Piers Anthony.
- Thread starter ChrisC
- Start date
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Piers Anthony is quite possibly the least skilled published writer ever. He has quite an active imagination, there are lots of ideas packed into the things and I did read a fair number as a kid, but the writing is atrocious, the characters are utterly unbelievable and often offensively so (particularly the women), the plots plodding, obvious, moralising and twee, and everything is full of the most pathetic unfunny puns... particularly avoid the Incarnations Of Immortality and Xanth serieseseses.
golightly
economically inactive
Sounds like a lot of other sci-fi authors. Heinlein or Asimov anyone?
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
mediocre to shit
i was sold it on the concept it was a bit like pratchett... it's not
i was sold it on the concept it was a bit like pratchett... it's not
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Much in the same way, yes. Asimov at least had the sense not to try to make his characters central to his work; there are similarities between Heinlein (of whom I am not a fan) and Anthony, but Anthony's stuff is just so much stupider. Think of the bits in Heinlein books where you've thought "you've not quite thought that one through Rob" or "that character is completely unconvincing", then expand those to cover the entire novel and add in a million godawful puns - some which are actually central to the plot.
ericjarvis
give a feck for the feckless
Very patchy. Personally I'd put him way down the list to read. I gave up years ago when I realised that he'd stopped even attempting to be any good.
ericjarvis
give a feck for the feckless
...Edmund Cooper, Jack Vance, David Brin, Vernor Vinge, Gwyneth Jones...
Actually is there a worse published writer than Piers Anthony? Apart from Craig Shore Gardener.
Robert Rankin doesn't count because he's deliberately bad.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
I would call this an accurate description of my experience of reading Piers Anthony books.
I have read dozens of them, too!
On the plus side, there are lots of them, they are often available in second hand and charity shops, so are nice and cheap, and they won't you take you long to read.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Agree to all of this. After reading one ludicrous world where clothes were illegal and people had sex with giant amoebae shaped like women, it came as no big surprise to find out that Anthony is also a porn author. Should have stuck to that really imo.
