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A review by art_cart_ron
Out of Phaze by Piers Anthony
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Reread as a comfort book, while coping with a COVID infection.
I read a lot of Piers Anthony as a 12(ish) year old, and my neighbor friend and I would race through them (he was the faster reader, and it made me so mad) - it was the theme of a couple of my young summers. So I read this while I needed a simple kind of pick-me-up.
This book is a generational shift (something Anthony did on the regular) - and we're focused on the children of the previous books' heroes. They have interesting origins, but once you get the mechanics of who they are - there isn't a lot of character. Turns out, my young self was likely kept reading by the Anthony formula of steady regular titillation.
If there is a boy and a girl in a scene, they love each other - and they are rarely not looking for an opportunity to hook up. To the point where any individual not meeting this criteria is suspect or breaking a key rule of life; that it is about hooking up. Somehow this is not off-putting. Probably because it turns sex into something that's uncomplicated and easy and natural, for a reader of an age where it seems scarier than that. The approach is certainly not porny (never explicit), and the characters are usually in love (and will marry and have another generation of kids who live to find a mate). I wouldn't hesitate to let my kids read these. From a present-day perspective, there is one downside that I wonder whether or not Piers Anthony addresses in his later books - everything is entirely heteronormative. Where this becomes problematic, is when characters are addressing marriage equality among differing species and types (robots and humans, for instance), but these differences never approach the notion of the existence of LGBTQ+ characters. Youths reading these today would recognize this very quickly, and their opinion of Piers may be affected. The author may well be rejected for his large blindspot (by my kids, almost certainly). That may be unfortunate, because he may well be trying to address the subject in a roundabout way, to a YA audience. It was a different time.
The secondary characters here only exist as tools for the main characters, another strike against.
Out of Phaze is a little out of phase with the rest of the series. There is a lot of filler, and it builds to a non-ending that is pretty much unforgivable. Suicide is also handled in an irresponsibly blithe way - especially for the audience of these books (10-16yr olds, from the 80's).
I like Mach, Bane, Fleta and Agape. Young me was particularly taken with Agape. I was more of a Bane to my neighbor friend's Mach. These books were important and special to me as a kid.
As an adult, I see the holes in some of the magic.
I read a lot of Piers Anthony as a 12(ish) year old, and my neighbor friend and I would race through them (he was the faster reader, and it made me so mad) - it was the theme of a couple of my young summers. So I read this while I needed a simple kind of pick-me-up.
This book is a generational shift (something Anthony did on the regular) - and we're focused on the children of the previous books' heroes. They have interesting origins, but once you get the mechanics of who they are - there isn't a lot of character. Turns out, my young self was likely kept reading by the Anthony formula of steady regular titillation.
If there is a boy and a girl in a scene, they love each other - and they are rarely not looking for an opportunity to hook up. To the point where any individual not meeting this criteria is suspect or breaking a key rule of life; that it is about hooking up. Somehow this is not off-putting. Probably because it turns sex into something that's uncomplicated and easy and natural, for a reader of an age where it seems scarier than that. The approach is certainly not porny (never explicit), and the characters are usually in love (and will marry and have another generation of kids who live to find a mate). I wouldn't hesitate to let my kids read these. From a present-day perspective, there is one downside that I wonder whether or not Piers Anthony addresses in his later books - everything is entirely heteronormative. Where this becomes problematic, is when characters are addressing marriage equality among differing species and types (robots and humans, for instance), but these differences never approach the notion of the existence of LGBTQ+ characters. Youths reading these today would recognize this very quickly, and their opinion of Piers may be affected. The author may well be rejected for his large blindspot (by my kids, almost certainly). That may be unfortunate, because he may well be trying to address the subject in a roundabout way, to a YA audience. It was a different time.
The secondary characters here only exist as tools for the main characters, another strike against.
Out of Phaze is a little out of phase with the rest of the series. There is a lot of filler, and it builds to a non-ending that is pretty much unforgivable. Suicide is also handled in an irresponsibly blithe way - especially for the audience of these books (10-16yr olds, from the 80's).
I like Mach, Bane, Fleta and Agape. Young me was particularly taken with Agape. I was more of a Bane to my neighbor friend's Mach. These books were important and special to me as a kid.
As an adult, I see the holes in some of the magic.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
I was annoyed by obvious padding in the later half of the book, and the "cliffhanger" that was a crass refusal to give a payoff to readers, instead demanding that they pick up the next book. Let readers wish to pick up the next book on its merits alone.