Scan barcode
A review by handahbear
On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony
Part of me thinks it's a little silly to post a review of a book written 35 years ago, but I have thoughts about this one, so let's get into it.
I didn't rate this book. I couldn't rate it, in large part because none of the ratings felt like they would be accurate. I didn't want to one star it, because there were parts of the world that I liked a lot, but I didn't know how many stars I could give it in good conscience, because it felt disingenuous to ignore all of the things that bothered me about the book. I read it on a recommendation from a friend, who had enjoyed the series when they were a teen, but who didn't remember specifics about the books. I don't regret reading this one, and I'm considering reading the rest because the universe it's set in is interesting and fun to read, but I'm torn for a number of reasons.
I always like to start off with the good: I love the idea of Death being an office that's passed along to different human people, each with their own foibles and personal philosophies about death and dying. I loved Mortis, he has a great personality for a car/horse/airplane/mode of transportation. I especially loved the computer in Purgatory, who reminded me a bit of Marvin, the Paranoid Android. I didn't mind the final confrontation, I thought the logic was really circular but ultimately clever enough to work out, and I liked that Zane's biggest strength as Death was his ability to feel compassion* towards to souls he collected.
*I mean....mostly, anyway. Like a solid 90%, so I'll give it to him.
My friend did give me the huge caveat that this book is, at the end of the day, SFF that was written in the 80s, so I was more or less prepared to deal with at least a little misogyny and some poorly written female characters. And...it was pretty bad, I can't lie. We start off on the wrong foot with Angelica (she'll fall in love with any man who happens to save her life, literally any man), things are going OK with Molly up to a point (if we could, perhaps, not offer ghost sex out of nowhere, that might be cool...also, she's sixteen, so yikes), Luna is mostly just...really bad (if we were talking about her in the present, we'd say she has a lot of internalized misogyny to work through, coupled with big manic pixie dream girl energy), and let's go ahead and just ignore the entire prolonged scene with the female football players, because I really can't think about that again.
The book is trying to be philosophical, and sometimes it is. There is an implicit criticism of the idea of original sin affecting the souls of children, but then there's also "sin" that weighs down souls that is actually just crimes that are committed against the person whose soul is now "stained" (rape, incest, contracting a sexually transmitted disease from a partner who did not disclose this to you beforehand, etc*), and even though part of the entire point of the plot is that Zane doesn't agree with a lot of the things that condemn people, and doesn't think that the system is as fair and infallible as it's made out to be, it's kind of a lot to stomach sometimes. The criticism of the system didn't outweigh the horrors of the system, and when the system is entirely fictional, that eats at me a little bit.
*I'd also like to point out that a lot of these are sexual in nature, and if you read the book in chunks/longer sittings, you'll probably pick up on that too. Make of that one what you will.
There's a lot of things that got sexual that didn't need to be (specifically the torture scene with Luna and the multiple times Molly either earnestly offers or pretends to offer ghost sex) and there's some misogyny that becomes very overt (the woman who was going to commit suicide, who Zane convinces to continue to live, and the seemingly throw away line that all beautiful women from history went to hell spring to mind as the two biggest examples, I think because they bookend the story). There's a weird/unsettling moment towards the end in one of the philosophical scenes that pops up every so often when Zane goes to take a soul that deals with pedophilia that isn't handled terribly well, and that stuck with me even after I finished the scene as a moment in the back of my mind that bothered me.
This review makes it seem like I really hated the book and just wanted to pick it apart, but I promise that's not the case. I actually really enjoyed reading (parts) of this one, and I think I'll probably pick up the second one in the series and give that a whirl. What I wanted to achieve by writing this out was to give others a head's up going in on what they might encounter, because I think knowing going into it that there are going to be some big problems can help readers create a realistic expectation for what the book is going to be in their heads, even if they ultimately decide not to read it because of it.
I didn't rate this book. I couldn't rate it, in large part because none of the ratings felt like they would be accurate. I didn't want to one star it, because there were parts of the world that I liked a lot, but I didn't know how many stars I could give it in good conscience, because it felt disingenuous to ignore all of the things that bothered me about the book. I read it on a recommendation from a friend, who had enjoyed the series when they were a teen, but who didn't remember specifics about the books. I don't regret reading this one, and I'm considering reading the rest because the universe it's set in is interesting and fun to read, but I'm torn for a number of reasons.
I always like to start off with the good: I love the idea of Death being an office that's passed along to different human people, each with their own foibles and personal philosophies about death and dying. I loved Mortis, he has a great personality for a car/horse/airplane/mode of transportation. I especially loved the computer in Purgatory, who reminded me a bit of Marvin, the Paranoid Android. I didn't mind the final confrontation, I thought the logic was really circular but ultimately clever enough to work out, and I liked that Zane's biggest strength as Death was his ability to feel compassion* towards to souls he collected.
*I mean....mostly, anyway. Like a solid 90%, so I'll give it to him.
My friend did give me the huge caveat that this book is, at the end of the day, SFF that was written in the 80s, so I was more or less prepared to deal with at least a little misogyny and some poorly written female characters. And...it was pretty bad, I can't lie. We start off on the wrong foot with Angelica (she'll fall in love with any man who happens to save her life, literally any man), things are going OK with Molly up to a point (if we could, perhaps, not offer ghost sex out of nowhere, that might be cool...also, she's sixteen, so yikes), Luna is mostly just...really bad (if we were talking about her in the present, we'd say she has a lot of internalized misogyny to work through, coupled with big manic pixie dream girl energy), and let's go ahead and just ignore the entire prolonged scene with the female football players, because I really can't think about that again.
The book is trying to be philosophical, and sometimes it is. There is an implicit criticism of the idea of original sin affecting the souls of children, but then there's also "sin" that weighs down souls that is actually just crimes that are committed against the person whose soul is now "stained" (rape, incest, contracting a sexually transmitted disease from a partner who did not disclose this to you beforehand, etc*), and even though part of the entire point of the plot is that Zane doesn't agree with a lot of the things that condemn people, and doesn't think that the system is as fair and infallible as it's made out to be, it's kind of a lot to stomach sometimes. The criticism of the system didn't outweigh the horrors of the system, and when the system is entirely fictional, that eats at me a little bit.
*I'd also like to point out that a lot of these are sexual in nature, and if you read the book in chunks/longer sittings, you'll probably pick up on that too. Make of that one what you will.
There's a lot of things that got sexual that didn't need to be (specifically the torture scene with Luna and the multiple times Molly either earnestly offers or pretends to offer ghost sex) and there's some misogyny that becomes very overt (the woman who was going to commit suicide, who Zane convinces to continue to live, and the seemingly throw away line that all beautiful women from history went to hell spring to mind as the two biggest examples, I think because they bookend the story). There's a weird/unsettling moment towards the end in one of the philosophical scenes that pops up every so often when Zane goes to take a soul that deals with pedophilia that isn't handled terribly well, and that stuck with me even after I finished the scene as a moment in the back of my mind that bothered me.
This review makes it seem like I really hated the book and just wanted to pick it apart, but I promise that's not the case. I actually really enjoyed reading (parts) of this one, and I think I'll probably pick up the second one in the series and give that a whirl. What I wanted to achieve by writing this out was to give others a head's up going in on what they might encounter, because I think knowing going into it that there are going to be some big problems can help readers create a realistic expectation for what the book is going to be in their heads, even if they ultimately decide not to read it because of it.