Philosophical Musings of a Book Nerd

This is the last of this series that I have read, though I note that Piers Anthony recently wrote an eighth novel, which I suspect is about the incarnation of night. However I will not really consider this novel to be a part of the seven book series as it appears that this book brings the series to a reasonably conclusive end. I do believe that I have read this book (overwise I wouldn't be writing a commentary on it), but it was such a long time ago that I am very vague as to what happened (which is where Wikipedia comes in).

The ideas in this book seem to flow from the rest of the series, and as we come to this book we finally come to understand where Anthony is heading with this series. In the last book we go into Satan's mind to discover that while he was the incarnation of evil, he was not necessarily evil himself. In this book we deal with the incarnation of Good, that is God, however, like the last book, we learn that God is not necessarily good, but rather a pompous git that really does not care about anybody beyond his own self importance.

I guess the conclusions of this series mimic where we ourselves are at in our time. However there is a slight difference. It is not a new thing that humanity looks up at God and tells him to get lost. This has been happening since the fall. We have all created our own idea of what God is like and we refuse to actually attempt to get to know what the real God is like. I guess this book is really just a mirror as to how we as a people view God.

The other aspect is that the UN, through debate and political manoeuvring, depose God and then propose to elect a new, and better, God. As far as humanity is concerned, God is not doing his job so needs to be replaced. Thus Anthony implies that reality, and eternity, is just like another nation or corporation. If the government, or the board, is not doing their job, we turf them out and elect new ones. Once again, there is a blurring between what is good and evil, turning evil into good and good into evil; turning the protagonist into the antagonist, and vice versa.

After considering the final book in this series, I am unlikely, actually highly unlikely, to ever return to them, and I guess my encounters with Piers Anthony will end with the Bio of a Space Tyrant series, which is the last series of his that I actually read.