Picked up my first Piers Anthony book today when browsing around the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne. Looking forward to getting stuck in to this while on my flight home tonight

Piers Anthony has some good moments, but he can be weird in kind of a creepy way sometimes. Oddly-shoehorned-in sexual scenes with fucked up dynamics, underlying misogyny, etc.

But if you can set that aside, he also tells some pretty entertaining stories sometimes. If you like him, check out his Incarnations of Immortality series, and maybe the Apprentice Adept (sometimes called Phaze) series. Those are my favorites from him. The early Xanth books have some charm, but the constant firehose of puns can get very tiring.

im not one to yuck your yum but dude writes pedo normalization stories.
I don't read him anymore.

https://litreactor.com/columns/themes-of-pedophilia-in-the-works-of-piers-anthony/

im not one to yuck your yum but dude writes pedo normalization stories.
I don't read him anymore.

https://litreactor.com/columns/themes-of-pedophilia-in-the-works-of-piers-anthony/

Ah true! I've never read Piers Anthony's work before, but have been recommended him in the past as a sci-fi fan.

I'm interested to see if I pick up on these things too!

Yeah I liked the Xanth series a lot as a kid. Then i read one as an adult and yeah, dude wrote some pretty creepy stuff

I picked up one of his books in middle school and couldn’t get into it.

A couple weeks later I noticed my dad was reading it. After he got about a third of the way through he asks me “uh, are reading this stuff?” I told him I didn’t like it and had put it down and he was just like “ok, good.”

Hes a strange one alright. I used to love xanth. But i learned he was one of the ones that went after the internet archive.

I hope you enjoy the book. Hes a good author.

its not subtle to adults but invisible normalization to children. enjoy. 🙈🤢

But it's this book or OP has nothing to read for the flight. That's a tough choice, and I know I'm settling on pedo normalization, but I'm not gonna be happy about it.

wow thats an old one of his to.

My thing is he is an amazing story teller. He has a lot of stuff where he is rehashing things but man he can talk about making breakfast and have it be enthralling.

Have fun with the weird creepy vibes amid strangers!

The attic in my house was full of mad stuff by this guy and other weird sci-fi fantasy authors that my dad had stashed up there. Lord Of The Rings and Book Of The New Sun were good but it was a long way down from there.

So, like, does he ever improve as a person and stop writing stuff like that, or are his most recent books just as bad? Asking for a friend who used to read him as a kid

i don't know. i didn't consider having another read. im not gonna ever think a sick fuck like him is gonna improve. i don't even know or care if he's alive.

I really wish there was a series like xanth with the puns and zany world-building, but none of the gross stuff :/

ngl, read Terry Pratchett. problem solved.
seriously. much better even.

I like his books too, but they are less zany somehow