problems, but neither does he frame them as hopeless or irresoluble. By having characters be steadfast and supportive friends to Colene, by recognizing that even limited resolution of troubled relationships can be meaningful, and by never letting men off the hook for their many crimes against women, Anthony models what empathy should look like. It is not meaningless words or enforced silence about violence against women. 

Because of this and his unerring attention to Colene’s many strengths, desires, sorrows, and joys, Anthony has written an adventure novel that is truly celebratory of the women and girls who all inspired Colene. As he makes explicit in his author’s note at the end of Chaos Mode, the institutional reaction to his Mode novels has been largely negative because the frank (though far from gratuitous) acknowledgment of rape, domestic violence, and sexism in the series is considered vulgar and inappropriate for fantasy. Societal scorn is directed at the mention of these subjects, not at the fact that gendered violence is written into reality for women and girls everywhere and the male perpetrators are not only unhindered but actively defended. Piers Anthony recognized that the women and girls who wrote to him were not just objects of sorrow, not just victims, not just smiling faces, not just brilliant thinkers. They were, they are, complex creatures who exist so far beyond the expectations of men that they might as well be planeswalkers. They are irreducible, and Anthony wrote a whole fantasy series just to demonstrate how incredible that is.

euchre35's review against another edition

2.0

I am rereading Piers Anthony novels that I read in my youth, but reading them as an adult has changed my outlook. I find the books tedious and long. I love the Xanth series, but the rest of his series are not for me.

jovvijo's review against another edition

3.0

Of all his mode books this one was curiously enough actually worth reading.
Yes book 3/4 finally gets it!
The adventure was fun, there wasn't excess sex or angst (not that there wasn't any reference to either, it wouldn't be a Piers Anthony book otherwise), and the story had me reading happily!

I was pleasantly, almost suspiciously, surprised!

bookcrazylady45's review against another edition

4.0

Enjoyed it enough to want to go on to the next.

Note: 2018 - I finally got the last book Do0on Mode and haven't read it yet. I remember having it on my wish list for a long time and then letting it drop off. I was reading Incarnations (off my shelves) and then did some research on Piers and found that he did finally write the fourth one so I checked and now it is on my Kindle. I have all his books in paperback but I ran out of shelf space.

katekat's review against another edition

4.0

I first read this series many years ago when it was originally published. While there were most definitely aspects I felt did not stand up to the test of time in general I did enjoy re-reading this series. The characters have very clear points they are trying to portray and I like the scienc"ish" bits in it.

mouseg's review

4.0

“When the happiness ends ...there is life in death ...and the happiness I feel is the essence of that joy ...I see a time when things weren't black or white or red or green but when they were always gray ...I sit here and think about all the times that have been and all the lost causes, and I wonder, if any of it was ever worth it, and these insights haunt my mind ...as I try to think back to the good times, and the times when all things were good and there was no hate or frustration in the world but I can't remember, when I can only remember now and now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of our enemies-they should pick up guns and kill innocent people to show the loyalty to the red, white, and blue and every blessed child shall wave a flag to let the world know their confusion and when they grow up their lives should end each time they pop a pill to forget the latest problem and soon the nation's children will be grievers of Death and ruin and we shall live long and prosper and father children who have no mothers and they shall rock soulless babies to sleep and fate cuts the threads away and I shall find the magic that will take me far away from all the pain and I will remain forever in a place not far from here and in this new existence I shall live ...And the little boxes will clump together and gather into one giant big box and I'll be in it, and the lid will clamp down and I will suffocate and it will be my coffin forever and ever amen ...”
-Chaos Mode by Piers Anthony. pg 226 & 263

katekat's review

4.0

I first read this series many years ago when it was originally published. While there were most definitely aspects I felt did not stand up to the test of time in general I did enjoy re-reading this series. The characters have very clear points they are trying to portray and I like the scienc"ish" bits in it.