BEING A GREEN MOTHER

Fifth and final fantasy in the Incarnations of Immortality series—Death, Time, Fate, and, most recently, War (Wielding a Red Sword). Orb, a beautiful young Irish girl of magical-musical heritage, learns from a band of gypsies of the ultimate music, the "Llano," the most potent magic known. Eventually Orb leaves home to search among the gypsies for the Llano, but the music proves elusive. Bothersome, too, is the prophecy that some day she might marry Evil. (A vast, cunning plot by Satan is de rigueur for the series.) After various adventures, Orb meets and falls for the handsome singer Natasha—but is he a demon in disguise? Natasha passes all of Orb's tests: they marry—and then Natasha reveals that he is Satan himself! (The tests, and the marriage, were all Satan-inspired illusions.) Orb, now in command of the Llano, agrees to become the Green Mother, the incarnation of Nature; in order to foil Satan's design to rule the world through her, she unleashes the forces of Chaos, destroying the world. Satan and the other Incarnations step in: Chronos (Time) agrees to set things right—but the price is that Orb must marry Satan for real. Satan goes through with it—he truly loves Orb—but in the process he destroys himself and releases all the damned souls from Hell, thus losing his prolonged struggle with God. A satisfyingly twisty plot, imbedded in the usual Anthony juvenile gush. Overall: agreeable enough—and bound to be very popular.