I knew Xanth was crap even when I was reading them, but the sheer volume of books in the series kept me reading because there was something comforting about the knowledge that I'd never run out.

Yep, same here.

Yeah -- when he seems to be writing faster than you can read, at first that felt good, and then it felt really bad.

What would teenagers read if it weren't for Piers Anthony?

Heinlein? Oddly, I think I got both Anthony and Heinlein from my father. Actually, I think I got Stranger from my mother. But we've worked past that now.

I knew Xanth was crap even when I was reading them, but the sheer volume of books in the series kept me reading because there was something comforting about the knowledge that I'd never run out.

Yeah. I made it all the way to that one about the devil until my patience grew too thin (and, perhaps, my taste too great) and it joined the thrown-across-the-room club. It's an elite club for me -- just that and a romance novel, possibly a Jude Deveraux or Johanna Lindsey oh my god why do I still remember their names!?

(Edited, as it happens, to try to camouflage my "actually" addiction. In fact, I just use it socially. Really, I can stop any time I want to.)

I read Anne Rice. Oh, how I read Anne Rice. Also a lot of John Grisham. No, I don't know either.

I never read the Xanth books. My brother had some. But my dad had Bradbury, Sheckley, Asimov, Heinlein, Vonnegut, Dick...

I think my bias against sword & sorcery protected me, actually.

Oh god, I read a lot of Anne Rice. I don't know why I never picked up any Piers Anthony, given how long my fascination with the YA sf/f section at the library lasted. Although I was always way more into fantasy as a kid; I didn't get really interested in science fiction until college.

I think I read 3 Xanth books and a couple of Anthony's other books. But I was a bit old to really get hooked on them. Too old for the Belgariad, too, thankfully. Bad fantasy fiction for me was gobs of Anne McCaffrey and Katherine Kurtz' Deryni novels.

I read my dad's old science fiction. Which was largely, 60s, I think. Sturgeon? There was some of that that tweaked my head for a bit. I don't know if I've ever read Pier Anthony or Heinlein, for that matter. Oh, wait, I did read Balook.

Basically, I read anything in the parents' house. So, very random. Since then, I don't really seek out traditional scifi or fantasy. I have the Pullman trilogy, Contact, a Tepper (the only one I've ever read,) some Asimov, a lot of Shute (which I guess is more dystopia than scifi when it isn't WW2 or flying) and this book about dogs with mechanized human limbs (Lives of the Monster Dogs!). And probably some others, but these are really a minority. And just...random. A lot of regional fiction and nonfiction, heavy on the Balkans and latino culture.

I got hooked on the Chronicles of Amber instead, plus other random Zelazny (Doorways in the Sand is actually my fave of his - I still love it).

I read a lot of Zelazny in my teens too. Mostly though I was the anti-Strega, working my way through the pulps in paperback: Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, ERB.

Heh. And I join the shame corner of having read way too much crappy Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffrey in my teenage years (along with a lot of very crappy romance novels, but that more out of needing to check SOMETHING out of the library, and having read most of the sci-fi they had there and pretty much all the "young adult"...)