angelet's Full Review: Piers Anthony - Fractal Mode
HISTORY
Ok, so I've been a Piers Anthony fan for years, since I discovered the Xanth series. I have a few other reviews on some of his books if you're interested. So far the Mode series is my least favorite series, but I'm still enjoying it. I LOVED the Incarnations of Immortality, and of course I like the Xanth and I've enjoyed the Apprentice Adept series as well. I've also read other non-series books of his. Generally I find that his work is light hearted and fun, with many humorous situations. Unfortunately his characters are often rather two dimensional and he is very stereotypical about the genders, but this doesn't seem to detract too much from his writings and I still consider him one of my favorite authors. Another thing about him that puts him up there on my list is the fact that he will write whatever he darn well feels like writing and if that offends someone he doesn't let that stop him. I respect that. On a final note, I hate it when reviews give too much away about a book, so rest assured that I won't, but as this is a sequel, some things of the first book may be revealed, so you may not want to read this if you haven't read the first and you want to.
THE PLOT
The basic plot of the book is that we have a group of characters who find their way onto what's called the "Virtual Mode." This is a plane that cuts through different dimensions and makes it possible to walk from one dimension to another. As it requires 5 different people from 5 different dimensions to anchor this plane, we have 5 different unique characters in our party. The main two characters are Colene and Darius who are in love and from different realities and due to a mistake they made in book one, they are now on this Virtual Mode trying to get back to Darius' home dimension so they can live happily ever after. Each book in the series shows part of that Quest. This book involves a new anchor person that joins the group, but as there is a magic field surrounding her dimension, they are stuck there, and spend most of the book in this dimension. In her dimension magic is real, but it is passed down through the male lineage and so the people in charge of this world (called despots) have all the magic and will kill or otherwise get rid of anyone who opposes them, specifically the "theows" or peasants who don't have magic. Our new anchor person is Nona a theow of this world who is the 9th of the 9th. You'll have to read the book to really understand what that means, but basically it means that she is a woman who was born through just the right lineage to have magic as strong as the despots. She has a quest to change the balance of the world so that the women have all the power. Of course she needs the Virtual Mode travelers to help her do this and so they all set out to help her on her quest facing many parels and fun situations.
THE CHARACTERS
Colene is one of the main characters of the series. She is from a realm similar to our own. At the beginning of the series she as a suicidal 14 year old girl. I also considered her to be a brat and really not a very likable protagonist. Let me say I would never presume to put down someone who is suicidal and needs help, but she just isn't very nice and is rather selfish and bratty. However it seems that part of her quest is to become a better person and get over her suicidal nature. This book shows some of that and I'm pleased to see that she is much more likeable in this book and I'm encouraged to see how she turns out in the final book.
Darius is Colene's love. It was he that set up the Virtual Mode to come and get her. He comes from a realm of magic where he is a kind of magician who brings joy to others. One of the problems is that he needs a wife that can bring as much joy as he can and as Colene is suicidal this is a problem. He is a rather likeable character, but as many of Piers' male characters he lacks some sexual inhibition and must concede to his nature at times, however he is very noble and would never take advantage of anyone. He won't even touch Colene sexually because he knows that by the standards of her culture she is underage and though it bugs her, he respects that.
Seqiro is another anchor person, however he's very unique. He's a telepathic horse. He's very fun and helps the group out immensely with language barrier problems and has become a life long companion for Colene, filling the best friend kind of role and making up for what she cannot get from Darius in companionship. He has the downfall that he needs to be mentally in contact with a human to be intelligent or else he has the same intelligence level as any other horse. This creates interesting situations that were more apparent in the first novel, but still important here.
Provos is another anchor character and her uniqueness comes from the fact that she can only remember the future. Anything in the past is as obscure to her as the future is to us. This is helpful to the group in that she can help the avoid possible peril, but of course has the draw back that she is one of the flattest characters of the bunch. She hardly ever talks and when she does it's usually to answer a question or warn of danger. Half the time you forget she's around because she's such a non-active part of the group. However she plays a vital role in this novel and we do learn more about her and her world that is nevertheless rather interesting. If nothing else it's a fun concept to play with. What if you could only remember the future??? What would your life be like???
Nona is of course our final main character as the fifth anchor. She is very friendly and rather worldly though naive for her 17 years of age. She is beautiful creating conflict and jealousy for Colene with respect to Darius, but as she has quite a destiny in her own world, love and romance is not as much of an option for her. She has interesting magic that lets her fly or change the nature of objects making it so she'd never go hungry and has a near limitless ability to create just about anything the party might need at any given moment with the only real draw back of expending energy to do her magic, though it doesn't seem to create too big of a problem.
OVERALL
The book was fun and if you like Piers Anthony I would recommend the series to you. If you've never read Piers Anthony before, not only should you start with "Virtual Mode" as the first book in this series I would recommend you read either "A Spell for Chameleon" the first Xanth book, or "On a Pale Horse" the first book of the Incarnations of Immortality to give you a feel for his writing. I like those much better and it might encourage you to stick with his work more than these books would. Still this was a fun novel and honestly better than the first by a long shot, but dependent on the plot of the first to understand it at all.
READING AGE
I would say this book is suitable for anyone who is at an age or reading level high enough to be able to get through a novel of this size. There is minor sexual content, but no foul language that I can recall and all the sexual content is stuff that your kids surely have had exposure to already unless they have been REALLY sheltered. Nothing explicit and nothing dirty, but there are references to sex between characters, and one of the situations the characters find themselves in includes a race of people that require our heroes to mate with them before they are free to go. Still, not dirty, but be aware of it. It is a very easy book to read as far as complexity and I can always get through a Piers novel very quickly whereas other authors seem to take more time. It probably took me a week or two of reading and I didn't spend much time reading at all. I read when I was bored or going to sleep at night.
I hope this review has helped and if you have any questions please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Comments are always welcome.
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