Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages
English language
Published Sept. 11, 1986 by Del Rey.
This work did not age well. I’ve enjoyed the series, but another stinker like this and I’m out. Lots of blind misogyny, casual racism, and lazy plot points.
Like most of Piers Anthony's books, it varies from interesting/amusing/funny to cringeworthy, often in the same paragraph. I find the series fractionally more enjoyable than it is off-putting, but if you aren't very tolerant of "dated" writing it's probably not for you. Forums have risen and fallen debating Piers Anthony's outlook on sex and I'm not going to go into it, but suffice it to say that his depictions of heterosexual sexuality range from strange to rather reductivist/misogynistic. Additionally, in this book the main characters are all women, and Piers Anthony is definitely not especially well-suited to writing believable female characters. If you can look beyond the imperfections, this is a perfectly serviceable light afternoon read, but many readers will probably want to give it a miss.
