This book is sorta like “Piers Anthony’s meditations on life and death”, but couched in an amusing form. Zane is a young man who hasn’t seemed to do much right in life, so he resolves to die. But when he tries to kill himself, he accidentally kills Death instead – and has to take over Death’s duties, much to his horror. As he tends to the dying he reflects on what it means to live a good or evil life, and why some wish to live while others wish to die. Along the way he finds love, and himself embroiled in a struggle between G(o)od and (D)Evil.

It’s quite interesting and philosophical, and quite funny in its fantastical form. This is only book one of his Incarnations of Immortality series, each of which stars one of the Incarnations – here, Death, but in future stories Nature, War, etc., some (all?) of which are introduced in this series. I’m definitely going to be reading the whole series, I hope!

I finished reading this book again for the nth time. I take back what I said about Piers Anthony’s writing in previous posts – this book is very well written (as I have always thought) with only a few little annoying bits. I guess his writing had just matured over time.

I feel good about having recommended this series to one of my friends.

I love this book, and all the other Incarnation books that follow. Great series!