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Virtual Mode Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Comment: I really liked this story. Of course, a book like this is not about to end. That's what makes it so interesting. The adventure of Colene exploring to find her true love and then they finally meet eachother after all of the different worlds that they crossed. I can't wait to read the rest. I ordered the rest of the mode series. I plan to read them all and then I'll start reading his xanth series. I can't wait to find out what goes on next.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: sexist and shallow
Comment: I was disturbed by the portrait of the young self-injuring woman and her sexual behavior, not because she was depressed and sexually active, but of the way it was described. First off, many self-injurers (cutters) are NOT suicidal. They may be depressed and angry and abused, but cutting can be a way to hold on, not let go.

Secondly, no girl who has just been raped would "smile" and permit a couple other guys to rape her. I'm not saying she would or wouldn't resist, but she certainly wouldn't act as if the boys had just done something mildly offensive. Does the whole thought of rape turn the author on so he can honestly not imagine a girl enjoying it or at least pretend to? It seems so.

Also, I found the character of Colene rather bizarre. In one scene, she's writing to her imaginary horsie, the next she's performing a striptease and slicing up her arm. If a girl really had all those sexual experiences, she'd be too jaded to believe in imaginarry horses. Take it from a former young horse lover. No girl that extensively sexually abused/raped would care one way or another about imaginary horses - unless perhaps she was very young.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: One of his best books ever
Comment: I was completely unprepared for the depth of the main character in this book. Mr. Anthony writes as if he knows what it is really like to be this character. The adventures in the book are thrilling and they keep you interested. The writing assumes that the reader is intelligent and remains fascinating and page-turning from beginning to end.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for me, but not intended to be, either
Comment: As a longtime fan of Piers Anthony, I wasn't overly impressed with this book, or the remainder of the series (although I haven't read it all yet, and I do intend to finish it). I didn't feel drawn into the characters, and the story itself didn't enthrall me. However, this may be mainly because I am not the target audience for this series; judging by other reader reviews I have read, adolescent females feel a very strong bond to the lead character, and the book seems to touch thier emotions on a very personal level. I feel this is one of Anthony's strengths, the ability to write very specifically to his audience, and reach them completely, even if this lowers the appeal for others. If you are not an adolescent female, or have not been one, this may not be the book for you. However, it may provide some insight into what motivates and interests today's female youth.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Darkly Glorious Book That Pulls Few Punches
Comment: I sympathize with the reviewer who said that the first few pages of _Virtual Mode_ turned them off of the book. I was given this novel as a gift when I was about eleven or so; I, too, read the opening passage and was disturbed into putting the book away, not touching it again for another year. Yet once I really began to read it, I found myself drawn into a grim reality where even the wonders of magic cannot compensate for the horrors of the human psyche.

I adore the protagonists: Colene, the mentally and emotionally twisted young woman whose attitudes and perceptions have been skewed almost beyond recognition; Darius, a man whose rigid sense of honor threatens to strangle his chances of happiness; Seqiro, Prima, and all the rest. Their conflicts and challenges may not be the stuff of epic fantasy, but they're interesting and can give one food for thought. Most moving of all, at least for me, was the exploration of Colene's emotions, history, and motivations. Anthony doesn't whitewash her situation: she's a deeply disturbed individual, and one who has cause to be that way.

I must admit, though, that as much as I love this book, I couldn't recommend that children--or possibly adolescents--read it without reservations. The folk who've said that it's full of sex are right; further, there's blood, vulgarity, remembered rape, and a host of other such things. While they add to the power of the story, they might (or might not) be considered inappropriate for younger readers. I doubt my mother would have gotten it for me when she did had she known what it was really about... but then, I didn't have any problems understanding it and certainly wasn't traumatized by it.

It's also true that the heroine is awfully young for all of the sexual situations she gets into, and that one could see the portrayal of women as sexist if one really wanted to do so. I personally read and enjoyed the story without worrying about such things, but I think that anyone who says _Virtual Mode_ shows sexism just may have a point. (Anthony *has* begun to disturb me in recent years with his fixation on the sexiness of very, very young women, but that's a subject better reserved for a Xanth review.) If such things offend you, you may wish to give this a skip.

Otherwise, I can say with enthusiasm that I feel _Virtual Mode_ to be a wonderful novel, one whose story and characters have stayed with me for years. Readers who enjoyed Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series may find this one especially appealing, as its resemblance to that saga seems much more pronounced than any to the perpetually punny Xanth.

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