Where to start w/ Piers Anthony?

[rangerjohn]

Also he doesn't tend to stick with characters. He's more of a world builder, I think he would be a good DM. Take for instance that Bink the main character in A Spell For Chameleon and the next two Xanth novels. Is really a distant memory, in most of the rest of the series.

For Xanth especially, you could read the A Spell for Chameleon to get the world view, and then read the rest in just about any oder. While the for the most part they do take place in chronological order, they are really independant of each other.

For all that I agree, that I did enjoy ready them as a teen.

 

[haiiro]

Seriously, I've found that Piers Anthony gets progressively worse the more books in a series he writes. The first book or two of Xanth were great.

This is pretty accurate. With Xanth, I quite enjoyed the first 8 books -- but they took an abrupt turn for the crappy after that. I kept reading until around book 15 or so, which I'm sure says something about me.

I've nibbled on some of his other stuff (like Incarnations), but the only other things he's done that I've enjoyed are Rings of Ice and the Battle Circle trilogy. In terms of quality of writing, they're both pretty godawful -- but the ideas are fun and different, and RoI in particular is much quirkier than you'd expect.

 

[takyris]

Ditto all the snarky comments. But, to be constructive, try some of the standalone stuff before feeling like you have to jump into something.

 

[Severion]

Cthon

"Cthon", one of his first books, also "Orn" was very good, as was it's predicesor "Omnivore". "Pthore" was a bit odd, interesting, but twisted.

I couldn't recomend any of his others.

 

[Calim]

firefly was highly interesting

 

[talinthas]

i agree with Pkitty. Piers is a dirty old man who writes like one. I swear he uses his books to explore his wierd pedophillic fantasies. When i was thirteen, it kinda went over my head, but after discussing it with a few friends the other day, it dawned on me just how disgusting he really is. there has been an interesting discussion about this over at www.toastyfrog.com (in the comment sections)

 

[Tewligan]

I seem to share the same opinion with some other people here - some of the earlier books are okay, but things go downhill pretty quickly. For some reason, his dialogue REALLY grates on me. All of his characters to me feel like they're reciting badly written lines that they've been practicing for weeks - they don't feel at all spontaneous like, y'know, actual dialogue should sound.

Having said that, though, I enjoyed a collection of his short stories called Anthonology. Some good stuff in there - I still remember pretty clearly a very unpleasant story called (I think) "On The Uses Of Torture", or something like that. I don't know why I enjoy the shorts so much more than the novels - maybe they're so short that he doesn't have enough space to work up some really annoying dialogue.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Having said that, though, I enjoyed a collection of his short stories called Anthonology. Some good stuff in there - I still remember pretty clearly a very unpleasant story called (I think) "On The Uses Of Torture", or something like that. I don't know why I enjoy the shorts so much more than the novels - maybe they're so short that he doesn't have enough space to work up some really annoying dialogue.

Must admit, there were a couple in Anthonology I quite like.

And I really enjoy the setting of Battle Circle. The writing... meh. I liked it a lot more when I was ten But I like the concepts

My relationship with Piers Anthony is a strange one, I think. When I was a kid, I read, and reread, and thoroughly enjoyed just about everything he wrote. I have no memory of Chthon, Phthor, or Omnivore, Orn, and Ox... though I'm pretty sure I've read them all. Tarot was a bit... weird. But I enjoyed Apprentice Adept, Incarnations, Battle Circle, Vicinity Cluster, and even Xanth (I'll always have a soft spot for Crewel Lye); plus a bunch of standalones: Mute, Ghost, Macroscope, Prostho Plus, Shade of the Tree, and the like.

There was another series, but I hit it about the time I started to lose my taste for his work, and I can't remember it very well... the Mode series, I think.

Enh. I've just found authors I like a whole lot more since I was fourteen

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

i agree with Pkitty. Piers is a dirty old man who writes like one. I swear he uses his books to explore his wierd pedophillic fantasies. When i was thirteen, it kinda went over my head, but after discussing it with a few friends the other day, it dawned on me just how disgusting he really is. there has been an interesting discussion about this over at www.toastyfrog.com (in the comment sections)

Aiee. I'd forgotten Heaven Cent.

Ick.

-Hyp.

 

[Fade]

This is pretty accurate. With Xanth, I quite enjoyed the first 8 books -- but they took an abrupt turn for the crappy after that. I kept reading until around book 15 or so, which I'm sure says something about me.

I found the rampant misogyny of book 2 to be more than I could handle, and stopped reading at that point.