book review: Split Infinity
by: Piers Anthony
I occasionally go back and read a series from my childhood that I’ve mostly forgotten – usually because there’s nothing new I want to read for months at a time. This time around it’s the Apprentice Adept series from Piers Anthony (I read A LOT of his books as a kid).
I found a 1st edition paperback of this in near pristine condition for $3.95 at Powell’s a few weeks ago – how could I pass up a 28+ year old book at that price? Crazy. Oh, did I mention I’m a book geek too? As in I will put off buying a book for months if I think I can get a good deal on a 1st edition….and I absolutely will not buy a hardcover that’s not a 1st ed – what’s the point?
So yeah, how did this hold up?
Fairly well, but not awesomely so.
To my adult eyes, the wish fulfillment aspect of this book was hard to ignore. Sure, fiction in general IS wish fulfillment – but sometimes it goes overboard. Sure, the hero IS likely to be blessed with an amazing affinity for magic – because hey he’s the hero right? Where it got to me was with his lovers. He has 3 at the end of the book. I think. Not had, but has. And, at one point, he meets the wife of his deceased double (I’ll get to that in a sec) and decides that he will have to have her- even though his double is only 10 days dead! Luckily he hasn’t bedded her by the end of the book, but we all know that’s coming soon.
The other thing that bugged me was the main characters inability to accept the humanity of non-humans. I mean, he does sort of – he places & returns trust in them and (most importantly) allows two of them to love him and physically loves them back – but as soon as the aforementioned dead-double-wife shows up he’s like “Oh, there’s a real human, gotta hit that, sorry unicorn girlfriend you can still be my horse buddy though!” Which annoyed the hell out of me because the unicorn chick is cooler, but whatever. Maybe the guy’s character is just a dick, or has a hang-up on getting serious with a non-human (I think that may change later IIRC but who knows).
So, yeah the plot. Two worlds exist in overlapping space – one a sci-fi world where tech works the other a fantasy magical world. They’re on different vibrational frequencies or something, because they occupy the same physical space without knowing it. Most people have a double on both worlds – although that double might not necessarily be a human (it could be a dwarf or a demon or whatever). If your double is dead, you can cross back and forth. So something is out to kill our naked hero (serfs on the sci-fi world are not allowed to wear clothes – old school sci-fi at it’s best ;) ), and he’s on the run. He finds a friendly hot machine girl to help him, and she’s in love with him, then he accidentally crosses worlds and finds a unicorn (they can turn into humans) girl to love him as well. Good times!
But, cheese aside, the worlds themselves are still interesting, and Mr. Anthony designed a really interesting (and fun sounding) system in The Game – a giant game the serfs on sci-fi world play to vie for status and extra time on the world. The way it’s set up it comes off as something that most people would actually enjoy playing.
The ending of the book – I thought that was pretty horrible. Mostly just in the way it was written, it fell flat on several notes and something just weren’t made clear enough. He’s gotten much better as a writer since then though (or at least it looks that way in my memory), and the world is interesting enough to keep me re-reading the rest of the series.
THREE AND A QUARTER STARS
Lack of smooth/clear plot at some points holds it back, but the world is interesting enough that it keeps me going. If you like pulp fantasy, this is that (more so than pulp sci-fi I think).
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