Somebody please explain Piers Anthony to me

[Johanna]

What makes him tick? Only one thing I know about him for sure... he has published a huge number of books. How can I know in advance which are the good ones?

So far, I've only read one of his books: With a Tangled Skein. I thought it was a nice story, cleverly told (especially the gigantic Video Game from Hell at the climax), and I liked it. But for all I know it isn't representative of Piers Anthony's writing in general. It didn't seem to match his racy reputation. Can anyone summarize PA's oeuvre briefly, so I have an idea what he's all about?

What is Xanth?

[SpazCat]

Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
What makes him tick? Only one thing I know about him for sure... he has published a huge number of books. How can I know in advance which are the good ones?

They all pretty much follow the same plot. (With variations on the amount of overt sex depending on the target audience).

So far, I've only read one of his books: With a Tangled Skein. I thought it was a nice story, cleverly told (especially the gigantic Video Game from Hell at the climax), and I liked it. But for all I know it isn't representative of Piers Anthony's writing in general. It didn't seem to match his racy reputation. Can anyone summarize PA's oeuvre briefly, so I have an idea what he's all about?

You've picked a good series to start with. The Incarnations of Immortality is probably the best thing he's ever written. I'm on a quest to find For Love of Evil.

What is Xanth?

Xanth is the fantasy version of Florida. The first few books are really good, up until they lose the Good Magician somewhere along the ninth book. Then it degenerates into a land populated by puns with a shred of plot floating in the occasional wayward breeze. Check the above link for the plot of every single Xanth novel since 1986 or so.

(I used to like him, but then I got too bogged down in the puns and the "I am so great!" Author's Notes, so I dropped him like a rock. Can ya tell? )

[Larry Mudd]

I like Piers Anthony’s short fiction.

Xanth makes me see red. I like my puns to be clever.

The Incarnations of Immortality series started off pretty good, (although I was 18 or 19 when I read it, so my standards might have been a little lower.) I thought the the concept behind the series was pretty neat. Reading the notes in the back of them pretty much sums up for me why so many of Piers Anthony’s later novels just don’t make the grade as far as decent writing goes. Partway the the series, he starts extolling the virtues of his new-fangled Word Processing Machine, and how much time it saves him by allowing him to crank out his books according to templates. Sorry Piers, WP templates might be great for business letters, but they don’t have any place in creative writing. I found that the quality of Incarnations of Immortality waned pretty noticably towards the end of the series. Or maybe I was just growing up.

[martin_ibn_martin]

Uuugh!

Piers Anthony.

I liked Xanth when I was 13. Incarnations was great at 16. I would probably like the first 4 now, if I wanted to pick them up again.

"Firefly"....Soft-core pedophilia porn. Yippee.

I never got into his other series. I've moved on.

Martin

[Apricot]

After reading Firefly, I never got any further. Are you saying he has stuff worth reading?

[Miller]

I read a lot of Piers Anthony when I was in High School and Jr. High. Towards the end of my time at high school, I suddenly realized: Piers Anthony really, really sucks. To a wholly unprecendented degree. Bad jokes, repetitive plots, paper-thin characters, ludicrously convoluted and juvenile double-entendres. Simply godawful. And then there's the ego! My God, but Anthony has the worst ego-to-talent ratio of any author working today. His autobiography was the most self-serving, facile piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune to read. And don't get me started on the smug, self-congratulatory Letters from Jenny!

I'll say this much: usually, the first book in any of his far-too-numerous series are pretty good, but the rest of the series always consists of countless rehashes of the first book. If you want to get the best of Piers Anthony, just read the first novels. A Spell for Chameleon and On a Pale Horse stand out as pretty tolerable. You'd be better off reading something with a little more literary merit, though. Like stereo instructions.

[SpazCat]

Do not under any circumstances read the Bio of a Space Tyrant series. He does horrible things to human sexuality in those books. Horrible. Things.

[Khadaji]

Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
How can I know in advance which are the good ones?

So far, I've only read one of his books: With a Tangled Skein.
<SNIP>

What is Xanth?

Well, my opinion, for what it is worth, is that usually the first book (and sometimes the first few books) of any series has the strong possiblity of being good. Being the first, or first few, doesn't garrantee that it will be good, but it is a strong possibility. After that, they are usually quite formulaic and redundant. And so "With a Tangled Skein", not being the first, I found it very redundant and dull. The first one "On a Pale Horse" I enjoyed. Likewise for his Adept series and his Xanth series. I enjoyed the first 3 Xanth, and the first three Adept. HTH.

[Gyrate]

Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
What makes him tick? Only one thing I know about him for sure... he has published a huge number of books. How can I know in advance which are the good ones?

The bad ones are the one with "Piers Anthony" written on the cover. I second SpazCat's comment especially -- after reading the Space Tyrant series, I vowed never to read Anthony's books again.

Read Lloyd Alexander instead, say I.

[photopat]

I concur that his books are very formulaic. I read the "Incarnations of Immortality" series, and found that all the books were basically the same, not just in style but in plot. I read a couple of other books and gave up. I'm convinced he has an application set up on a computer so he just enters some names and places and it spits out a book. Sort of a mega-mad libs.

[Johanna]

So by chance I happened on one of the less-bad ones. Lucky me.

Since he has big fandom, I thought I would ask what is all the fuss about. Usually people mention his racy stuff, but With a Tangled Skein was not noticeably sexy... it was more about religion. Pop religion and pop mythology, that is.

Thanks, everyone, for warning me off of PA. Since my precious reading time is limited these days, it's important to choose carefully only good quality stuff. What's up with Lloyd Alexander?

I hate the idea of formulaic anything. I remember back in the 1970s I was reading about the disco music industry (I hated disco, so I was probably reading up on more reasons to hate it.) The producers were telling how they assembled disco tracks mechanically on an assembly line, with no human artistry involved in the process. And they were boasting about it as though this were a good thing. I retched.

[Larry Mudd]

I'm convinced he has an application set up on a computer so he just enters some names and places and it spits out a book. Sort of a mega-mad libs.

He has said as much himself. Not that extreme, but the plot/sub-plot structure/conflicts & resolutions have been codified and produced according to a formula. That he would admit this at all, gushing “I’ve been able to triple my output!” in the back of one of his own books, is really pitiful.

That being said, I’ll say it again-- his short fiction can be quite good. He’s a crap novelist, though.

[Vanyel]

I really enjoyed the Kirlian Quest series, and the Orn, Omnivore, Ox trilogy. I still enjoy reading Xanth books for a light read, although I haven't read any of the ones that came out in the past few years. Hasan is certainly a bit different from the usual stuff, being an adaptation of one of the Arabian Nights stories. And I enjoy the Author's Notes at the end of his books; I like reading about how he wropte the books and what he was doing at the time. Oh yeah, I haven't reread it in a while, but I remember really liking the Apprentice Adept series. However, I'm obviosly in the minority in this group, since Piers is one of my favorite authors ever, and the rest of you seem to think pretty little of him.

[SpazCat]

The stuff he wrote pre-computer is good because he actually had to think about it. Post-computer is crap. Craptastic, in fact.

David and Leigh Eddings, people. That's where the good stuff is.

[Vanyel]

Oh yeah, Belgarath the Sorceror. Good stuff. Pretty long seriess (or whatever the heck the plural of series is), though.

[LoN]

I used to read his stuff for the cheese value, but I realize its crap. "Riding a Pale Horse" was a cool novel with a cool premise and cool characters and all that... and the rest of the series until "For Love of Evil" was pretty good, too. But I guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Never read the "Xanth" books.

If you want good puns and better gratuitous sex, read anything by Spider Robinson. He's not much like Piers Anthony, but he is damn good.

[Manduck]

Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
I hate the idea of formulaic anything. I remember back in the 1970s I was reading about the disco music industry (I hated disco, so I was probably reading up on more reasons to hate it.) The producers were telling how they assembled disco tracks mechanically on an assembly line, with no human artistry involved in the process. And they were boasting about it as though this were a good thing. I retched.

Nation Lampoon had a good article about disco back then, describing how it was harvested in South America, cut into twent-foot lengths for shipping, etc. Ah good laffs. Yup.

obPiers Anthony: The last book of his I read all the way through was called Chthon or something like that. I forget what it was about - that was almost thirty years ago; how old is that bastard anyway? I started one of the Xanth novels a few years ago, but I wasn't enjoying it so I didn't bother to finish.

[OpalCat]

I liked the first books of the Xanth series when I was ... like preteen. Once he started giving credit at the end of the books to the idiots who sent in pun ideas that were used in the book.... well it became clear that the only reason for writing the stupid things was to string together as many idiotic puns as possible.

[RealityChuck]

I liked Macroscope, but have never been able to finish anything else by him. I tried reading the Apprentice Adept series and detested the first book (I loved the idea of mixing SF and fantasy, but he never did, and his preaching got boring very fast). From what I've seen, he has no talent for puns, but that doesn't stop him from making them.

In addition, his biography shows him to be extremely petty and vindictive, carrying trivial grudges for decades.

[magog]

Originally posted by RealityChuck
In addition, his biography shows him to be extremely petty and vindictive, carrying trivial grudges for decades. [/b]

I remember But What Of Earth, where Anthony footnotes all the changes an ex-editor made in the book, lambasting the editing industry in general.

Then there's "In The Barn," in Again, Dangerous Visions. The footnote was, well, interesting.

Anyway, if you want funny, Pratchett is to Anthony as, well, something really good to something really bad.

[Sublight]

If you really want to see petty and vindictive, check out his But What of Earth? It's a reprint of one of his earliest novels, in which he picks apart and insults every change the copy editors made to the original (which wasn't particularly good). Basically, it's 200 pages of some 5-year-old's "Just you wait! When I'm rich and famous, I'll show you and then you'll be sorry!" fantasy.

[Vanyel]

I enjoy the Xanth Author's Notes about what he was doing while writing the book, but I hate the credits for the various puns! However, he obviously came up with the puns in the first few Xanth books himself, since that was before people were writing in to give him puns.

On another subject, what did you people think of Letters to Jenny?

[Sublight]

ooh, simulpost.

[Larry Mudd]

magog: Then there's "In The Barn," in Again, Dangerous Visions. The footnote was, well, interesting.

I had to dig out my disintegrating, nearly-as-old-as-I-am copy of ADV to refresh my memory. (Not about In The Bar, which is unforgettable, but about the footnote.) Here’s the first paragraph of the afterword:

The name inscribed over the bullpen is HARLAN, though the description is not necessarily physical. I was one of those who supposed his intellectual scrotum contained two jellybeans, but I learned that there were, after all, nitties in his gritty. Thus I applauded the potency of the first DANG VIS and clamored for admission the the second.

(If you haven’t read it, the story is about a bloke who finds himself in an alternate reality where, after cows are wiped out somehow, people have selectively bred a sub-mental class of human beings for use in the dairy industry. The protagonist tries, and fails, to have congress with a ‘cow’, and understands why when he sees the massively-membered, urine-stinky ‘bull’.)

It’s always fun to see someone taking the piss out of Harlan Ellison. What a clash of egos!

[DreadCthulhu]

I for one liked the Xanth series. When I was in middle school anyway.

[Apos]

Some of the Xanth stuff is okay. The Incarnations definately got progressively worse: indeed, mostly because it often took longer and longer before each character actually became the Incarnation in the first place. But that series stays pretty good up until War, then a mostly crappy one with some sort of flying whale (but includes important plot points), and then there's For Love of Evil, which I have mixed feelings about. On one hand it is pretty poorly written and drags at many points. On the other hand, a lot of the ideas are neat, and shed a new light on the whole series.

[Fern Forest]

Why did you start in the middle of the Incarnations series? You really should read those in order since each book is essentially telling a different part of the same story and telling the same story from a different angle. Like "On a Pale Horse" is the first in the series.

I can't really think of how to summarize his style. He's been around a long time. I would say he does try to write strong women but his women always sound weird to me.

He did write a pornographic novel, "Pornucopia." I only read an exerpt of it though. I believe it involved a man with a prehensile penis. "For Love of Evil" does involve contact between a cross and the "furry" part of a woman. He does seem to enjoy putting peopel, sometimes fairly young people, in sexual situations. I imagine he would enjoy writing things like "La Blue Girl."

His 70s books seem to be less so. Ox, Orn and Omnivore were some of my favorite books of his. Although it's very dated to the 70s. In that series he played a lot with mathmatics. In the Battle Circle series he plays around with apocalyptic societies. And he's always very imaginative, he just can't always deliver. Personally I almost always find his women very disappointing. I gues that's how I would describe him. He likes to play with concepts.

Ox, Orn & Omnivore (3 books) - Mathmatics
Battle Circle - Apocalyptic socities
Tarot series - Religion and stuff
Cluster series - I forget, spheres in space, something.
Incarnations - Deities
Apprentuce Adept series - Making science and magic mirrors of each other.
Xanth - Magic/puns
Bio of a Space Tyrant - Great men make history in our solar system.
Mode series - Again I forget but I know involved a once suicidal young girl and magica; places.

He can also easily be convinced to carry on a series but almost always should stop where he originally planned.

[Fern Forest]

Originally posted by Osiris
Like "On a Pale Horse" is the first in the series.

and at one point Zane gets to meet Time and the meeting is told from Zane's point of view. In the next book about Time, Time get's to meet Zane and the meeting is told from Time's point of view.


Now I can't confirm that that was exactly what happened there but I know it happened many times over the series.

[ShadowWarrior]

Originally posted by SpazCat
The stuff he wrote pre-computer is good because he actually had to think about it. Post-computer is crap. Craptastic, in fact.

David and Leigh Eddings, people. That's where the good stuff is.

ah c'mon... I mean I like Eddings fine, I've got a complete set of his books on the shelf and I re-read them fairly often....but I would never put him up as someone who thinks about his writing.... for example:

1. Every one of his series is the same basic story, with minor variations, using all the same characters with different names and minor variations.

2. His magic systems rarely make any sense. Redemption of althalus wasn't too bad in this sense, but Belgariad and especially Sparhawk have the most inconsistent, illogical magic systems I have ever come across in a fantasy world. It gets worse when he tries to explain how they work, because that just makes the Holes more apparent.

3. 'The Rivan Codex' was the biggest rip-off I have ever purchased from a bookstore. (Also, he pretty much admits to points 1 and 2 in it). It still annoys me when I see it on the shelf, it's only my deep reluctance to throw out any book that keeps it there.

4. I much prefer Raymond Feist or David Gemmell (although they both have their faults, I'd say the worlds are much better thought out than Edding's)

5. (I was going to stop at 4, but I just remembered) Eddings has no continuity... logical errors crop up all over the place in his stories, and the Belgariad 'pre-histories' in particular flatly contradict the original story in so many places it's hard to believe they are connected.


Ok, rant over... I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread....

[ShadowWarrior]

eh? what? oh the OP... erm, right, yes... I only ever read a handful of PA books, the only ones I can remember being Fate, Death and Time from Incarnations, which I enjoyed a lot (again when I was 17/18ish) but I my library never got the others of the series, and I didn't like it enough to spend money on them...

Also, there was a couple of books about two worlds that were joined - one was a tech-world, the other magic. One of the characters was an amoeba who had taken human form... Is this a PA book? if so, it was pretty good, not obviously not good enough for the title to impress itself into my brain

[Gyrate]

Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
So by chance I happened on one of the less-bad ones. Lucky me.

Since he has big fandom, I thought I would ask what is all the fuss about. Usually people mention his racy stuff, but With a Tangled Skein was not noticeably sexy... it was more about religion. Pop religion and pop mythology, that is.

Thanks, everyone, for warning me off of PA. Since my precious reading time is limited these days, it's important to choose carefully only good quality stuff. What's up with Lloyd Alexander?

Perhaps I was overly harsh. He often starts out with interesting ideas; the problem is that they always fizzle out before the end of the series (and often before the end of the book). I also get the impression he doesn't meet many actual women, given the way he portrays them in his books.

What's up with Lloyd? His five-book Chronicles of Prydain are a considerably more mature set of fantasy adventures. On reconsideration, however, if you're looking for light comic fantasy you should rush right out and start reading Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series, starting with The Colour of Magic and on through the twenty-some (or is it thirty-some?) books in the whole series. IMHO, he gets better as he goes, his puns are superlative, his satire is witty, his plot twists are rarely predictable, and he seems to get better every book. If your reading time is limited and you like that genre, read Pratchett.

[SpazCat]

Originally posted by Larry Mudd
The name inscribed over the bullpen is HARLAN, though the description is not necessarily physical. I was one of those who supposed his intellectual scrotum contained two jellybeans, but I learned that there were, after all, nitties in his gritty. Thus I applauded the potency of the first DANG VIS and clamored for admission the the second.

That made absolutely no sense at all.

[Silentgoldfish]

Originally posted by SpazCat


That made absolutely no sense at all.

WAG: "That guy has a huge dick."

[nightshadea]

Actually Theres been tons of ragging on fsnatasy story aurhors just look them up

I liked piers anthony when I first read him becuase he appeals to the sniggering male teenage set With double meanings smutty jokes ect

The last book of his I read was one that was made into a pc game and the game people included it as a hint guide

It included a few snipes at racism and alvin toffler but other than that it was cotton candy

But theres various debates on themerits of fanatasy authors .... check the "guilty pleasures book thread" and otheres for suggestions

[smiling bandit]

David and Leigh Eddings, people. That's where the good stuff is.

Continuing from a previous poster's response, I'd have to note that the Eddings' can't even get two books in a series any different from each other. They even reuse whole paragraphs.

I for one like Peirs Anthony. He is, if nothing else, rather unique among the major modern authors. I liked his author's notes. While I do think the Xanth series has lost steam (and should have taken a break after "Question Quest" so he could find a new focus for the series) I'm not unhappy. Ultimately, uinderstand that he is writing for the Teen market. The books heavily appeal to young people, if for not other reason than that he makes light of sexuality. There aren't many authors who can do that effectively. He makes "it" funny! For people at a certain stage in their lives, this is invaluable.

And hell, anyone who can get teenagers to read 300+ page books is all right in my opinion.

[ShadowKatmandu]

Geez, you people are harsh! Piers is one of my favorite authors. Yeah, he's a bit formulaic with the Xanth stuff, but it is still terribly fun to read.

No, he's not into the gratuitous sex as much as perhaps he is reputed to be, but neither does he shy away from it if it plays a part in the tale he is telling.

I've not read everything he's done, but I have read most of Xanth, all of Incarnations (one of his best series), all but the last of his Mode series (deep stuff), and his Phaze/Proton series (good stuff, although the second trilogy did seem to be a bit of unnecessary overkill).

Letters To Jenny was very touching and sweet.

[Fenris]

What's up with Piers Anthony?

He started out as a promising writer (he even had a novel (or two?) nominated for a Hugo award) and his second Xanth book (The Source of Magic) is actually extremely good.

Then he learned that a quickly written, crappy Xanth book sold as well as a good Xanth book.

At least one Xanth book was nothing more than an innacucurate advertisement (he claimed the game's graphics would be presented in those SIRDS/Magic Eye format) for a Xanth video game ("Gee! I have just gotten the NEW XANTH VIDEO GAME! I shall play it and be transported magically to Xanth (OF WHICH THERE'S A NEW VIDEO GAME) where events in the book will mirror events in the NEW XANTH VIDEO GAME. Or not.")

And he (or at least his authorial voice) has a weird fixation on little girl's underwear* and as time goes on, he indulges it more.


Shadowwarrior: Yeah. The series is called "The Apprentice Adept" and the first three books (Split Infinity, (something) and Juxtaposition) aren't dreadful. The series continues past book three though and becomes some of the worst crap I've ever read. Apparently he figured out that a crappy book in that series would sell as well as a good one, too.

Fenris

*There's a couple of Xanth books in the 15-17 range where the authorial voice spends pages describing in nauseating detail how young girls (12? 13?) look in pretty dainty panties.

[SpazCat]

Originally posted by ShadowKatmandu
No, he's not into the gratuitous sex as much as perhaps he is reputed to be, but neither does he shy away from it if it plays a part in the tale he is telling.

Explain to me how the pedophilia in Bio of a Space Tyrant plays a part in the tale he's telling.

[ShadowKatmandu]

Explain to me how the pedophilia in Bio of a Space Tyrant plays a part in the tale he's telling.

Sorry, haven't read that one yet.

And don't ask me about Pornucopia; haven't been able to get a copy of that one, but then (by its title) its designed for gratuitous sex.

[OpalCat]

The puns are what ruined Xanth for me. It is rare that I come across a pun that isn't annoying anyway, but I swear the guy bases entire books around fitting the puns in.

[Fern Forest]

I can precisely pin point the exact moment the puns became too much for me. The -tics.

That and I missed Bink.

[Deptford]

Several years ago i noticed a new medical condition called "Piers Anthonys Disease" which seems only to afflict authors. The symptoms are:-

If the victim has enough good ideas for 1 book , they write a trilogy.
If they've enough material for a trilogy they write a 10 book series.

Their's also an offshoot of this known as "Eddings Syndrome" where the sufferer manages to create 1 really good story, then repeats that same story over and over again with minor cosmetic alterations each time.

[ShadowWarrior]

Originally posted by Fenris

Shadowwarrior: Yeah. The series is called "The Apprentice Adept" and the first three books (Split Infinity, (something) and Juxtaposition) aren't dreadful. The series continues past book three though and becomes some of the worst crap I've ever read. Apparently he figured out that a crappy book in that series would sell as well as a good one, too.

Thanks Fenris - I might have guessed you'd be the one able to identify that series.

[magog]

Originally posted by ShadowWarrior
1. Every one of his series is the same basic story, with minor variations, using all the same characters with different names and minor variations.

To continue the hijack, the Belgeriad was ruined for me when I asked what a friend thought of the series and she said, "you know, I could only take so many jokes about someone getting thrown off a cliff."

But, although their books do cover the same ground, they are entertaining writers. Equiv. of cotton candy.

Finally, the above post was my first coding error and my first simulpost. I'm so proud

[DrFidelius]

re: Eddings.

I read _The Belgariad_ as it came out, and was amused by it. Not impressed, but amused.

When the first book of the next series came out (_The Mallorean_?) I picked it up, thinking he would continue on with some of the plot threads he had left from the first series. Like, the finding of the Mourning God's people still alive in the slave pits, the birth of a new leader for the cave people whose parents had actually left the caves, the identity of the Errand kid and his place in the restructured pantheon, etc.

When I found that they had not noticed one smudge in the Codex said "Do it all over again" and they were going to actually just do it all over again I put the book down and have never been tempted to pick up another one of his works.

re: Anthony

I used to like his output, but then again I used to drink, too.

[DrFidelius]

Oh, and the second _Apprentice Adept_ book was , IIRC, _Blue Adept_ with a nice Rowena cheesecake cover.

[SpazCat]

In defense of Eddings, his characters are very entertaining and varied. In the Belgariad/Mallorean, that is. There's a feeling of sameness in the Elenium/Tamuli that isn't limited to the same character types in both series.

He also doesn't use puns.

[Deptford]

Originally posted by SpazCat
There's a feeling of sameness in the Elenium/Tamuli

Try reading The Redemption Of Althalus afterwards if you really want a feeling of Deja-vu.I bought it when it first came out as the spiel on the back cover made it sound different. I get 100 pages in and oh dear its a several 1000 year old protagonist. Leading the same identikit group that he uses in every book.

The thing that most annoys me is the whole Prophecy business he uses over and over again. As usual in this book the hero's command vast powers (one of the party's even a goddess), he's actually upped the ante in this one so far as to give them the ability to travel through and freely manipulate time. But they aren't allowed to just destroy the villains in half a dozen immediatly obvious ways, because there's always some prophecy that says no , not allowed , you need to defeat them in some stagey manner involving a quest instead.

Now i realise that the whole point of this is so that the hero's can't immedialty smite the bad guys and their's a story to tell.But can't he do something different!? You know a story where his characters aren't Uber-powerful demigods, maybe with a new plot even.

It's just a shame because he can write entertainingly

[nightshadea]

Actually the xanth pc game I played was more like the kings quest series It was made by legend ... The book it was based on was the characters entered xanth through a computer game of some sort

I wish I could find the book tho I have it here somewhere .......

But If you read the book you could beat the game in a hour or so

[SpazCat]

Originally posted by nightshadea
Actually the xanth pc game I played was more like the kings quest series It was made by legend ... The book it was based on was the characters entered xanth through a computer game of some sort

I wish I could find the book tho I have it here somewhere .......

But If you read the book you could beat the game in a hour or so

The book in question is Demons Don't Dream.

Note to self: from now on advocate Anne McCaffrey on message boards.