[net.sf-lovers] Piers Anthony *SEMI-SPOILER*

bbrick@spock.UUCP (Bill Brickman '88 ) (02/20/85)

Here are some books by Piers Anthony that you should read before making
any opinions about his style of writing.

The Apprentice Adept:    Incarnations of Immortality:     Battlecircle:
---------------------    ----------------------------     -------------
Split Infinity            On a Pale Horse                 Sos the Rope
Blue Adept                Bearing An Hourglass            Var the Stick
Juxtaposition             With a Tangled Skein            Neq the Sword
                          Wielding a Red Sword
Mute                      Being a Green Mother            Omnivore
                                                          Orn
Macroscope      Kirlian Quest    Rings of Ice             OX 

  These books show a serious but still good side of Piers Anthony's
writings.  The character is still a thinking/acting/self-conscience
person, but the background in which the character lives/dies/thinks is
more dangerous or more complex than the Xanth characters, and the
endings are not always ..lived happily ever after. In _M_u_t_e
the ending does not seem to comply with the story until you reread it. 
The main character does not "win" , but the human race is bettered.  Now
that I've told the basic ending , I have to tell the story. The main
character is a mutant who has the incredible power (i.e. Talent ! )
to ... Well maybe I would give that away, but I will tell you that the
plot basically is founded on little situations , like in a quest, that
the main character thinks through.
  In the Incarnation series the main characters are again people with
incredible powers (talents again) that make up the Five Incarnations.
They are Death, Time, Fate, Nature, and War. The characters again do
the same thing.  They think out ways to get around problems , using
their powers to get out of tight spots. These books are excellent !!!
I thought the endings for these books , even if he is using the old
formula, were great.  All the books in that list , under Incarnations
are excellence, even if only the first two are acually out.  I thought
the first two were great, so the next must be even better (This is the
opposite of what happened to the Xanth novels. I hope ...). I sincerely
hope that you read these books on the list above (all of them !) and
enjoy all.  

       Thanks ,

          Bill Brickman

P.S. Does anybody like Anne McCaffrey ??? Eddings ???  Frank Herbert ???
     PLEASE write something.  Don't be afraid to ask questions either. 
     Just write something about them.

liang@cvl.UUCP (Eli Liang) (02/22/85)

> 
> P.S. Does anybody like Anne McCaffrey ??? Eddings ???  Frank Herbert ???
>      PLEASE write something.  Don't be afraid to ask questions either. 
>      Just write something about them.

I've read most, if not all of the "novels" put out by each one of them.
Herbert is still my favorite out of McCaffrey, Eddings, and Herbert, although,
there are a few works by Herbert I did not really enjoy. Godmakers is probably
one of those.  Besides Dune, one of my favorite is The Dosadi(sp?) Experiment.
Of McCaffrey's novels, the ones I liked the least were the Dragonsinger's
series.  Dragon-riders was passable along with Moreth.  Her non-serialized
works, are on the whole, pretty good.  Eddings was good at the beginning of
his Belgariad series because of the freshness, but seemed to go down hill a
bit in Endgame.

I've read many of the Pier's Anthony books too and I think that Bio of a
Space Tyrant has got to be his worst (in my opinion that is).  If I had been
a slower reader, I would have passed away somewhere in the middle I'm sure.
As it was, I barely survived to the end of vol. 1.

-eli


-- 

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Eli Liang  ---
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