'Our Mrs. Reynolds'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
The mechanics of Death and all that were brilliant, and I was really looking forward to how Anthony handled the other Incarnations, but, sadly, no, it became all about the difficulties of having a serious relationship when living backwards, and how to be a caring Earth Mother while holding down a career as a Fate, and all that.
edit: along with some very self-serving Author's Notes about how hard his life is.
edit: along with some very self-serving Author's Notes about how hard his life is.
Always, ALWAYS with the "It's so hard to be Awesomest Me, you just don't know, man, you just don't know..."
Fuck you, Piers. Just...fuck you.
It's so odd that this conversation is happening right now. This week, for no reason other than they were on ND's bookshelf and I needed some bedtime brain candy, I picked up one of the later Xanth books and read it. Then I read its sequel the next night.
I totally agree that Anthony is an ass (from what I can glean from the Author's Notes) and that the books have all kinds of flaws, but they've been fun to reread nonetheless.
Then the enjoyment curve took a swift dive.
This is pretty much what I think of all Anthony's series. A Spell For Chameleon was good, but each book after got progressively worse. Ditto On a Pale Horse and those. Same for that Tarot series. I don't think it was part of a series, but the Author's Note in Steppe was so annoying it cancelled out the enjoyment I got from the book. And But What of Earth? was practically all Author's Note, and that sucked about as much as you would think.
If you want classic Piers Prickiness, read the authors note where he replies to a young fan who suggests that a character could have refused to carry a promise made by his parents on his behalf for him to commit genocide.
PA replied that to suggest such a thing shows that the young fan has no sense of honor. WTF? Umm I could explain the reasoning in more detail, but why would you want me to?
Did you guys know that Piers Anthony writes porn? They're published by Mundania. I have not read any.
Oh, holy god.
From the Amazon reviews:
I was attracted to the taboo-violating nature of the basic plot device: Evil scientist removes man's stubby little penis & gives him a wide range of accessories (with full sensate functioning) to replace it. Man goes on quest to obtain techno-magical item to exchange for his original organ. The theme of "a quest to obtain something magical so the wizard will return what is rightfully yours" is a tired old theme. Applying it to a man's =PENIS= returns it to novelty!
Didn't Anthony write some uber-squicky story about women being used as a source of milk?