On a Pale Horse
- 336
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“On a Pale Horse” is a fantasy built on a striking premise and carried through carefully: a man kills Death and must take over the job. Piers Anthony follows Zane as he learns to collect souls and to hold his own beside the other Incarnations, and uses the office to ask plain questions about sin, faith, living and dying. The dark subject is balanced by a sense of adventure, and seven more books follow.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
On a Pale Horse is a fantasy novel by Piers Anthony, first published in 1983. It is the first of eight books in the Incarnations of Immortality series. The book focuses on Zane, a photographer about to commit suicide who instead kills Death and must assume his office. The book spawned a five-issue comic series, released by Innovation Publishing from 1991 to 1993, but Innovation went out of business before releasing the sixth and final issue. It was also the inspiration for the television series, Dead Like Me, which worked on the premise that there are multiple Grim Reapers working the planet.
Reading order · Incarnations of Immortality
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 198 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 57% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.4 | 14 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 7.4 | 184 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is On a Pale Horse?
It has 336 pages — shorter than 90% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 7.7, the closest to this book.
