Piers Anthony: 'Volk'

If you're familiar with author Piers Anthony, it's probably through his works of fantasy, like "Ogre, Ogre."

Anthony is an established writer of science fiction and fantasy, particularly set in the fiction world of Xanth, based on Florida. But what do you do when you want to write something outside your standard genre? Anthony recently addressed this by self-publishing his new novel, "Volk," with a startup called Xlibris, that gives authors editorial control of their books and prints books on demand. Think of it as self-publishing without the investment in a run that depends entirely on your efforts to sell.

Anthony bills "Volk" as a politically incorrect novel of the forbidden love between a Nazi officer and the Quaker fiancee of his pre-war American friend. The book nicely brings out some of the ironies of WWII: that not all Nazis subscribed to their party's ideology, and that the Allies also engaged in practices as barbarous as the Nazis did.

Unfortunately, the novel does little more than play around with some of these ideas or the characters themselves. The storyline covers a six- or seven-year period, but little in the novel reflects that. The writing fails to engage the reader deeply, with the result that it's hard to care much when the Quaker heroine is captured by Nazis for smuggling Jews; neither can the reader properly appreciate her anguish at the compromises wartime forces on her.

The book also suffers from poor editing. Xlibris allows authors to circumvent the big publishing houses to get their books into print, but it apparently doesn't provide editing services. In the case of "Volk," Piers Anthony would have been better off hiring a freelance editor or giving the book a closer second read himself.

"Volk" is readable, but disappointing. Unless you're a tremendous fan of Anthony's writing, you're unlikely to finish Volk after you put it down.