Kevin's Watch

The first Phaze book was Split Infinity, I believe, followed by Blue Adept and Juxtaposition...but that is off the top of my head, so who knows?!?

DoctorGamgee wrote:The first Phaze book was Split Infinity, I believe, followed by Blue Adept and Juxtaposition...but that is off the top of my head, so who knows?!?

Doc's got it exactly right, and I enjoyed those three books far better than I ever enjoyed any of Anthony's Xanth novels.

I mentioned upthread that I really liked the "Mode" series. But my favourite Piers Anthony of all time must be Prostho Plus about a prosthodontist who gets abducted by aliens because they need a dentist.

--A

I've never read that one, Avatar! It sounds like fun reading. and it may even encourage me to floss more! That can only be a good thing.

Read it if you can find it...easy read, only a couple hundred pages, tops.

--A

Cord Hurn wrote:

DoctorGamgee wrote:The first Phaze book was Split Infinity, I believe, followed by Blue Adept and Juxtaposition...but that is off the top of my head, so who knows?!?

Doc's got it exactly right, and I enjoyed those three books far better than I ever enjoyed any of Anthony's Xanth novels.

Those books were great! He should have continued those but he was too much in love with Xanth.

I read the first 9 Xanth books when I was in school, but never reread any of them. I do have my copies the Battle Circle omnibus, Cthon & Pthor, Ox, Orn & Omnivore, and Prostho Plus.

I think Prostho Plus is the only one of his books that I own. The rest I read from libraries.

--A

I think I'll get the 1st 3 Xanth books as those were my favorite of the series.

It's easy for an author to write tons of light-weight reading. Consider the Tarzan novels and other ERB series, and Doc Savage. They also sell well. Piers Anthony also wrote some heavy stuff but it didn't sell.

I like the Incarnations series for a while, and a few other of his books I found used, but it seemed to keep spiraling out to "this guy and this hot girl who has the hots for this guy for some reason." It got tedious and I stopped being interested in his writing. But I did have some fun with it for a while, and it was an interesting thought exercise.

Cagliostro wrote:I like the Incarnations series for a while, and a few other of his books I found used, but it seemed to keep spiraling out to "this guy and this hot girl who has the hots for this guy for some reason." It got tedious and I stopped being interested in his writing. But I did have some fun with it for a while, and it was an interesting thought exercise.

I liked Piers because of the thought exercise, if I'm reading you correctly. In almost every novel of his there was some kind of puzzle or game. The one that comes to mind off hand is the Life game found in OX.

I haven't read much Anthony, but as I understand it, most of his series start strong, but then descend into silliness and/or sex with minors within a few volumes.

I also enjoyed the Incarnations of Immortality series, the only series of his I've read. The first three or four volumes of that were really decent, but the rest suffered from the problem above. There's apparently an eighth volume that was published long after the others, that is appallingly bad.

HBJ

Hunchback Jack wrote:I haven't read much Anthony, but as I understand it, most of his series start strong, but then descend into silliness and/or sex with minors within a few volumes.

HBJ

Sex with minors! Can't say I've read any of those ones. Or do you mean Chthon, the garnet mine, where Anton Five had sex with miners?

Well, there was some sex with a minor in the "Mode" books, can't say it much bothered me...minors do have sex after all.

--A

Rawedge Rim wrote:Try reading "Battle Circle", a bit different from his normal run.

Avatar wrote:Oh, Battle Circle...I liked those.

--A

Me too!

Battlecircle was a favorite of mine right at the same time I was reading TC and LOTR for the first times. It'll have a special place in my heart forever. It's what gave me a love of stick and stave fighting!

Piers Anthony had a streak of sleaze/perversion/horny old man that turned me off his writing at times.

I enjoy a good sex scene as much as the next guy, but when the author is basically leering at his own characters...it's just sad.

Eddings also suffered from this. Long descriptions of Ce'Nedra taking a bath, etc. You can practically see him drooling over his keyboard.

Incarnations of Immortality -- like
Xanth series.. I like esp Ogre Ogre.. (It was the funniest in my book)
Really didn't care for his Tarot and Phaze series...

I liked the Phaze books, but my favourite by him is Prostho Plus about the dentist kidnapped by aliens.

--A

I have read a ton of Piers Anthony (30+?), but nothing in the last 30 years or so, except a reread of Macroscope. It sounds like I need to read that dentist book.

I read the first dozen or so Xanth books. As I recall, the first two were really good (to a 12 year old), the next two were pretty good, and the rest got worse and worse.

My favorite series was the first Phaze series. I think about rereading that occasionally. The second one was garbage.

I can't recall the name right now, but he had a standalone sci fi book I really liked that had a crazy jump in it. One chapter ended with the main character trapped and about to die, and the next started with him all hunky-dory on another planet, with no explanation how he got there until you read the afterward. It turned out PA went over the book's page limit by like 10,000 words, and the editor just hacked out a chapter. It was a bummer, because the book was good. There was no internet, so you couldn't download the missing text, lol.

Edit: Looking at PA's bibliography, I think I've read 37 of his books. Mute was the one with missing text. There are series like Battle of a Space Tyrant where I have no idea how many I read. I could have read two or three, or all five. The same goes for the Immortality series. They were not my favorite. I definitely read one, but I may have read as many as three.