Piers Anthony's science fiction books

[AE35Unit]

We all know him for his silly Xanth books but he also wrote SF books. Anyone read his Aton or Cluster series? Wish he'd drop the fantasy and get back to SF?

 

[chrispenycate]

And crossover- the 'split infinity' trilogy (for me, the second trilogy set in the proton/phaseverse is better forgotten)

He is not brilliant with the technical side, though; you sort of get the idea that he considers technology as another form of magic, despite the research he has done.

Macroscope, Of Man and Manta, Ghost (better to avoid that one), Prostho plus, Space tyrant, Hard sell; he's done quite a lot of tolerable and even quite decent SF, and some things like Battle circle and Firefly that don't quite fall into either category.

But his fantasy doesn't stop at Xanth, either. There's the Incarnations of immortality series, and several freestanding, like Shade of the tree, and all his semi-fictionals, like Steppe, Geodyssy, Tatham mound, and some of these are quite recent; he never stopped writing other things to concentrate on Xanthian matters.

 

[AE35Unit]

I must admit to liking his Vale of the Vole,a guilty pleasure I suppose. Also two of his robot adept books.

 

[Hypnos164]

Hmm I read the space Tyrant stuff when I was around 14 (*cough* years ago) and even then found it pretty shallow with some cringeworthy re-fighting of famous land battles in space (neglecting the role of things like the 3rd dimension and terrain...).

I think I also read Split Infinity, the Incarnations stuff and maybe some of the Cluster series too. My overall impression is of a author who sometimes has some good ideas but tends to keep producing books in a series long, long after the idea has been played out.

I'd take some serious convincing to pick up anything of his these days given the multitude of higher quality authors sitting in the TBR pile

 

[iansales]

I remember reading assorted books from his various series, but they were all pretty much forgettable. I hung onto Mute for a while after reading it, but I can no longer remember what it was about. Chthon, IIRC, wasn't too bad..

 

[Saeltari]

The first few of Xanth were enjoyable and I really like his Incarnations series the first couple of times I read it. The Phase series was good when I was younger.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

He also wrote "Hassan" an eastern fantasy and "Pretender" sf which I remember was quite good but both were published in 1977 Borgo press I still have them.

 

[dask]

Read ORN, OX, and OMNIVORE and really liked them.

 

[Omphalos]

Macroscope is the only one I like.