PHAZE DOUBT
by Piers Anthony
Book seven and last (?) of Anthony's Apprentice Adept series about the two-phase planet Proton (science)/Phaze (magic). Now that the two frames have merged (Unicorn Point, 1989), both science and magic work—but against the tentacled, goggle-eyed Hectare invaders, the planet is de-fenseless; indeed, Citizen Stile, who is also the Blue Adept, instructs all loyal Citizens and Adepts not to resist. Of course, Stile and his son, the robot/magic Mach/Bane, and his offspring, Nepe/Flach, have prepared a vast plan to defeat the invaders. This involves the friendly Hectare spy Lysander, who must be willingly converted to the side of the good guys; a breeding program aimed at creating a Phaze-Proton-Hectare hybrid; and a rotation of the magic-frame Phaze around the black hole it orbits, so that it will fall into another universe and be beyond the reach of the Hectare forever. Absurdly complicated as always, juvenile as ever, and bound to be popular, since nothing dissuades Anthony's faithful.