Book Review: 'Neq the Sword' by Piers Anthony
'Neq the Sword' (192 pp.) was published by Corgi Books (UK) in 1975, and features rather gruesome cover art by Patrick Woodroffe. In the 1970s, this sort of graphic illustration could pass muster, but it's doubtful if it would be acceptable nowadays...........
This is the third volume in the 'Battle Circle' trilogy, the other entries being 'Sos the Rope' (1968) and 'Var the Stick' (1972). My review of 'Sos' is here, and 'Var', here.
All three volumes were packaged for the U.S. readership by Avon, in the omnibus 'Battle Circle'.
As 'Neq' opens, due to the machinations of the enigmatic superman known simply as 'the Master', the nomad society in which Neq lives is in increasing disarray due to a breakdown in the distribution of food, clothing, medicine, and shelter by the technocrats known as the 'Crazies'.
The practice of the Battle Circle, which served to direct aggression into ritualized combat, has been abandoned. The landscape is infested by outlaws and bandits who murder, rape, and rob without fear of retribution. Truck convoys supplying goods to the Crazy hostels scattered around the landscape are being intercepted, and their contents pillaged.
The Crazies, sworn to pacifism, can do little to prevent the depredations of the outlaws. But Neq, one of the greatest swordsmen in the history of the nomad empire, is willing to help the Crazies revive the supply convoys. He realizes that the nomad society is collapsing, and stern measures are needed to prevent the resumption of the barbarity that defined life in the aftermath of the Blast.
Accompanied by a young Crazy woman named Miss Smith, Neq sets out on a long-distance drive across northern America, hoping to restore the hostels and quell the activities of the outlaws. His journey will reveal the fate of the former leaders and heroes of the nomad empire, their children, and underscore the need for cooperation between the the advanced society that ruled the world before the Blast, and the devolved remnants of that society.
Like 'Sos' and 'Var', in 'Neq the Sword' author Anthony (the pseudonym of Piers Anthony Jacobs) provides an engrossing action novel within the span of less than 200 pages. More so than the first two novels on the series, the violence in 'Neq' is more explicit and could said to verge into Splatterpunk territory. There also are prominent traces of a softcore porn sensibility in the pages of 'Neq', which perhaps is not so surprising, given that Jacobs wrote sleaze paperbacks ('Pornucopia') in addition to science fiction.
Where I had to deduct a star for 'Neq' was in its closing chapters, wherein our hero decides to purse the spirit of Kumbaya, and renounces the use of violence. This abnegation has a contrived quality, as if Piers Anthony belatedly had decided to infuse the closing stages of his violent trilogy with a 'make love, not war, sensibility'. Each reader will make his or her own decision as to whether this is a successful maneuver, but for me, I found it facile........
Summing up, while it's not perfect, the 'Battle Circle' trilogy remains a worthy read fifty years after it first was published. The trilogy's tight composition and action-centered discourse made it stand out from the New Wave compositions of the same era, and for this, it deserves accolades.
