On A Pale Horse – Book Review
Book One of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality Series
Nov 16, 2009
Prolific Science Fiction and Fantasy writer Piers Anthony is best known for his popular Xanth novels. His Incarnations of Immortality series addresses more serious themes than his Xanth novels, such as the nature of life, death, love, war, and even the nature of good and evil. Although more serious in subject, the novels still contain Anthony’s trademark wit and humour.
Synopsis of On A Pale Horse
The protagonist of On A Pale Horse is Zane, an unremarkable young man with serious financial troubles. When he trades away a chance at true love, he is so depressed that he turns to suicide. At the moment of his demise, he sees Death and shoots him instead. Killing death has consequences and Zane is forced to pick up where Death left off, becoming the Incarnation of Death.
Zane’s job involves collecting souls that are perfectly balanced between good and evil, souls that cannot move on to heaven or hell. Although he initially finds his new responsibilities disagreeable, he comes to appreciate the necessity of death and its capacity to relieve the sufferings of others.
Zane’s situation becomes more complicated when he goes to collect the soul of a powerful magician. The magician reveals that he has manipulated the good and evil of his soul into balance so the Zane will be forced to collect him. The magician insists that it is important that Zane meets his daughter Luna, and suggests she would make a fine romantic companion. Baffled, Zane collects the magician’s soul and agrees to see Luna again.
From this meeting onwards, Zane learns that he has not inherited his role by chance. The other incarnations, Time, War, Nature and Fate, came together to ensure that he would be the next to wear death’s sombre robe. They wanted hot tempered, stubborn Zane to foil a plot by Satan. The Prince of Evil has fixed the death of Luna so that it will occur before her proper time. If Satan succeeds, he will stop her from thwarting his future evil schemes.
Zane, who has fallen in love with Luna, refuses to take her soul. In order to save her he must outwit and manipulate the father of lies himself.
On A Pale Horse is an entertaining read, full of adventure, magic and likable characters. The subject matter (death, good, and evil) also makes this novel a stimulating, thought provoking read.
Themes
The nature of Good and Evil
Zane possesses two stones that evaluate how many sins a soul has accumulated. Although these stones should make his job easier, Zane learns that matters of good and evil are never simple. Zane must come to terms with the fact that sometimes people do bad things for good reasons.
Parent/Child relationships
Both Zane and Luna struggle with the loyalty they owe to their parents and both characters commit sins in order to help them. Luna learns dark magic and associates with demons to assist her magician father and Zane performs euthanasia on his terminally ill mother.
Symbols
The white limousine that Zane inherits with the office of Death can transform into a white horse. This white horse, as well as the novel’s title, On A Pale Horse, make reference to chapter Six of the Book of Revelation in the Bible. One of the four horsemen of the apocalypse is Death, who rides a pale horse.
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