DoOon Mode

March 5, 2001

Bestseller Anthony packs his fourth and concluding volume set in the Mode multiverse (Virtual Mode; etc.) with a huge variety of characters, a brisk, episodic plot, plenty of sex and some superficial emotional heft. A trio of cat-based androids from DoOon Mode accepts a challenge posed by the evil Emperor Ddwng to find clinically depressed, suicidal 14-year-old Colene and her loving, stable husband, Darius, to force them to hand over the powerful Chip. With the Chip, Ddwng will be able to travel the multiverse—and raid it ruthlessly for supplies and genetic material. Surprisingly, Darius agrees to turn the Chip over (could it be he knows something that Ddwng does not?), and he and his telepathically linked friends, now counting the cat androids among their number, traverse the alternative realities of the Modes to Darius's home Mode, finding adventure and solving problems along the way. In so doing they grow closer, eventually forming a hive—a mentally joined group of beings that shares thoughts and emotions. Feeling she must separate from the hive to conquer her fears, Colene faces in the highly disturbing last chapter her greatest fear—sex—and discovers what happened in her past that has scarred her so terribly. Unwary readers who get this far may feel as Colene does, "deeply buried in awfulness, with no way to escape," but Anthony's legions of adolescent fans should be immune to what others may consider bad taste and bad writing.

April 15, 2001
Fleeing a real world that has become too harsh for her to accept, Colleen enters a fantastic realm of varying "modes," where she finds a group of companions to accompany her on a journey toward healing and self-knowledge. Ultimately, Colleen must face the monster responsible for her troubled past and find a way to save all the worlds that she has come to love. Concluding his Mode series (Virtual Mode, Fractal Mode, Chaos Mode), Anthony delivers a parable that uses high-tech trappings to conceptualize the struggle between good and evil. The author's large following should guarantee a demand for this cleverly told sf adventure.

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2001
This is the latest installment in Anthony's Mode saga, which details, sometimes exhaustingly, the adventures of troubled youngster Colleen in a series of rather grungy alternate realities. Besides Colleen, continuing characters include Burgess the alien, Colleen's defender, and the telepathic horse Sequiro, a worthy addition to Anthony's stable of heroic critter companions. Handsome young King Darius offers Colleen healing, but first she has to challenge and survive confronting an evil warlord and explore her past. The past-exploration subplot includes heavy sexual content that Anthony handles in the fashion his readers have come to expect, with a sort of lip-smacking that not everyone finds charming. A happy ending suggests that this may be the Mode series' conclusion. Fans who have come this far won't want to miss it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)