On a Pale Horse

Its been a long time since I had read any Piers Anthony and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I was expecting just a meh ok scifi read but it turned out better than expected

I found the personification of death in this book was one of the best I have read, as our Primary character is forced to confront death as a person and himself

The way this story approached the questions of what is death, what makes a soul good or evil, the ideas of being born in sin, euthanasia etc.. was so enjoyable and well done

4/5 stars for me.

I read these as a teenager and always liked them. They are a fun mix of fantasy and science fiction. I recently stumbled upon a copy of the audio book of this and gave it a listen. While the narration is great it sadly just shows how poorly written this book is. At its heart there is a fun idea and the interplay of the characters, each of whom has a their own novel. However, Anthony doesn't have the skills to capitalise on them. Worse he's just an pervy old man who can't write a woman without telling us how amazing she looks or how ugly she is. It is just so tiresome. I did try the second book but had to stop half way through as it's even worse. I did find that he had released an 8th book much more recently but from reading the descriptions it really shows how much of a creep Piers is with an underage protagonist having sex all the way through the book. This is creepy full stop but considering the book was published in in 2007 when the writer was 73 says it all.

I suppose you could be kind and say its just a pulp novel with hero men but strangely the male protagonists are all unlikeable and far from the sharpest tools in the box. So not sure what was going on there.

Not much of a fan of this book.