Somebody please explain Piers Anthony to me

Cafe Society
61

I read a whole lot of his stuff, mostly in high school and early college. I have to agree with much of the general sentiment that his earlier stuff tends to be better, and especially the beginnings of his series. The first series I read was the original Apprentice Adept trilogy, and enjoyed it very much. And I believe the original intent was to end it there, but he eventually continued it due to pressure from fans.

That seems to illustrate his main problem, as far as I’m concerned. He doesn’t know when to let a good series end.

His self-absorbed author’s notes started really pissing me off, as well. I never bothered with “Letters to Jenny” or “Bio of an Ogre”, as I knew they would both just be much larger versions of the damned author’s notes.

Xanth was good for the first 8 books. Book 9 (Golem in the Gears) was painful. I haven’t read any of them past Question Quest. (I think the next one in sequence was “The Color of Her Panties”, and I find myself not wanting to admit having a book with such a title by even letting it be visible on my bookshelf…)

Incarnations – started great with “On a Pale Horse”. Some others were okay, and I actually liked “For Love of Evil” a bit more than some of the earlier ones. It ended horribly, though, with “And Eternity…”. I thought that one sucked wind.

Some of the earlier single volumes were pretty good. I liked Battle Circle, and Mute was kind of interesting, although I thought it had a weak ending. Macroscope was interesting, too.

Some of the collaborations are okay, others should be avoided. I thought that If I Pay Thee Not In Gold wasn’t too bad. Caterpillar’s Question was pretty lame.

One should definitely avoid some of the novels that he originally didn’t get published, but then later finally published once he became “big”. If you ever read The E.S.P. Worm or Mercycle, you will probably want to gouge your eyes out…

62

I read macroscope and thought it was well borderline crappy … although there’s patterns in it you’d recognize in later books

Espicially When the experiment with children is described …

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Hey! I liked The E.S.P. Worm and Mercycle!

64

I thought MerCycle wasn’t bad.

–Cliffy

65

I liked ‘Cthon’ - that was an interesting story that worked on a few different levels.

I read ‘Orn’ and ‘Omnivore’ when I was a kid, but it was so long ago I can’t remember anything about it except those fungus creatures that change shapes.

The ‘Xanth’ books got tiring in a hurry.

‘On a Pale Horse’ was alright, but I was old enough by then to see the writing style was lacking.

There was a sequel to ‘Cthon’ that I didn’t like.

His novelization of ‘Total Recall’ is one of the worst books ever.

66

Some exec actually authorized a borderline/crappy fantasy author to write a novelization of a movie based on a book/short story by one of the greatest sci-fi authors ever? That’s like… hell, I can’t think of what thats like. Maybe getting Richard Dean Anderson to write an LOTR novelization? Jeez… if Dick was alive to hear about this, it probably contributed to his insanity…

67

Piers Anthony is the master of what I call “fantasy lite” – bubblegum fantasy books that take little thought to read (or write, I should imagine). I read several of his books in high school, but stopped when they all started to sound the same.

However, his characterizations of women represent probably my biggest real problem with his writing. While his male characters have at least a little depth (sometimes), his women are completely one-dimensional, and almost without fail can are classified as complete bitches or utter sluts. I think when ol’ Piers’ editor told his to write more fantasy, he misunderstood just what sort of “fantasies” were being discussed.

Its not the roles themselves that I mind, but the complete lack of dimension that Anthony gave to any of his women, that finally turned me away from his books. Or at least, that was one of several reasons.

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I read Total Recall in high school, maybe a year before the movie came out.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think this was supposed to be a novelization of a film. OTOH, I don’t remember the book giving any credit to Phillip K Dick… whereas the movie doesn’t credit Piers Anthony anywhere.

What I do remember is that the main character came off the page as being like Arnold Schwartzenegger. I thought, at the time, that it was okay. This was during a year when I was reading nothing but Piers Anthony. I liked Bio of a Space Tyrant, but now I think that’s probably because Piers Anthony causes brain damage.

I re-read Tangled Skein last year. I thought it was so bad that I threw the book away (I never do that). Juvenile. Thank goodness for Harry Potter.

69

Ah, yes – the mantas. They were pretty cool, as I remember. There was also a third book in that set – OX – which was rather weird.

Yes, that was Phthor. And it probably felt a little pointless and depressing since…

Everybody, and I mean everybody (like, the entire galaxy), dies at the end.

70

I am highly amused by this paragraph.

71

Read the Incarnations of Immortality and the Adept series… a long time ago.

They have their better points but it seems that the more you read the worse PA gets as an author. I couldn’t imagine reading any of them now.