Showing results by author "Piers Anthony" in All Categories

Viscous Circle is a story about a strange and inhuman race of beings and an experimental attempt to transfer into creatures that seem only slightly sapient. They are ultimate pacifists who take the form of magnetic disks that float through space and simply demagnetize and destroy themselves when faced with unpleasant thoughts.

In February 1989, science fiction writer Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth series, received a moving letter. It came from a woman whose daughter, Jenny, was in a coma as a result of severe injuries caused by a drunk driver. She asked Anthony to write to Jenny, an avid fan of his, in the hope that a letter from him would evoke some response. Her request resulted in a series of warm, supportive, and humorous letters written weekly from Anthony to Jenny. These were read to the patient by her mother.

Nola and Tina are both girls with problems. They don't know each other yet, but they will, because each is a Creator, with the magical ability to turn dreams into reality. It would be a great gift and a great power - if either knew she had it. But this world is hard on dreamers, whether they dream true or not.

The classy dame who walks into fledgling private eye Philemon's office is like Venus in motion and is most definitely a Witch. But dealing with Supernaturals - or "Supes" for short - is Phil's beat, since he himself is a shape-changing Were. And this sexy sorceress is offering him the "friendship of her thighs" to investigate a murder, so how can he possibly refuse? But the Warlock slaying in question turns out to be only the first in a series of homicides, because someone - or something - is picking off Supes like insects.

Odd Exam is a novella from Piers Anthony about an unusual college entrance examination. Entrance exams are taken in the form of a multiplayer online game in a semi-virtual reality, with portals to other worlds and alien monsters. For those who qualify, board and tuition will be free. Can this be serious?

The Cluster series of adventures is set in a future focused on colonization of distant planets, where every living thing has a Kirlian aura that can be measured. Through transfer, a refinement of mattermission technology, the minds and personalities of individuals with high auras can be sent to animate bodies that are physically distant. The first three novels in the sequence, Cluster, Chaining the Lady, and Kirlian Quest form a linked trilogy.

This is the sixth volume of stories in this series. This time there is one about the idealized love of a man for a mute wild girl, and another about an older woman who takes a hot young lover. There is one brief essay relating to my own relationship to writing. There are two story sets, one with an older man and young woman, the other relating to a fearsome god. The shortest story is only 500 words; the longest is 13,600 words. Some are erotic as hell, others not. In short, there should be something here to intrigue or offend any taste.

Virtue Inverted is the first novel of a hard-hitting sword and sorcery trilogy by Piers Anthony and Ken Kelly. Benny Clout is a poor mountain boy who has found true love in Virtue, the vampire. However, Virtue is not an ordinary vampire; she's actually a very nice girl. Her bites contain extraordinary power, but will that power be enough to combat the evil that awaits them?

The third novella in the Hair Suit series following Hair Power and Hair Suite. Quiti and her friend's child, Idola, help a lost alien child they name Flower. That soon brings galactic complications, for Flower's people are like Gypsies - not welcome at most planets. They wind up tangling with the dread Worms who can change time itself. They really need to make peace!

From bestselling authors, Piers Anthony and J.R. Rain, comes a story of a dolphin and a girl...and the end of the world. Astronomers from around the world are reporting the coming Pulse, a burst of energy that will incinerate the earth. And as the Pulse comes ever closer, help will arrive from a very unlikely source...aliens living in the oceans depths. Now, armed with information to save the world, one dolphin and one girl must race to save mankind...that is, if mankind doesn't destroy itself first.

After a youth spent trapped in space exile, Jeff Font returned to Earth to seek vengeance against the planetary mogul who had framed and destroyed his family. Jeff's plans backfired: He was captured, drugged, rammed through a computerized court system, convicted... and ringed.

Piers Anthony weaves this and more into Writer's Retweet, a collection of five short stories abounding in the adventure, magic, and naughtiness that fans have come to know and love from this author. In "Experiment", "Discovery", and "Mission", painfully average Bigelow Bilge and Paula Plaintiff are thrust unwillingly into a world fraught with terrifying, victim-specific illusions. Who - or what - is the source of these horrifying encounters?

Roan Quigley is a down-and-out private eye in Los Angeles, eking out his meager existence by following cheating spouses and taking on the odd case. And there is no case odder than this. On a lazy day, with clients few and far between, a very strange man appears in the detective's office. Roan can't quite place the odd accent, nor can he make much sense of the man's clothing.

The cast of cosmic characters: A prodigal worm, a telepathic, egotistical, totally unscrupulous little alien running away from his father becomes the biggest prize in the universe. Capture the slimy brat and win an entire planet! A cosmic hustler, an effete snob who ekes out a comfortable living as the president's son-in-law and perfects his reflexes with endless contests of cosmic pool, becomes the most important element in a delicate game of interspatial espionage - and the galaxy's prime target for assassination.

In a unique retelling to the classic fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk", Piers Anthony and J.R. Rain take you back to the magical land beyond the clouds. Back to the land of the Giants. Back to adventure and sorcery and awe-inspiring wonder.

Orphaned and blind seven-year-old Callie has a service animal - a goat with extraordinary powers. Ben Hemoth is a down-on-his luck news reporter facing prison. Needing to save his job and his reputation, he teams up with Venus, a young seductress caught up with a teenage drug gang. When a mysterious letter arrives detailing a top-secret investigative operation, Ben and Venus think they've found their chance for redemption. The mission? Investigate a goat.

Terminal cancer patient Quiti walks into an abandoned building, planning on taking her life. Instead, she encounters a telepathic ball of hair that insists it is an alien seeking to facilitate diplomatic communication on Earth. Quiti assumes it is all a hallucination conjured up by her brain tumor. Because of this assumption, when she saves the alien's life and it insists on doing Quiti a favor in return, she only asks for her hair back. She soon discovers, however, that the creature's gift extends much further than her new locks that can change color with a thought.

Quiti and the rest of the Hair Suits have just set up the Hair Suite, the embassy of the alien Hair Balls, when they learn they have competition. Alien cyborgs called Chip Monks want to win Earth for themselves. The two species must duel for control. These rivals discover a third alien species that threatens to destroy Earth, and have to join up quickly in order to protect the planet they are both seeking to win. Along the way, they get swept up in a world of intergalactic politics, wormholes, and role-playing.

Aliena is a nice person who turns out to be an alien in a human host. She just has things to learn about the human form and society. When her body starts immune-rejecting the alien brain, and the brain has to be replaced by another alien brain, maintaining the semblance of marriage and family becomes a challenge for both Aliena and the man who loves her.

Volk is Piers Anthony's serious novel of World War II and forbidden love, featuring a romance between a Nazi SS officer and his American friend’s fiancée, a pacifist Quaker lady. Politically incorrect, it covers some hard truths. Not all Nazis were evil, and the allies also kept death camps. The author was in Europe as a child, deported in 1940, and raised as a Quaker, so has some basis to address the subjects.