Chaos Mode

Mode #3

by Piers Anthony

United in a world of parallel universes, Colene from Earth, Darius, the king of another planet and her lover, Seqiro the telepathic horse, and a tentacled creature named Burgess return to Earth to help Colene confront her troubled past. Reprint.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Young Adult, Speculative Fiction, Ebooks

358 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Though he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.

Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

Reviews

[S.W. Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those sci-fi/fantasy books mere words can't do justice to...

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The events in the third novel in the “Mode” series are as unexpected as the title, Chaos Mode would indicate. In previous volumes, Anthony introduced a suicidal teenager who falls in love with an individual (best-known as the King of Laughter) from a magical universe where his “gift” is to be able to siphon emotion out of an individual and multiply it so that others could receive it. If that emotion was joy, it was a boon to the community and, if it was despair, it was a drain on the community. Unfortunately, the King of Laughter needs a wife full of enough joy that she can replenish whenever he drains her to minister to the multitudes. Yet, he is in love with this suicidal girl.

When the two protagonists are separated, they manage to forge a “Virtual Mode” in order to traverse the multitudinal possibilities of the multiverse and imaginative landscapes, creatures, and catastrophes result. In Fractal Mode, readers discover that it takes four anchor points to keep the “virtual mode” functioning. This enables Anthony to weave in new and intriguing members of the adventuring party (Hey! I’m a gamer! That’s what we call it.) and then, release their anchor and establish a new one whenever their tales are finished. In Chaos Mode, the party discovers a creature who is part of a world where the evolutionary path involved the creatures who, in smaller scale, are preserved in the Burgess Shale of our world. The encounter and subsequent interaction with these species reminded me of my attempt to evolve a superior invertebrate species when I was playing SimEarth some years back.

In my initial two reviews, I noted that I had originally discounted these works as YA novels (Young Adult) akin to Harry Potter and the young Merlin books. Not only was I wrong, but the afterward to this novel shares about a young girl who had her copy of Virtual Mode seized by an officious Florida schoolteacher and then, found herself and her brother placed under the care of the government’s social services because a mother who would let her child read about rape and suicide must be unfit. The mother ended up having to go through a long court fight to get her children back and fortunately, the principal who upheld the unreasonable teacher’s assertion was removed. Frankly, I thought Anthony was encouraging teenagers and adults who have gone through traumatic experiences to keep up the struggle and find inner gifts, strengths, and courage to overcome. The whole series seems rather redemptive to me, as well as imaginative, so I am horrified at the anecdote from real-life that seems like one of the less-attractive “modes” in the fiction.

As a novelist, Anthony must be experiencing both the good and the bad in this series. His four anchor point approach means that he always has an intriguing party of adventurers, but as he lets them go and their anchor drops, they are disconnected from the others (at least, temporarily, one assumes). Indeed, Chaos Mode features a circumstance where one of the adventurers has to let go of her/his anchor in the final moments of the book. As a result, we know that the next volume (assuming there is one) will introduce a new protagonist and have to hope (if you like the protagonist of which I speak as much as I do) the protagonists can eventually reach out to him or her again. This mechanism for entrances and exits by these protagonists must be a two-edged sword for Anthony because, even though the characters placed on the sideline are not dead, I still hear Emily Dickinsen’s line about “Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell” in my mind.

Frankly, it’s sad to me that these books have so much to say about personal courage, individual worth, appreciation of diversity, and creative problem-solving and yet are doomed to be overshadowed by the success of the Xanth books with their whimsical, free-wheeling style. Admittedly, the underlying lessons of the Xanth books teach some of the same things, but they don’t have quite the realistic results and circumstances hanging over them that one sees in the Mode books. Chaos Mode warns against revolutions which overturn the establishment without providing for either a provisional or long-term solution, as well as parents who are over-protective without being informed and sensitive. Those aren’t lessons one would expect to find in a work of imaginative fiction. If I could summarize these novels in two words, it would be the alliterative combination, courage and communication. With those two efforts, we can truly hope to build a better world.

[Willuknight Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been rereading this series, the first time when I was a teenager, the second time, as someone in my 30s. So this book, where to start. I rated book 1 four stars. It had some major major problems, mainly sexism and borderline ephebophilia. That's kinda the not so hidden flaw of Piers Anthony, it just took an awareness of social niceties to realize he's a huge creep. So why did I rate it that? Well it was a good adventure despite those issues.

Book 2, I rated 2 because the story was basically men VS women in gullivers travels.

So book 3, is probably 2.5stars. It's better than book 2, but now I'm holding am even higher bar to want more from the story and I'm not getting it. Piers Anthony writes fairly linearly, though he does have moments of greatness. The plot feels very episodic with slight amounts of personal growth every episode. I'm not really sure what I would want differently (apart to stop from having the bodies of the 14 and 18yr old girls constantly described) but maybe something that feels more natural than set pieces as people being moved around the stage to solve obstacles. I'm tired of hitting a problem and then having the solution be some clever little detail that solves it. That's fine as one tool in the writer's toolbox, but it shouldn't be the only one.

The only really good thing in this book was [massive spoilers ahead, you should probably stop reading, trigger warning, discussing rape trauma]

The way Piers addressed the real legacy of rape. Don't get me wrong, the petty revenge bit felt unnatural and tacked on, we didn't achieve anything by wrapping up the story that way, but dealing with the expectations of having sex for the first time and allowing it to be OK that longed for sex doesn't result in sex? That's a powerful message that needs to be shared far and wide, and I'm almost surprised to see something this positive in a book by this author. Now to take away some of that praise, not having sex with a 14yr old who is traumatized from being raped in the past isn't a particularly high bar to cimb for a... How the fuck old is Darius again?....

Anyway. You don't ever have to have sex, even if it's on your wedding night.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

This third part of the Mode series continues the story of Colene the suicidal girl, traveling through the multiverse with a changing entourage of beings with a variety of powers. In this book Anthony introduces an alien character based on a dead-end branch in our evolution, which was a pointer to some interesting wikipedia reading on the side. Well done! It's also interesting to see that where normally fantasy stories progress linearly - the protagonists visiting various places and having adventures there - in this series the author introduces incremental story telling, where the group re-visits places where they've been before to more conclusively finish their business there. Again most of the action is based on using and abusing the telepathic superpowers of the horse Seqiro. Besides allowing telepathic group communication in the end he is even able to boost all of the group's powers, both physical and magical. Unfortunately the story goes over so much old ground that I really missed the innovative aspects that Anthony can be so good at. It also becomes painfully obvious that the 'mind predator' that was introduced in book 2 is nothing more than a storytelling mechanism that forces the character to spend some days in each of their origin 'modes' so they have time to progress the story there. (They approach all their other challenges head-on, with much success, so why not the mind predator?) Then there is the afterword, with the remarkable story of a mother removed from parental care because she allowed her daughter to bring part 1 of the series, Virtual Mode, to school. For me a mixed bag, interesting but lacking substance to be a good story.

[Cat5676 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel the introduction to the new character could have been shorter. It took up almost half of the novel. Most of it was just trying to survive in the wilderness of a strange world which I personally did not enjoy. I skipped over some of it.

The best part was twords the end. I feel the ending should have had more length and the beginning shorter. It feels a little rushed at the end.

None the less I still like the series and will read the last book. The only characters I really am invested in are Colene, Seqiro, and Darius. I cried twice twords the end.

[Kate H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this series many years ago when it was originally published. While there were most definitely aspects I felt did not stand up to the test of time in general I did enjoy re-reading this series. The characters have very clear points they are trying to portray and I like the scienc"ish" bits in it.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am rereading Piers Anthony novels that I read in my youth, but reading them as an adult has changed my outlook. I find the books tedious and long. I love the Xanth series, but the rest of his series are not for me.

[Rodeweeks · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always brilliantly written, absolutely magical

[John (Hey Y'all Listen Up) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthony at his finest. People who love the found family trope should enjoy this book and this series.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of a teenage girl, a grown man, an 18 year old girl, a telepathic horse, and a strange slug like creature from another reality. The group is traveling on the Virtual Mode (a way to slide between realities) with the ultimate goal of the series being to get the girl and the man to his reality. The group keeps running into a mind monster, and they are constantly forced to camp out in different realities waiting for it to go away.

Yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds. I am having a tough time with this series. With each book it seems to get more far fetched. I always find Piers Anthony's books a bit contrived, but this is worse than most of the other books I've read by him. There is an awful Deus Ex Machina feel to the entire second half of the story. Colene's parents are rightly upset that their 14 year old daughter has vanished. We know the horse can influence minds with his telepathy, however, EVERYTHING that happens in the Earth portion of the book would not have happened without the horse. All consequence is removed, all doubt and anger are gone, and it even goes so far as to have the parents drive Colene to another state so she can get married. Then he wrote himself into a corner because Colene needed to take care of the slug creature. (He had fallen ill from a vitamin deficiency.) No problem! She can have a proxy wedding! I had to look that up online because I didn't even believe such a thing existed. It turns out it does, but only under certain circumstances, and I don't believe this scenario would have been covered. If I feel the need to verify something I've read in a fantasy novel, something is wrong. I should be able to suspend my disbelief enough to accept the "facts" and enjoy the story.

I didn't hate the book, but I didn't like it either.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“When the happiness ends ...there is life in death ...and the happiness I feel is the essence of that joy ...I see a time when things weren't black or white or red or green but when they were always gray ...I sit here and think about all the times that have been and all the lost causes, and I wonder, if any of it was ever worth it, and these insights haunt my mind ...as I try to think back to the good times, and the times when all things were good and there was no hate or frustration in the world but I can't remember, when I can only remember now and now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of our enemies-they should pick up guns and kill innocent people to show the loyalty to the red, white, and blue and every blessed child shall wave a flag to let the world know their confusion and when they grow up their lives should end each time they pop a pill to forget the latest problem and soon the nation's children will be grievers of Death and ruin and we shall live long and prosper and father children who have no mothers and they shall rock soulless babies to sleep and fate cuts the threads away and I shall find the magic that will take me far away from all the pain and I will remain forever in a place not far from here and in this new existence I shall live ...And the little boxes will clump together and gather into one giant big box and I'll be in it, and the lid will clamp down and I will suffocate and it will be my coffin forever and ever amen ...”
-Chaos Mode by Piers Anthony. pg 226 & 263

[Jamie Barringer (Ravenmount) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Piers Anthony is a very creative author, and his fantasy stories tend to stray from the cliches that make most fantasy novels so similar. His writing style is awfully clunky, though, and could use more editing for grammar and 'flow'. He also tends to dive into stories with too little background context, especially in mid-series novels, so that if you have not read the previous volume in a while, or if you have never read any other books in the series, it may take 1/3 of the book or more just to figure out enough of the story to not feel hopelessly lost. I suspect that if you start reading this series from the very beginning, it might be more engaging, but I had a very hard time getting through this book. I found the characters unrealistic, and the dialogue almost always felt fake and stilted. The story itself, once you get past the writing style and storytelling issues, is pretty cool, enough to earn a 3 star rating from me, but I wish this book had had a tougher editor.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe more like 2.5 to 2.75 stars, but I'll let my long association with Piers Anthony boost that up to 3 stars instead of down to 2 stars. I mean, he's obviously got some talent as a writer, and is certainly capable of writing a good story, interesting characters, and engaging plots. Capable, but not all that committed to it.

3/4 of the book is standard Anthony "let's solve a puzzle!" story-telling. Oh, look! A conundrum! Whatever shall we do! Ah, solved! Oh, look, A conundrum! Whatever shall we do! Et cetera. For me, that gets old after being used over multiple books, in multiple series, over multiple decades.

When he gets around to advancing the story, in the other 1/4 of the book, which mostly coincides with the last 1/4 of the book, I enjoyed the story and the characters much more, right up to the abrupt end which necessitates picking up the next book, no resolution here in case you thought you might want to just stop...

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping that the Mode books would get better as the series progressed, but the aspects of the characterization that bothered me in the first two books were still present in the third. For one, the characters all seen obsessed with sex -- either having casual sex, complaining about not having any, or being melancholy about past sex experiences. Colene's central character trait (being depressed and suicidal) doesn't make for particularly light reading, and on some level, I found myself wondering why she couldn't just move on with her life... Like all of her companions are encouraging her to do.

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want this series to be more interesting, but this book spent about half the time just spinning its wheels.

It's apparent by now that there are two things here: a theoretical playground for mathematics, physics, evolutionary biology, political science, and social commentary...and Colene. I love the theoretical bits, but having to be constantly reminded how suicidal and special she is just starts to grate.

All that was really accomplished here was the marriage and fixing Oria, the rest of the book is kind of boring. Oh, and Seqiro leaves at the end.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it enough to want to go on to the next.

Note: 2018 - I finally got the last book Do0on Mode and haven't read it yet. I remember having it on my wish list for a long time and then letting it drop off. I was reading Incarnations (off my shelves) and then did some research on Piers and found that he did finally write the fourth one so I checked and now it is on my Kindle. I have all his books in paperback but I ran out of shelf space.

[Michael Riversong · Rating 3 out of 5]

A new character, an alien life form evolving from a completely different type of basis, but still on Earth, is crucial and also fascinating. It's interesting that the fossil record of this type of creature, and several other bizarre forms, actually has been found. This shows that the quality of sentience transcends anything we might know about biology.

[Traci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good book. This is the first series I've read from Piers and I really enjoyed it. The fantasy element of having various worlds existing simultaneously was awsome. He has quite the imagination.

[Gino]

Piers Anthony is a very entertaining author. This third installment of the mode series has the interesting effect of expanding on the abilities and mentality of the character's while also taking away those same abilities but not the knowledge of them.

[Robyn]

Read in 1995 when the paperback first came out.

Nothing to add to my review of Virtual Mode, the first book in the series.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice one

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Mode series loses me quite often in the reading...not that I don't understand or follow, rather that I lose interest quickly.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't even sure I'd read this one until I saw the cover. I do remember the sort of... ocean-creature that's on the front. These were interesting books.

[Kaylynn Johnsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know why, but I was completely lost in this one. I didn't read the next one. So, I don't even know how it ended and I don't even care.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young adult 10-15

[Weslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

it gripped me and held me from cover to cover... lots of fun reading this one...

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

looking at your idea of how the world should be structured

[Dan Edwards · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ack!