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title = "Chthon - Piers Anthony"
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date = 2019-09-13
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["books", "reviews", "piers anthony", "scifi"]
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[Goodreads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23352267-chthon):
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Chthon was Piers Anthony’s first published novel in 1967, written over the
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course of seven years. He started it when he was in the US Army, so it has a
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long prison sequence that is reminiscent of that experience, being dark and
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grim. It features Aton Five, a space man who commits the crime of falling in
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love with the dangerous, alluring Minionette and is therefore condemned to
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death in the subterranean prison of Chthon. It uses flashbacks to show how he
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came to know the Minionette, and flash-forwards to show how he dealt with her
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after his escape from prison. The author regards this as perhaps the most
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intricately structured novel the science fantasy genre has seen. It was a
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contender for awards, but not a winner.
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<!-- more -->
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{{ stars(stars=2) }}
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A lot it is said about this book about its narrative structure, starting in
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the "present" and then doing flashbacks explaining some point (sometimes) and
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then showing the future in "flash forwards". The thing is, "flash forwards"
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don't feel like "flash forwards"; the simply appear as if the future is the
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present and the present became a flashback.
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Also, the flashbacks sometimes are not explanative and a bit too long. The
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very first one doesn't explain anything about the current state of the story,
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and it is so long you have to wonder if the story actually moved back or it is
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talking about something else.
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There is also some weird jumps in the story that made me feel like I skipped a
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whole page for some unknown reason, and I had to track back, see that I didn't
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skip anything and the story simply did a (small) jump in the plot.
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The characters are really bland. One of the topics, the fact that a race
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actually feels hate as love (and no, that's not a spoiler, 'cause you don't
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know who I'm talking about), is actually really bad explained and explored --
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and the weird fact that, as the author puts in the post words in the end, that
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was the origin of the book.
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