Defend the Indefensible: Piers Anthony

Argh, for "I did read..." read "I picked up and skimmed at the airport", otherwise it looks like I'm completely mental. Which indeed I might be.

Tried to read one of the early ones a couple of years ago and felt great shame. I should have spent that time reading more Christopher Pike novels!

For sexism and being generally insulting to average intelligence, I'm afraid I can't defend him. But hey... he sure writes lotsa books, don't he?

So, OK, how to defend him? Firstly I think he's been more influential than he's given credit for - the whole fantasy-whimsy feel of a lot of videogames (usually quite poor ones) is quite Anthony-esque. The one time I actually read a Piers Anthony series - recommended by my DAD of all people! - it moved at a fair pace and the first book at least worked its ideas quite well (it was a 70s trilogy I think and the premise was a 'fantasy' world overlapping in spacetime with a 'sci-fi' world).

A sometime poster here used to own all the Xanth novels up until really quite late on - I think "The Colour Of Her Panties" put him off, as well it might given that it's the worst title of a book ever.

this is all i can recall: i think macroscope predates the stuff you are all talking abt (and hmmm my dad recommended it to me, but i cd never work out why) (afaicr there was no sex at all)

None of that means I'd read anything new by him, though.

The weirdest/most upsetting thing he ever did had to be appearing on TV in an ad talking about his novelization of the film Total Recall. Keep in mind this was a movie inspired by a Philip K. Dick short story.

And yeah, the book with the world of enforced nudity and the society built on games? Rah!

Actually I'm kinda curious to reread his book of porn stories...

I liked Alan Dean Foster a little more. Anthony was much, much more consistent, but formulaic, and really pretentious in his use of cheesy "big concepts" that are obviously intended do stretch on forever to 30 novel seies for mass concumption. Foster has way more casual, loopy, psychedlic, fun writing, and lots more standalone books (he knows his ideas usually can't sustain big series and that's good). He liked rocknroll a lot too- he even wrote his best series (Spellsinger) about a slacker rocker/former janitor, transported to a medeival style world of talking animals where he could make magic by playing rock songs- but they only worked once, so he had to think of a new song every time he wanted to get something done with magic. How great is that idea? Classic! He had a book about a punk in a magic time-travelling van, too (Glory Lane.)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0972367012.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Inspired by the Piers Morgan thread, I thought I'd revive this and say: this series was called "Kirlian Quest," I think -- the first book was Thousandstar -- and the main alien communicated by bursts of smell! Utterly classic to my 16-year-old self despite notable lack of PA perviness. So I guess I'll defend Anthony -- his books based on some totally insane high concept like these, or the "society built on games" books, or even the "space dentist vs. the universe" one, are much better than the puns 'n fucking ones.

Piers Anthony, the interview. It's about what I expected.

a friend of mine has estimated that he's read about 80 piers anthony novels

Too much time on his hands?

i don't think it's time that's on his hands

wow that interviewer is terrible. i cant believe dude was polite enough to humour him... so many cringey questions.

Mendo: Many contemporary readers have remarked on what seems to be an
"excessive fetishisticness" to your earlier works, particularly the Tarot series. Is there any truth to that, in your opinion, or is it merely a differing view based on a disparity between the era it was written and today?

I remember reading a book of his called "Letters To Jenny" when I was younger. I think I got it at the supermarket. It was apparently a collection of letters that Anthony wrote to a girl in a coma? Something totally crazy. And it seemed like he was totally in love with this girl.

ah, yes:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Px_Sbt3VsnUC&dq=%22letters+to+jenny%22+anthony&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0

I think I read this was maybe 9 or 10 years old, and I asked my mom to get it for me cuz it had an elf girl on the cover.

from wkipedia:

His work has often been criticised for overuse of puns, and for overtones of pedophilia - the book most often cited as an exemplar of this is Firefly, in which a sexual relationship between an adult man and a five-year-old girl is portrayed positively (and explicitly).

shudder.

Last week's This American Life episode featured a story about a kid who ran away to Piers Anthony's house (in the 1980s); Anthony is interviewed at the end:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/470/show-me-the-way

Even if I have no interest in cracking any of his books, he seems like a decent dude.

Wait, Piers Anthony is alive?

That was a good story and, yeah, still alive and cranking out books. A bit sideeyes at the "erotic fiction" he's doing lately, according to his blog.

this was a crazy story to hear, as a former child (but thank god not teen) piers anthony fan

The Sopaths by Piers Anthony

The most controversial work by New York Times best-selling author Piers Anthony.

Killing children is an ugly business, but the alternative is so much uglier. Abner Slate just watched his five-year-old daughter Olive kill his wife and son. Olive is a sopath. Born without souls, sopaths are children who will lie, cheat, rape, and murder to get what they want. There's one in every family these days, destroying America's heartland from within. After murdering his daughter in self-defense, Abner is taken in by a secret network of sopath victims called Pariah. Through Pariah, he meets other sopath victims who band together to form a temporary nuclear family. But the sopath threat is getting worse, and soon their quaint little neighborhood is overrun by murderous, drug-running children. Now, on a mission for Pariah, Abner and his makeshift family must travel across the country to a mysterious town that contains a secret powerful enough to stop the sopath crisis. Instead, they find the most seductive and ruthless sopath of all. Her name is Autopsy, and she would like to add Abner to her slave collection. The old morality is dead. Now the sopaths will stalk the Earth.

From Ian's Wikipedia clipping above..

His work has often been criticised for overuse of puns, and for overtones of pedophilia - the book most often cited as an exemplar of this is Firefly, in which a sexual relationship between an adult man and a five-year-old girl is portrayed positively (and explicitly).

I'm often amazed at some of the content bestselling authors can get away with. Stephen King's It and what I've heard about VC Andrews springs to mind. I'm glad they can get away with it even if it's really poor quality but I just wonder how such a mainstream audience didn't raise a bigger fuss.

I've heard from people who generally dislike his work say that he has done great work in the past, but there's just so much of it.
I know someone who's a big fan but I haven't seen her in ages.