Look, I'm going to be honest. If you write a book in which there are incarnations of abstract concepts and you play around with Judeo-Christian mythology a bunch, chances are I'm going to love it. On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony was almost an exception.
There are many parallels to be drawn between this book and other pieces of pop culture, so I'm just going to get those out of the way first. The concept of the Eternals is similar to the Endless in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, a normal guy taking up the mantle of Death is also the plot of Mort by Terry Pratchett, and the method of taking a persons soul out of their body is done in exactly the same way on the woefully cancelled TV series Dead Like Me. On a Pale Horse predates all three. To my knowledge Dead Like Me is the only one that acknowledges any direct influence. Not to say that Gaiman and Pratchett stole from it or anything. Great minds and all that, not to mention the point I made a couple of entries ago about everything being a remix. But I felt like it had to be mentioned.
Anyhow, Piers Anthony is an author who has escaped my attention until now. I vaguely knew about him. He wrote some fantasy series about a place called Xanth, which a guy I knew back in high school assured me were some of the weirdest books he had ever read. This American Life did a super interesting story about a teenage fan who ran away and tried to move in with the Anthony family. I now find it kind of surprising that I never got around to reading him as a teenager. He would have been right up my alley at age 14.
At 28, though, I must confess that I struggled with parts of it. Particularly the rather dated gender and racial politics of the book. I'm not even sure they weren't dated in 1983. Women in this book seem to be introduced first with a run down of how attractive or not attractive they are, and then go on to not do much except act as objects of affection or temptation for the male characters. Even the female lead is pretty much just a MacGuffin with legs. Race is barely touched in the book, but when it is it's a hamfisted kumbaya. To be honest, the dated attitudes almost put me off from finishing the book. But the lead character started getting interesting before I reached the cutoff point.
Zane begins the story as an uninteresting sad-sack who attempts to kill himself and then winds up killing Death instead. In a twist that would later be stolen (er, remixed) by The Santa Clause, he is now required to take up the mantle of Death. As the story goes on it is revealed that he had been set up for the position by Fate and Chronos (guess what they govern) for reasons that are too spoilery to go into here, but it involves the female lead being a MacGuffin in the war between God and Satan. The story is fun enough, if somewhat predictable. But what interests me (and ultimately saves the novel) is how Zane approaches his duties.
Zane is ultimately too compassionate a person to simply reap souls and leave it at that. He bends every law of time and space that is within his power to give people second chances, to reduce their suffering, to make their deaths count for something. This image of a compassionate Death is a forerunner of Gaiman's Death, of Mort, of the Reapers from Dead Like Me. It is from this that Anthony wins me back. In particular, the scene in which Zane comforts two dying coal miners with a parable about a whale who turned into a human is quite moving. While Gaiman's Death is still at the top of my list for Grim Reapers I wouldn't mind seeing, Zane has joined the company of George, Mason, and Daisy as runners-up.
Do I recommend On a Pale Horse? Sure. It's far from the best book I've ever read, and it is dated in many ways, but I had fun with it. I might even get around to reading more Piers Anthony eventually. But for now, my shelf is absent of Anthony and this book goes back to Beth.
Next: Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. by Warren Ellis.
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