I’m currently re-reading Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immorality. It is, by far, my favorite fantasy series of all time. I’ve read it several times but it’s been a few years and I’m loving re-discovering the world.

However, there’s one thing that continues to bug me about last book as it relates to the second book. I’m confident that P. Anthony surely mapped out a precise timeline since we continue to see the various stories intersect throughout the whole series and none of the books follow the exact same time in history as the others. And I know that in “Bearing An Hourglass” there is some time before Norton picks up the hourglass and finding Orlene at the piano. Yet, it never feels like there’s enough time between those moments to account for how Norton is the Chronos in “And Eternity”. It seems as though the Chronos that came before him (on his timeline) should be nearing the end of his office and Norton just taking up the office. Instead it comes off as though Norton has been there for quite a while. This is possibly because we have gone through Norton’s book and it feels as though the events in his book would start to intersect with those in “And Eternity” because of how close these two books must happen on the timeline.

But maybe it’s the whole issue of time passing differently on the different planes that is confusing me just as it confused Vita, Orlene, and Jolie? And working it through here is starting to hurt my head! It makes me want to create a timeline for everything that happens in the seven books… but I’m too lazy for that. Instead I’ll just post about it and see if anyone else has ever had this issue or has paid more attention to the details in the books and can explain the timeline to me.

ETA: And, yes Jo, I really do love it more than HP… although that isn’t really fair because HP is geared towards younger audiences and therefore seems in a different category of ‘fantasy’ than Anthony’s books.