This is the third set of notes on the published writing of P. A. D. Jacob. See the part 1 and part 2 web pages for earlier works. See part 4 for contemporary writing, as well as identified unpublished works.
This period of Anthony's writing is documented in web newsletters, originally started as printed newsletters and a toll free number, for his HiPiers self promotion, and includes twice the amount of works as the previous pages.
I had intended to link references to the individual web newsletters, but the HiPiers website collapsed, and the new hipiers.net site no longer links individual pages. This page was intended to be the last page, but the change from HiPiers to PiersWeb, and his new marriage, is a good breaking point for a final page.
This article is intended to be read from top to bottom, enabling a kind of chronoligical reading order. This table of contents provides links for reference.
Bluebeardin Cautionary Tales. Bluebeard was written in early 1995, showing the dangers of a child getting access to 3D interactive porn, but from the perspective of concerned parents monitoring their 10 year old daughter's account. It isn't purposely selacious, so much as trying to portray the same pedophile problem that shows up in Firefly. Perhaps this proves that not all Anthony stories are intended to be entertaining.
I read the Tor October 1995 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. It is Xanth #19. The sequel is Yon Ill Wind.
Metria has become a common figure at this point in Xanth, and her past with Mentia, her sister, and the Roc she is supposed to visit, reveal much of the mythos hidden in Xanth. Perhaps part of this is Anthony reread A Spell for Chameleon as part of the simplified version revision, and discovered some loose ends to wrap up. The other part is Parnassus, the icon of the insurmountable fortress that represents the publishing industry by analogy, is itself in violation of Xanth law (there's laws?), presenting an unusual trial.
Volk was originally started August 1980 in hospital while being diagnosed with cat scratch disease, but Anthony was unable to get a sale based on the initial two chapters and summary. It wasn't his typical fantasy, not even having the trappings of fantasy, but being a pure historical novel. See the Viscous Circle and Fractal Mode author's notes, as well as discussions in Bio of an Ogre (BiOgre).
In 1990, with his established successes as a writer, he decided to finish the book, and did so in 1991. However, it remained unpublished until his investments with Pulpless and Xlibris. I believe it was the first book he published with either of them, Volk first going to Pulpless 6 June 1996. I read the September 1999 corrected Xlibris hardcover. I tried reading the Open Road Media edition on Amazon Kindle, but it had unindented paragraphs (a problem I also had with Eroma) to the point it was too frustrating to read. The Xlibris hardcover is far nicer. I have noticed since that the Kindle app can add spacing to paragraphs to make clear the distinction between them, but can't differentiate for the majority of books that have paragraph indents. I prefer printed copies anyways.
Volk is based on Anthony's parent's experience in Spain as Quakers volunteering for peace service during World War II. The story is about a Quaker woman who does the same, then falls in love with a German officer. She is later captured by the Germans and the officer tries to save her. I enjoyed, but was disheartened, by some of the lesser known history. Not only was there Japanese internment camps, but the US also had prisoner camps for captured German prisoners of war (POWs) that they killed, not disarmed enemy forces (DEFs) as claimed. There's also the slightly odd Quaker English (plain speech) that isn't quite the same as that which we read in Shakespeare and the King James Bible. It's the same modern (as opposed to contemporary, Danelaw influenced Tudorian) English form used in his Apprentice Adept series as the speech used in Phaze.
I read the Tor October 1996 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. It was finished in December of 1994. It is Xanth #20, first published by Hodder & Stoughton in Britain, August 1996. The sequel is Faun & Games. Yon Ill Wind was written with several systems, ending on Microsoft DOS on an i486 with Microsoft Word.
The demon thing with Xanth was initially not my favorite. The demons aren't entirely a back drop, betting with Xanth's future, and are far too much a deus-ex-machina contrivance for the series, yet I suspect that is not only too harsh but not quite accurate. Other than perhaps A Spell for Chameleon, and that is arguable, I suspect all Xanths are created equal, but some resonate for us more than others. Yon Ill Wind is of this resonating variety for me. Not only does the demon X(an)th become a relatable character, but the whole of Xanth is brought into a narrative that fits so much of the earliest part of the series, if not validates the things that didn't resonate with me originally. Plus, an incursion from Mundania brings even more of a human factor into this novel that isn't always in the others. This was a lovely vacation into Xanth on nested levels.
I read the Tor December 1996 first edition hardcover, with jacket
art by Tristan Elwell. It was finished in June 1993. See the author's
note in Geis of the Gargoyle, as well as the
chapter Collaborations
in
How Precious Was That While.
This is a saucy, fun tale of fantasy from Hindu folklore and theology. Hari is a naive, young man seeking spiritual enlightenment. Instead of marrying he sets out on a quest, only to have the gods and a demon bet on his sexual corruption. Seven life threatening seductions face Hari who is unaware of the wager, and who only wants enlightement not sexual romance.
I read the May 1997 Tor first edition hardcover, with jacket art by Tristan Elwell. This is book #3 in the Geodyssey series. The sequel is Muse of Art. Hope of Earth was written about the same time as Yon Ill Wind, during the transition from his i486 with the Sprint word processor on Microsoft DOS, then Microsoft Word, then to a Pentium with Microsoft Word with Windows 95.
Hope of Earth fits into my category of Anthony favorites. It is my favorite of the series, and apparently is also Anthony's favorite of the series. One might think that writing the same novel over and over, starting in ancient pre-human pre-history and ending in the near future, exploring the environmental impacts of human exponential growth, would soon get dull and boring, but the different places in archeological and evolutionary past, and historical places of known human history, with different character streams and interactions, hits its pinnacle with this novel. Each book in Geodyssey improves the flow and academic foundations from the previous, sometimes refining previous ideas, but not repeating them. Anthony had also hired a researcher so a lot has gone into it, not only Anthony's whim of how he sees the world.
The story of Otzi found here occassionaly gets later updates about his history from the author. According to the November 2010 newsletter, it is likely that Otzi didn't freeze to death, nor was he killed where he was, after all, but was buried there after dying elsewhere. The February 2012 newsletter notes he'd eaten goat and bread just before his death, so Anthony was hopeful his version of events still might hold. The March 2015 newsletter notes confirmation he was shot in the back, likely while eating. The August 2018 newsletter has more from New Scientist on Otzi: he was being pursued and led the pursuers away from him, sharpening weapons that constantly dulled and not getting back to more in time to defend against his pursuers.
Faun & Games was finished approximately in March 1996. I read the Tor October 1997 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. It is the last of the Tor Xanth books that print the beautiful color map of Xanth. Faun & Games is Xanth #21, the first to be written on Windows 95 and a Pentium computer, replacing the i486 MS DOS system, both with Microsoft Word. The sequel is Zombie Lover.
A whole new collection of worlds orbits Princess Ida's head. A faun befriends a tree, and goes to the Good Magician Humphrey to find a way to save it. He must go to Ida's worlds. He has started to remember beyond his day's tryst, enabled by the tree's nymph. The opening exploring the existence of a faun, the very near skirting of the adult conspiracy with daily trysts described as celebrating, was both hilarious and fun, and then gets serious as the friendship between faun and nymph develops.
I read the January 1998 TOR first edition hardcover, with eery jacket
art by Latif Kazbekov. The writing was finished in late March, early
April 1993. The late publication date I think is a reflection of how
much Tor was publishing Anthony at this point, every few months. The
collaborations weren't desired, and though Anthony had delivered them
to Tor, it seems that Tor was stalling, and then Xanth got caught
up in the mix. See the author's note in Geis of
the Gargoyle, as well as the chapter Collaborations
in How Precious Was That
While.
Spider Legs is a story about a super lobster that is hungry and begins eating humans. Anthony writes very good horror and thriller novels, and this is one of my favorites of his collaborations. The Candian coast is itself an eery, beautiful landscape to imagine and explore, especially for the environmental theme Anthony adds to the story. Plus, the romance and characterization Anthony contributes is spot on for a tale of this type, certainly more low key than Anthony's more sexually explicit stories. Spider Legs is an adult story, and the gore is certainly shocking in places, but such is the horror genre. The tale wraps up nicely. As Anthony says often enough in his newsletters, this is my kind of junk.
I read the July 1998 Tor first edition hardcover, with jacket art by Tristan Elwell. I have gone through a couple copies of this hardcover, and each one, no matter how gently I treat it, cracks along the inner front and back lines where the paste down block is attached. Something with this particular binding was flawed. An old glue? Inexpensive outer pages to the block? The book was finished after Yon Ill Wind in 1995.
This is a typical, but utterly engrossing, epic fantasy. Richey and his collaborators really did a thorough job with it. The characters are alive and interesting. The fantasy elements, however seemingly typical, are in-the-mix the right thing to hold reader interest. Though the book is big, and the writing pace slow, that pace keeps relentlessly marching forward. The descriptions are interesting and detailed, and the story line and characters everything they should be.
The author's note claims this is the hundredth book he's written (not published).
Zombie Lover was finished approximately March 1997. I read the Tor October 1998 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. This is Xanth #22. It's sequel is Xone of Contention.
The cover fits the story, but I agree with Anthony's criticism of it: why is Breanna of the Black Wave not black? (She kind of is if you look closely, but not at first glance.) This is the first Tor Xanth with only the map printed in black and white on a page. It is not as readable as the color version printed on the inside covers.
No-nonsense Breanna doesn't think she's prejudiced against zombies until she catches herself in a statement that she wouldn't want to marry one. Then she encounters the decomposing King Xeth and falls prey to a love potion.
On a separate note, the writing of Zombie Lover is just before the time the web-based newsletters began (and the final print letter) in May 1997. I imagine this is an artifact of the looming shut down of other parts of HIPIERS, beginning with the phone number. That same month is the publication of Hope of Earth.
I read the TOR January 1999 first edition hardcover, with jacket illustration by Tristan Elwell, though I understand this is based on, or actually is, Julie Brady's painting in the foreground. It's a shame the painting isn't used with the Open Road Integrated Media ebook. It's a beautiful painting and represents the story and character well. Brady is one of Anthony's Ligeias, as mentioned in several different author's notes and autobiographies. The ebook jacket appears to be uncredited.
A depressed woman with lucid dreaming begins to create her own fantasy reality that she can disappear to, until her bad dreams risk overtaking her fantasy and reality. I strongly approve of Anthony's work with new authors to get them published. Some go on to write their own novels. Sadly, some stop with the one collaboration. This appears to be one of the latter.
I read the Tor May 1999 first edition hardcover, with jacket art by Tristan Elwell. This is book four in the Geodyssey series, and the first after the originally planned trilogy, a sequel (though not dependent on) Hope of Earth. It's sequel is Climate of Change.
For me, Muse of Art had ups and downs. I like a saucy story from time to time, like I imagine most people do, but it can be too much, overwhelming the story. Muse of Art was border line for me, but ultimately worked out in the end. Unlike the previus three books that had twenty stories, this had thirteen. There was a fascinating North Italian Celts story, one of the highlights, seeing early Rome before its dominance. An excellent story in Stalingrad, showing another aspect of the war between Germany and Stalingrad Russia, reminded me (in a way) of the movie Enemy at the Gates.
The Geodyssey novels are a remnant of the previous century (millenia). The final, futuristic stories are starting to become dated (with the exception of the fifth novel). In this case, the final, future speculative chapter had a plausable enough future scenario, but dated 2024 which was the year before I read the book. Thankfully, concerns in these books have not reached fruition, though they all remain possibilities.
Muse of Art is mentioned in the Climate of Change author's note as being rejected by Tor, after their attempt to market the series as dark fantasy. Perhaps this perception was from the somewhat mystical element of the plot device of the series, which carries characters from one time to the next, and perhaps after the fact that there's always a science fiction story ending. The sequel, Climate of Change, was approaching completion, being two-thirds completed (at 112,000 words), when the first draft was halted. The last few stories were to be completed a decade later, but alas without Alan Riggs for the final historical research. You'd think, being so close to completion, that he would have finished the novel and tried to market it elsewhere, along with Muse of Art. Instead, Muse of Art was wrapped up into the next Xanth contract.
Candle was started in March 1997 as a novel. Two chapters and a summary were written in 1996, each chapter intended to be a TV episode, or maybe the whole as a film. Candle was finished, in first draft form, in March 1998. More about the early thinking of Candle, as it was originally known, can be found in the HiPiers web-based newsletters, specifically May 1997, and February, April, and July 1998.
I read the May 1999 Xlibris hard cover, originally published by Pulpless. Pulpless renamed the title from Candle. The next writing done after Candle was Key to Havoc.
Realty Check is about a grandchild who goes to stay with her grandparents at a rented house, which turns out to have doors that open to other places, seeming other worlds. The house seems haunted, except that doesn't seem to fit the situation. This was a fast, engrossing escape from mundane reality, and a fun, light science fantasy.
Xone of Contention was finished approximately January 1998. I read the Tor October 1999 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. This is Xanth #23. The sequel is The Dastard.
The green house effect is about to destroy Xanth, the result of an epic battle between the demons X(an)th and E(a/r)th. Our heroes must travel to ancient Xanth to identify the source of the magic… errr effect… errr something that makes the trees want to die. It makes sense when you read it. :) This is one of those Xanth novels with the demons that I liked again. Perhaps they're growing on me after my initial negative impression in the Source of Magic.
A couple years previous, Anthony got ahead of himself with writing Xanth novels, due to juggling other projects, and Tor decided to publish once a year in October, and then stated they wanted no other novels from Anthony but Xanth. This led to a law suit to get five collaborations published. With each new contract, Xanth has been used to get some of Anthony's other books published, such as series that had been cut short (such as Geodessy with Muse of Art, and much later Climate of Change). It may have been the beginning of the end for Anthony with Tor as about this time is when his Xlibris books were coming into print (for some, e.g. Volk, Realty Check, these were corrected editions after the demise of Pulpless). Xone of Contention is the book where Anthony claimed that he had a novel published with a title starting with every letter of the English alphabet.
I read the Tor March 2000 first edition hardcover, with jacket art by Tristan Elwell. It is astonishing how long this novel took to get published. It must have been one of the ones in Anthony's law suit with Tor. The author's note is from before the 1997 shut down of HIPIERS.
The cover art nails it. It's a scene from the book, captures the two main characters well, and also gives a sense of what the whole book is like. This story is witty, insightful, funny, saucy, and a science fantasy, romantic adventure. Sometimes it's the simple stories that are so good.
Herb, the main character, is a walking, humanoid plant, young and looking for a good time with women. Though he's is in love with Lilly, something isn't working for him, so he leaves his planet for an extended bachelor party to figure it out.
Spring is the daughter of a scientist, who has imbedded his scientific secrets in his daughter. The only way to get them out is a romantic, sexual encounter.
Zygote is the evil wizard antagonist of the story. Professor Gabriel, Spring's father, is trying to protect his secrets from him.
It's not quite clear when this novel was completed, in-between 1989 and October of 1999 (when his author's note is dated). As Anthony's memoir indicates, the collaborative novels last sold to Tor were done so in groupings, though the publishing order is not the same as the writing and sell order. It was written after The Secret of Spring. I read the Tor May 2000 first edition hardcover, with jacket art by Tristan Elwell.
The Gutbucket Quest refers to a guitar, and this novel is a 1960s style love story. It is about the love of the blues. It is about finding love in unexpected places, especially when that place is an alternate fantasy reality. It starts in answering what might be a question: what happened if the civil war was won by the South? The Gutbucket is magic, and is the core talisman of the story. Progress is a dynamic character that reminds me of a similar character in Stephen King's The Stand. I couldn't help but imagine Morgan Freeman as Progress. If this ever gets made into a movie, Freeman has to be the actor. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book.
I read the Tor October 2000 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet, making this Anthony's last published work of the millenium. The author's note was finished 29 November 1998. The Dastard is Xanth #24. Its sequel is Swell Foop. The next book written after The Dastard was DoOon Mode, the conclusion to the Mode series.
This reminds me of a more severe version of Golem in the Gears, where the Dastard is like what an evil Grundy might be. I wonder if this totally messes up the Xanth timeline, such as that recorded in Question Quest. I also wonder how that affects the one (once) published on Anthony's website, presumably an extension and continual update of the one Question Quest is based on (which is labeled as an abridged version).
With the history of Xanth at stake, two individuals with completely separate lives and timelines struggle with understanding their place as individuals in a larger magic macrocosm. Becka is a human dragon who wants to know her True Purpose. Meanwhile, the soulless, malevolent Dastard is wiping out magical history in Xanth, preying on anyone happier than him. Gee, I wonder where this is headed….
Commitmentin Relationships I. They claimed it was his first ebook, but that's not correct: Volk was published in 1996 as an ebook before its print publication.
Commitmentwas first summarized in his ideas file August 1999, then written in pencil during a plane trip to Xlibris, for a board meeting in 2000, and at the New York hotel. A woman and a young man have their meet cute in a not so cute way: they both wish to jump and end their lives. You'd think that a potential new relationship would be enough to stem the tide.
The DoOon Mode author's note mentions the novel was started in December 1998. The manuscript was finished at the end of April 1999, (see the Swell Foop author's note). I read the Tor April 2001 first edition, with jacket art by Daniel Horne, making DoOon Mode Anthony's first published work of the new millenium.
DoOon Mode returns to the animal androids, introduces a dragon version, and begins slowly to tie up the lose ends of the trilogy. The ultimate question of course is whether Colene will get her man, and more importantly be able to truly be happy. DoOon Mode brings the Mode series to its perhaps controversial conclusion.
A correction was offered in the December 2002 newsletter:
De gustibus non carborundum
. This is a misquote of the
wrong phrase. Correcting the wrong phrase: De gustibus non est
disputandum
. This means there's no accounting for taste. The
correct quote, intending to mean don't let the bastards get you down,
is illegitimus non corborundum
.
I read the Tor July 2001 first edition hardcover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet, a remaindered copy. The illustrator is the same for Bio of an Ogre (referenced in the book as BiOgre) and the relationship between the art shows. How Precious Was That While was written sometime after Quest For The Fallen Star was completed, (the last of the five collaborations that was published by Tor, using Xanth to push them through to publication. See the author's note there).
This is a memoir, with some clarifications to, and expansions of, BiOgre. How Precious Was That While is both a sequel and a stand alone book that references BiOgre for more detail. BiOgre goes to the author's age of fifty in August 1985. How Precious Was That While has a reprise chapter of the first book, and then reflects on different periods to age sixty in August 1995 and one hundred novels. As with BiOgre, there are additions since, which brings the book to 1996, presumably added in the submission draft (assuming there was one, or at least additions), and in the galleys (such as the note on HiPiers, other than the website, shutting down). Where BiOgre took 2-3 years to get published, How Precious Was That While took twice as long.
Alas, publishers don't seem to be keen on his autobiographies, and it is with difficulty that he is able to publish them. Who knows if there will be a follow up. As he indicated in the author's note in On a Pale Horse, they are a kind of sequel to BiOgre. How Precious Was That While is now included in that. His newsletters should probably be included in that, as there are sometimes details found there that can't be found in the biographies or author's notes.
He is much more open with this memoir than the first, nor does he hold back in mentioning by name the swine (as he nicknamed them in BiOgre) he encounters. Some names are still kept out for safety or privacy. The advice and experience to new authors that is found in BiOgre is updated and elaborated on in detail. It also marks the point where he goes from more meaningful fiction in his 40s and 50s to writing for himself into his 60s and beyond.
A curious note on Niekas about refusing to write for fanzines that publish his address is curious. His St. Peterburg address is all over the earlier fanzines. His Inverness address has Post Boxes in some fanzines, but none seem to have the actual address. Niekas 36 publishes a P.O. Box, and my best guess is that was his objection. Another fanzine later publishes a different box number, which is either his real address (being a shared post box in the neighborhood?), or a change of box since it was published.
The chapter on computers talks about Anthony's journey through the use of computers for writing, and ends with his use of Windows 95 on an Intel Pentium with Microsoft Word, as if that was the last word. Later, the move to Linux as an operating system (OS) is mentioned. Unfortunately, GNU and Unix were written with programmers in mind, even though some of the first commercial uses of Unix was for printing and typography. I remember attending ConDuit in Salt Lake City, long before the ComiCon craze came (and with what became FanX washed out ConDuit in the overlapping year or two). I attended the writer's seminars with my early Toshiba laptops running Slackware and they thought I was crazy. Those who saw computing before Microsoft's dominance, and Apple's prevalence over other competitors, have a far easier time transitioning to other computing platforms.
My own journey with word processing also began on the Atari 8-bit with Atari Writer, switching from my Royal manual typewriters (I still have one). I've always preferred the Qwerty keyboard layout, not being convinced that Dvorak is actually faster or easier. Plus, Dvorak is not well supported, thus requiring greater effort to configure. I switched to an IBM Portable 5155 with WordPerfect 4.2 and DOS 3.3, and used WordPerfect until its Linux native version 8. I now use hand-me-down computers, got from neighbors, friends, and work. I still use Slackware and my own custom rolled Linux. I switched to AbiWord and StarOffice 3 (now OpenOffice and Libre Office), but have found Troff and TeX to be equally useful. As Anthony has noted, KDE also has a word processor and I have used it on occasion.
The manuscript was finished in November 1999. I read the Tor October 2001 first edition hardcover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. Swell Foop is Xanth #25. It's sequel is Up in a Heaval.
Here we go again with the demons. The Demon E(a/r)th is missing. Something with another Demon (with a capital D!) is up. Without the Demon E(a/r)th, gravity will dissipate. Yet this Demon is unknown, and so part of that is the mystery of the story. The Swell Foop, naturally a pun on Shakespeare's fell swoop, instrument must be found. A whole bunch of characters are involved. That's really why we love Xanth: the characters. We also like the silliness, the puns, the nonsense, the inuendo, and anything else that makes fun of mundane (Mundania!) existence and all its inanity.
Some spoilers, perhaps, may follow.
Swell Foop mentions two things of interest: the nemesis star and Pluto as a planet.
I read Asimov's Nemesis at the time, and loved it. It spoke of a brown dwarf star, if star is the right word for it, that was beyond or hidden by the kuiper belt, and which had sufficient gravity that its swinging orbit might rip the planets from their orbits, or so goes my fuzzy memory of the book. The Nemesis star was supposed to explain missing mass calculated in the solar system.
The Nemesis star then became known as Planet X, with a smaller amount of mass calculated. Identifying and calculating the solar mass has led to finding Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, though the latter is now categorized more accurately as a kuiper belt object (or set of objects, considering its moons), essentially a big comet (though comet may have other implications). Thus Planet X became Planet Nine.
Pluto's loss of recognition as the ninth planet started with Neil deGrasse Tyson. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) confirmed this change by classifying Pluto as a dwarf planet. Once Nemesis was disproven, and now Planet Nine is beginning to look suspicious, I suspect that there is no more missing planets, gas giants, proto-stars, brown dwarfs, or large set of small objects that are still out there in the solar system as missing mass.
As to dark matter, who knows. It's funny that Nemesis and Pluto are made fun of here, regardless of the science or one's opinions about it.
Started in July 1999, the author's note was finished March 2000. The later date is because Swell Foop was written inbetween to meet the Tor deadline. I read the Xlibris March 2002 trade paperback. After The Iron Maiden the next full length completed project was Up in a Heaval.
The Iron Maiden retells the story of Bio of a Space Tyrant from the perspective of Hope's sister. It both stands alone as a novel and reexplores the original series. It felt like I was rereading the original series, enjoying revisiting this science fiction world of Anthony's analogies. Some things were noticeable additions, and was nice to see what happened from Spirit's perspective, and in a way a good recap and rememberance. It also brings the story just a bit further beyond the original series, giving hints I suspect of Anthony's original plans for continuing the series. (See the Xlibris edition of Statesman's author's note.) I wonder where this series might have gone.
A comparison of scenes between the original series and this book suggest very subtle distinctions in how the scenes are described and expressed where they are overlayed between the two character's perspectives. Ultimately, I suspect that reading the original series will give the full impact, and The Iron Maiden is a great way to fill in the gaps as well as a revisit, whether immediately after, interspersed, or years later as it was for me. It also could just be a smaller, less involved way of enjoying the story.
My Americain Cautionary Tales. Anthony reflects on being a US citizen in context of the recent (at the time) 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The manuscript was finished November 2000, interrupting the completion of Key to Chroma, which was finished after. I read the Tor October 2002 first edition hard cover with jacket illustration by Darrell K. Sweet. Up in a Heaval is Xanth #26. The sequel is Cube Route.
The galleys were handled in the summer of 2001. He tried to write the manuscript on a new Linux system, but it didn't make it until most of the first draft was written. He tried starting out with the Linux version of WordPerfect (from memory, there was only one native version, version 8), but it didn't work out for this novel. It turns out, the use of the Linux version of WordPerfect was done with early beginnings and notes of Sopaths, and it was clear by the time of Up in a Heaval that WordPerfect wasn't going to work for him.
A snail-mail package from Mundania gets forwarded to the demon Jupiter, who takes offense. It's like a Usenet flame war breaks out, started by Jupiter who tries to destroy the environment of another demon, i.e. X(a/n)th. So Xanth inhabitants are martialed to solve the problem and save Xanth. It's like a plot in need of characters for the sake of amusement, and this one was amusing. Half way through the novel we are introduced to Esk's and Bria's twins. Esk and Bria were introduced in the novel Vale of the Vole.
The story Adult Conspiracy
, mentioned in the Up in
a Heaval author's note, was referenced more (in)directly in
Harpy
Thyme, which it is probably best to read the story before
Harpy Thyme than now,
if you haven't already, and decide not to warp your brain with the
torpedo. However, if you must read the story, because you're
an Anthony completist like me, then at least you know where the twins
came from (though the result is mentioned earlier in
Harpy Thyme).
Written April-August 1998 though the first chapter and summary appear to have been written a year previous. This is the beginning of the ChroMagic series. It was originally published by Mundania Press April 2003. I read the Mundania Press July 2004 second edition hardcover, with new jacket art (from the first edition), by Stacey L. King. The sequel is Key to Chroma. The next book written after Key to Havoc was The Dastard.
This is a really big book, bigger than even the Geodessy novels. It took a long time to finish. Each book in the trilogy is 10 chapters long, and each chapter is a novella in its own right, often following a distinct story line, but fitting the larger narrative. Key to Havoc caught my interest for one basic reason: the tension between love and the political situation of Charm is coupled with the little guy having access to fulfilling his dreams. That's really what this story is about. It's full of sex, violence (there was a dungeon torture scene that was rougher than my taste), and intrigue. As Anthony calls it, hard hitting fantasy.
The text of The Magic Fart was finished January 2003,
immediately before the story The Key
, later published as the second
story in Relationships, and then
followed by the Xanth novel Pet Peeve. The
Magic Fart was first published in August 2003 by Mundania Press.
I read the August 2015 Mundania Press LLC hardcover edition of The Pornucopia Compendium, with cover art by Joel Mallory and Niki Browning. Apparently, not as fancy a hardcover as the individual editions from Mundania Press, from photos I've seen online. The cover art of Pornucopia has gone through variations in its editions since Tafford.
Prior, unfulfilled from the prior attempt to find love and happiness, and doing nothing but gaining revenge and what he had lost from the prior venture, is now pressed further into the demon realm. A trap has been set for him in revenge for his revenge, with the promise of his perfect mate. Like the first, this is the grossest, most explicit sexual content in a book I've ever read. Yet Anthony somehow pulls it off with a plot, characterization, and a funny theme.
I wouldn't have read it except it's Anthony, and I was working through his work systematically, even though I had some residual brain damage from Pornucopia. The Magic Fart is only for the sexual misfit, with a couple screws loose, or Anthony completists, of which (I surely hope) I am the latter, or at least not the former.
Written August-December 2000, during and after Up In a Heaval. I read the Mundania Press October/November 2003 first edition hardcover, with jacket art by Stacey L. King.
Key to Chroma is the last novel and work of the millenium,
though Anthony is not in agreement about 2001. Either way, this means
I've read every published book of Anthony's from the 20th
century, and all but one (Deva
) of his published short stories.
He started the beginning of The Sopaths after Key to Chroma, but didn't complete it. There were other incidentals, like finally getting his second autobiography published. The next thing he wrote was Tortoise Reform, though it wasn't published until a few years later. Cube Route is actually next in terms of sold-for-publication (and actually published).
Havoc's destiny is now a question. Who is he? Where did he come from? A series of quests for him and his companions occupy his time as he begins to investigate his new reality, leading to a dramatic discovery, setting the stage for the final book of the trilogy. I had a hard time getting into this one, but it turned out to be very interesting as I got into the second half of the novel.
As Key to Chroma clearly starts off, the ChroMagic series is full of sex. As Anthony states elsewhere, sex is to ChroMagic as puns are to Xanth. The sequel is Key to Destiny.
The manuscript was finished November 2001. I read the Tor October 2003 first edition hard cover with jacket illustration by Darrell K. Sweet. Cube Route is the 27th Xanth novel, or the trilogy cubed, completing the trilogy of trilogies. The sequel is Currant Events.
Though Tortoise Reform was the first novel written on the Linux system, Cube Route is the first complete Xanth written on Linux. It seems somewhere along the line he switched from WordPerfect to StarOffice. I remember those days. I think this was the Sun version of StarOffice, version 5, not the earlier Motif based version 3.
This is a story of finding love and acceptance as well as finding our inner beauty so that it is visible. We've had this theme before, but there's certainly differences of characters, as well as a counter Xanth where everything is opposite. In this case, the aptly named Cube is plain and lonely, but after taking on the body of a beautiful woman who is depressed to the point of suicidality, Cube begins to realize there's more than meets the initial eye. Of course, there's magic involved in Xanth and counter Xanth, and puns abound perhaps even more than expected.
The August 2002 newsletter indicates that the first draft was almost finished in July. The author's note is dated 17 March 2004, which was for the gallies, a final read through before it went to press. I read the Mundania Press April/June 2004 first hardcover edition. The sequel is Key to Liberty. The next new book written was Currant Events.
The ChroMagic trilogy is a kind of pornography, wrapped in plot and characters. I found that reading this series off and on, one chapter at a time, was the easiest way to digest the constant sex. Read a chapter, put it down, read something else, then come back to it for a chapter when the mood struck, or when I started to worry I might lose track of the story line. This made the series not only more palatable, but more enjoyable. Anthony always delivers in the end, and the characters develop their own personalities and motivations, but if you don't like the sex you'll hate the series. I found it to be a bit much at times, and the magic concept was not as enticing to me as some of his other work. However, the science fiction part of the background of the series caught my interest. ChroMagic is an atmosphere and culture to be immersed in, not only the sex. The reveal at the end curiously reminded me of Battle Circle.
Spoilers:
Key to Destiny follows the glamors, their search for the icons, and the use of the loom to discover its purpose, and to finally use and explore that purpose. The tension in the previous books of whether Havoc will get to be with the love of his life as her husband is resolved, and their future begins to express itself. More glamour icons are identified, and need to be found, as the icon tapestry is being woven, and new things are revealed along the way as the sister planet, Counter Charm, is exposed in its involvement with the changelings.
The submission draft was finished in November 2002. I read the Tor October 2004 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet.
There's a dragon world in Ida's moons, and the dragons are running rampant across Xanth. It seems that the Currant, a rare berry, is believed by Clio to hold an answer. There's always folks along the way that make a Xanth story so interesting. Otherwise, how could we stand the puns (and this one has a lot)? Currant Events is Xanth #28. The sequel is Pet Peeve.
In the author's note is mentioned a MoNsTeR computer with Linux, and his migrating to OpenOffice (likely under Oracle, which was donated to the Apache Foundation). I first suspected this might refer to his getting involved with system76, but that started in 2005 (which used Ubuntu). Anthony's use of Ubuntu was in 2004. He later switched to Fedora, which is the continuation of Red Hat Linux (not to be confused with Red Hat Advanced Server or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)).
The author's note also mentions Anthony's involvement in the internet RPG Dragon Empires, developed between 2001 and 2004, released 3 September 2004 and shut down 17 June the following year. His daughter Penny was into RPG, and one of his collaborators Judy Lyn Nye wrote two Xanth books in the Crossroads Adventure RPG books.
The submission draft was finished in October 2003, after finishing The Magic Fart. Alfred was finished after, though started before. I read the Tor October 2005 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. Pet Peeve is Xanth #29. The sequel is Stork Naked.
Xanth needs a Grundy-like character every so often, and the Peeve fills this need. The bird is hilarious. I've owned parrots, including a cockatoo, and this made me smile thinking of what a magic bird might be like in attitude. It gets even better when the goblin assigned by the Good Magician to find the bird a home is the exact opposite: a polite goblin with a very rude problem.
This book was set up to be hilarious in ways that out does some of the previous books. Not all Xanth is comedy. Some of it is serious, and even the puns are carefully tempered artifacts of the landscape, not the story itself. This is not one of those, but at the same time every Xanth has characters and theme that underly the stories. It's the ones with which we identify that make our Xanth favorites. This is one of mine.
The submission draft was finished in the Fall of 2004. I read the Tor October 2006 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. Stork Naked is Xanth #30, the first trilogy after the cubed trilogy of 27 novels. The sequel is Air Apparent. The next novel to be written was Key to Liberty.
Xanth misfits are so misfit that they are no longer misfits but the norm. However, two centaur misfits, those rejected by the centaur community, have their baby from the Stork Works for the first time in Xanth history, only to have their baby kidnapped. The Good Magician doesn't seem to be helping though, and all the misfits of Xanth seem to band together to find out what happened, and to get not only their baby back, but also the baby of Surprise and Umlaut. Surprise and Umlaut are on record as being too young, even though clearly the signaling occurred at the right age, and the stork isn't blind. Meanwhile, an alternate frame of Xanths is exposed. No, not Ida's moons, or the reverse Xanth. There are parallel universes of Xanths. Lovely: there's going to be even more puns.
Key to Liberty was written after Stork Naked, from December 2004 to July 2005. I read the April 2007 Mundania Press hardcover first edition, with cover art by SkyeWolf. The next Xanth was written after: Air Apparent. The ChroMagic sequel and final novel is Key to Survival.
Spoilers are a given at this point. If you've read the trilogy, feel safe to read on from here.
Earth has come back to claim Charm. They're bent on domination. I had assumed it was the Chroma promiscuous society, enabled by technologically efficient birth control, and engaged by changelings and magic, that led to the constant sex. However, from the first page introducing the humans from Earth in chapter 2, they're engaging in the same kind of sex. Yes, the Earthlings are around Charm, but the implication is this is normal behavior, even back on Earth. Ultimately, the blatant sexuality of ChroMagic finds justification in the plot in this volume.
The other plot of the novel is the aftermath of the sudden adoption of three problem children at the end of the previous book. They are unique in being able to perform magic in the non-magic zone of the imperial city, and appear more powerful than their adoptive parents.
Anthony's blatant sexuality in his writing continues to increase. This
novel begins to reach to the saturation level of
Pornucopia. It's
one thing to make a point in a short story or novella, such as with
In The Barn
, or look at sexual situations and recognize their
problematic nature and their reality as in
Firefly, but constant
sex doesn't carry page over page of such a large novel or series. The
one good thing about Key to Liberty was the reduction of the
novella size chapters to novellete and shory story sized chapters,
with more of them. It's an improvement to the series, or at least the
constant breaks I needed to get through the novel, making the individual
pieces more satisfying. As always, Anthony's characters carry the story,
and doesn't leave one unsatisfied, if a bit exhausted.
Relationships is short story collection, started to catch up on unwritten ideas while traveling. By the third story, a novelette, catching up on ideas in the ideas file led to recognition of the theme of relationships of those stories. The rest were written to be collected in a themed anthology. This may be unique for Anthony, as all his previous short story collections have writing targeted for science fiction publishers (mainly). The February 2004 newsletter indicated that eight of the stories was completed January 2004, written after the completion of Pet Peeve and Alfred. The series was finished by March, as Under a Velvet Cloak was in progress.
Relationships was first published with Venus press 28 February 2006. The April 2006 newsletter indicated this was a trial, by Venus' invitation, with Anthony doing the promotion. Venus went out of business and Anthony had to go to the Mundania Press imprint Phaze. Phaze published this as Relationships I because by that point, Anthony had already written Relationships II. I read the Phaze 23 September 2007 paperback with cover art by Debi Lewis.
After Phaze when Mundania Press went out of business, was Dreaming Big Publications, but they were unable to reprint earlier works. Relationships was finished in early 2004 before starting Under a Velvet Cloak and towards the conclusion or after Alfred.
Otherwise unpublished story titles are:
Hot Gameis about a minimum security prison happy hour, kept off the record, and including sex games between the prisoners and guards. It was completely unrealistic (for it to happen), but was fascinating for this conservative-raised Utahn. A sequel of sorts is
Friends of Bolivia.
Scenarioswas written January 2004. A young woman hitchikes with a middle aged man. The story is of their flirtation during the drive, openly discussing possible scenarios of their back stories, and discussing possibilities of sex.
Thenbegins with the room assignment on a cruise ship of a male and female who know nothing of each other, and speak different languages. The staff seem deaf to the mix up.
Hot Game, this is a novelette, but the relationship explorations is of a different kind.
This appears to have been finished September 2001, but the author's note is October 2004. The June 2001 newsletter notes its beginnings as a chapter and summary in April or May. More about the novel can be found in the October 2001 newsletter. In 2004, when Anthony was placing his ChroMagic books as well as getting Pornucopia reprinted, he placed Tortoise Reform with Mundania Press. The ISBN registration shows 2006. There must have been some delay from a 2005 printing. I read the Mundania Press, 30 September 2007 first edition paperback, with cover art by SkyeWolf Images.
With the writing of Tortoise Reform, the final switch to Linux
was made, and StarOffice (presumably 5 from Sun) was the winner in what
word processor to use on Linux after several false starts. I tried Applix
too around this time, and though I liked it better (though StarOffice
3 was my favorite), the KDE word processor has continued to have charm
in its way. I dumped Windows and Mac in the mid-90s for Slackware Linux,
and though professionally I've kept current with other operating systems,
at home I still use Slackware and my own
custom roll. As Professor Brian Kernighan wrote during this period,
sometimes the old ways are best
. I wonder what Anthony would
think of Emacs text processing being available, which is where PTP and
FinalWord came from.
Billed as a children's story, I found this slower paced, with more nuanced thinking and language than I would expect of a child character. This seems to be a teen's story more than a ten year old's. It is about befriending and saving animals, dealing with depression, and finding an alternate reality to escape to, at least at first. I found the story well considered, clearly written by a parent with daughters, and insightful and sensitive as I've come to expect of Anthony's more serious work.
The submission draft was finished in October 2005. The December 2005 newsletter has more about Air Apparent. I read the Tor October 2007 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. Air Apparent is Xanth #31. The sequel is Two to the Fifth.
A soul napping? A murder mystery? A new husband is taken just as a marriage starts. The Good Magician Humphrey can't help: his book of knowledge is completely scrambled. Did I mention that the husband is Hugo, the Good Magician's son? Our heroine is blind, and some unlikely characters are along for the ride. Whose ride? Hugo's blind wife, who has to find Hugo. This is a typical Xanth, and it always ends well. Enter our antagonist: the Random Factor.
I read the Xlibris 30 November 2007 softcover edition, the final book of Anthony's that I'm aware of that was placed with Xlibris. This is the fictionalized story of Piers' father, Alfred Jacob, from the perspective of the four women in his life, the third of which was his wife, Piers' mother. It is in the form of five novellas and an author's note. The data for these stories is from Alfred's journal and accompanying records as later confirmed in the author's note (as well as newsletters from the time).
The first story is about Alfred's first, or at least significant, crush and one of the last. The story telling is somewhat slow, but interesting at times. The second is about what is Alfred's idealized love of his life whom forever flavored his future relationships. The third is about meeting his spouse, getting married, losing their virginity, their rocky relationship, and the birth of Piers and his other siblings. It is told from Norma's not Alfred's perspective. Alfred volunteered as a Quaker in Spain during the second world war, then later started the Quaker Hilltop Farm community. The fourth story is of Genevieve whom Alfred has an affair with as his marriage with Norma disolves. Finally, is a return to his first crush. As his life comes to a close there starts to be a final woman, but his health devolves and that relationship never transpires.
As I finished Alfred, and began looking into the beginnings of Under a Velvet Cloak in Anthony's newsletters, I found that the Hi Piers website was being redone in WordPress. As I was in the middle of one newsletter, and moving on to the next, pieces were disappearing. Some would reappear on WordPress, some disappeared entirely. So I went to the index of the old newsletters, and it too disappeared as I was using it. In the end, the site collapsed, and disappeared. A new site took its place hipiers.net, which I now distinguish as PiersWeb (based on MaryLee's name for it). MaryLee had taken over the website from Carol and Cheryl, then she got sick, then they moved to LA. Most of the HiPiers newsletters have been reposted, but some were lost though may be on Piers' computer. There are no longer newsletters or columns, but instead the occasional message from MaryLee or Piers (or both).
Under a Velvet Cloak was completed in July 2004 (see the April and August 2004, and December 2007, newsletters). The galleys for the Mundania Press edition was reviewed in November 2007. It was published in December. I read the Mundania Press 21 July 2015 hardcover, with cover art by Niki Browning.
Under a Velvet Cloak is like a post-lude to the Incarnation of Immortality series. That series has five books, then two, (or two trilogies and a follow up conclusion). This eighth book plays on events in those last two, books six and seven. The original idea comes from one of Anthony's readers who identified clear plot trajectories that stem from revelations in those books, digging into the origins of the incarnations and establishing a more concrete concept of the magic timelines.
As Anthony's mainstream series are brought to an end, other than Xanth, an adult, sexually explicit but not over-the-top, period of writing is developing here. I don't think Under a Velvet Cloak is as bad as Anthony seemed to identify in his newsletters. If anything, it's more an indication that Anthony's writing has changed since the Incarnations of Immortality series was originally written, so its tenor is perhaps different if the series are read all at once.
I read the Phaze 31 March 2008 paperback with cover art by Debi Lewis. The cover is slightly modified from the first, essentially a blow up of the first with a Rook key lock at the bottom. This is a much larger volume than the first, and likely the biggest of the series. Relationships Two was finished April 2006. Anthony waited to offer it as a sequel to Venus press, first seeing how they did with the first one. In the end, he sent it to them too, only to have them go out of business. After Relationships II, the conclusion to the ChroMagic series was written: Key to Survival.
I was a bit stuck on the title. Anthony's letters mention
Relationships Two, but the title covers of the first three,
from Phaze are Roman numeral titled, i.e. Relationships II,
except the inside title page is Relationships 2. The fourth
volume uses numbers not Roman numerals, and lists it and the previous
books as vol. 1
, vol. 2
etc. So the titles here are by
volume, starting with this one.
The Relationships volumes are a collection of short stories and novelettes of erotica with the theme being relationships. The stories for volume 2 were written for the volume and not published elsewhere. The introduction says there's seven stories, but the contents has ten. A Relationships vol. 3 was to follow, becoming a series, once he caught the bug. Here are the titles:
Android, the second largest story of the collection. A programmable, interchangable, life like, interactive sex doll is purchased by six college students.
Hot Game, inspired while reading the galley. A black female prisoner has a relationship with the white post commander. Written in-between the starting and finishing of
Doll.
The first draft was started in December 2006 or January 2007, and finished May 2007. The final draft was finished in June 2007. Key to Survival was published June 2008. The Xanth novel Jumper Cable was written next, interupting the partially written Relationships vol. 3. As a side note, the publication dates on the copyright page seem to be post-dated as most of the hardcovers seem to have been published a month or more earlier.
Key to Survival is the standard erotic material that we've come
to expect from ChroMagic. Now it extends beyond Earth to the galaxy
as the final battle with the machines will begin. As I started the book,
I asked myself the question, tongue in cheek, Are the machines going to
start having sex too, or is that a biological thing only?
I'm having
flash backs to TNG's fully functional
Data. Not only do they, but
it gets into interspecies sex on an inter-galactic level. Anthony's erotic
bounds have no limits it seems, but as usual, somehow there's character,
plot, and thematic development along the way. The sex overwhelmed the
story for me so required breaks inbetween, but thankfully the chapters are
in the form of short stories, and so I read it this way. It took me months
to finish Key to Survival, the final book of the ChroMagic
series, but I'm satisfied (if not relieved) by the completion.
The Courtingin Cautionary Tales. It was also reprinted in an anthology for World Fantasy Convention guests of honor (which he was in 1987). The Courting is about a benevolent zombie who happens to be of the opposite sex.
I read the Tor October 2008 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. The submission draft was finished in September 2006. Two to the Fifth is Xanth #32. The sequel is Jumper Cable.
A robot who wants to be a playwright? He goes to ask the Good Magician Humphrey how this can be done, only to be told he has to save Xanth. (Why do we always have to save Xanth?) Can a merry band of actors, a wannabe playwright, and three powerful child twins save Xanth from destruction? Will a rediculous bard fall in love? Keep an eye on those twins. There's later fun novels with them.
Pep Talkin Cautionary Tales. This is a splash in the face of cold water for those of us who aspire to be professional writers. My advice is simple: writers write, so write for yourself, build up the muscle, and be careful of your copyrights. The publishing industry is a different topic, and Anthony is probably right about those who write.
Serialin Cautionary Tales.
Serialwas originally written for Relationships vol. 3 but was censored by the publisher. A man's dark sexual preferences are turned against him when a woman treats him the same way.
I read the Phaze 28 February 2009 paperback with cover art by Debi Lewis. Curiously, it is documented as January, which may suggest the same text of the ebook was used. The cover is slightly modified from the first, essentially a blow up (and more than the second) with a light bulb at the bottom. I was shocked when I went to buy this for a friend and learned that, with Mundane Press and Phaze being out of business, and thus the series out of print, that it was going on Amazon for nearly $900. Price gouging is a phenomena of free markets that make me wonder about the ethical failings of such a system. I thought Dreaming Big Publications would be taking on the older series, but it seems that publisher is a one-person show and swamped with entries. Anthony must have pulled some of his submissions. Hopefully, Anthony can get these reprinted.
As a series, Relationships is a collection of short stories and novelettes of erotica with the theme being relationships. The stories for the third volume were not published elsewhere, being written for the volume. Par for the course from the other volumes, and a bit of naughty entertainment along the way. The Alternity realm is not a new approach for Anthony, but is unique to this volume. We saw this approach in Killobyte, among other places. It was inspired by a fan. The sequel is Relationships vol. 4.
The next writing was the finish up of the last part of
Climate of Change, the conclusion to the
Geodyssey series, and then Knave, which can be found in
the collection Cautionary Tales. They
are described in the August 2008 newsletter. The same newsletter
indicates that 6 stories were written, i.e. in June and July. If the
stories are in order, that's Speak, Pretty Bird
, Softly and
Silently
, Connected
, The Taming
, Mousetrap
, and
Demonstrator
. Then is the Xanth novel Jumper
Cable. The rest of the stories were written in the Fall of
2007. The story Serial
was rejected by Phaze, so was published
separately, then also collected in Cautionary
Tales. It's not clear when Serial
was written, so could
be one of the first six. See the February 2009 newsletter. Here's the
titles:
Alternity:
Mousetrap, but that inspired more. This is Inabnet's sequel, based on real events, but framed in the Alternity virtual reality he and Anthony invented together. Ace is a cat that is ill cared for by its owners, so Derek steals the cat one night, and cares for it, and a strong bond develops.
Giles:
Demonstrator, Giles is working as a demonstrator for the same class. The first story seems to have left some things unsettled.
The submission draft was finished in November 2007. I read the Tor October 2009 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. Jumper Cable is Xanth #33. Its sequel is Knot Gneiss.
Castle Roogna was a favorite Xanth. It may be because it was the end of the original trilogy, and better than the second novel. It's also because I love the theme: a youngster must come of age quickly, but for harmless (mostly, i.e. assuming he can survive it) reasons. This begins to stretch the boundaries of the adult conspiracy, gives an introduction to Castle Roogna and its zombies, has an epic battle, and gives the most interesting anthropomorphization of a spider. Giving perspective from non-adults and non-humans seems to be one of Anthony's specialities.
I've probably done a better job describing that novel here than I did in the Castle Roogna entry, but this is its proper sequel, and Jumper is a spider of that lineage. It's also, really, a kind of sequel to the Source of Magic, which I think Anthony has vindicated in my mind through later Xanth novels. Perhaps I should reread it and see if it has the same affect on me the second time.
Pluto is an involved demon who has been demoted. Sorry Anthony, an oort cloud object is not a planet. Pluto is not in the planetary orbital plane. Perhaps it is, in a way, a tiny planet, and that term might have a more colloquial definition in the public mind. If Pluto fell more closely to the sun (what would that mean with its moons?), it would begin to desintegrate like any other comet. In actuality, it does. Some suggest it is a unique kind of object, not a planet or comet. Regardless, Anthony expresses well the general perception in typical Xanth fascetious humor. Meanwhile, among this back ground, Jumper must recable the outernet to the internet, and the twins are back as sexy 19 year olds to torment him when he must temporarily become a male human.
Xanth is silly, but there's something to be said for punnish humor that makes fun of day to day things in the real world.
Juliet Quartetin Cautionary Tales. A thirteen year old girl gives herself illicitly for the right reasons, and a priest sees it as God's will, but of course it's the wrong thing, and that impact is clear why as the story progresses. At the least, Anthony makes it clear that things are not so black and white as we would like to think.
Climate of Change was finished between May and July 2008, after Jumper Cable, and after the book Orn was updated for its Mundania Press paperback edition, (which includes new author's notes). It was finished without the help of his researcher. I read the 4 May 2010 Tor hardcover. The jacket cover seemed like a basic clip art, no real illustration, but nice enough. This is the fifth and final book in the Geodyssey series, published a decade after most of the book was written. There are no maps in this volume.
There's a lot of history here that's fascinating to have visualized and explored, similar to previous volumes, but this seems more history thick. Dating started with Before the Present Era (BPE). This refers to years starting with 1950 of the Gregorian Calendar. BPE can be treated in rough estimates, because we're talking a 60 year difference from the book's publication date. Like the first three novels, there are twenty stories, each sequeling the last, but separate stories and contexts with evolving characters.
Unlike earlier novels that start millions of years ago, this one starts
roughly 100,000 years ago, enough to be recognizably human. Climate
of Change begins and ends with the character Hero, and his sister
Haven. The beginning finds them wandering, trying to find a suitable
place in Africa to live, and to mate, moving south at first, then heading
north, settling with Neandertals. Different stories focusing on different
characters engaged throughout. The story Keeper's Quest
has some
appealing imagery in crossing the bering straight 20,000 years ago.
Others of interest look at the Mayan dominance of South America, the
plight of Aboriginal Australia, and a near future attempt at population
control and environmental living among the threat of those who didn't
agree.
It is a worthy conclusion to the series, which I'm sad to see had to stop, like other series of Anthony's. All good things must come to an end; well, except Xanth it seems.
Cartaphilusin Cautionary Tales. The legend of the Wandering Jew meets Leyla, though really this is the story of the randy Roman soldier. There's some interesting perspectives on religion here, perhaps inappropriately seen through this lense.
Start 10 August 2008, the submission draft was finished in October 2008. I read the Tor October 2010 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet. This is Xanth #34. The sequel is Well-Tempered Clavicle.
Love stories and heart's desires is the theme of this book. The quest is to retrieve a large knot of petrified reverse wood, that terrifies those who approach it, and nuetralize its effects. However, Wenda Woodwife is not terrified as a (former) forest wood spirit, so the Good Magician Humphrey sends her to retrieve it for the safety of Xanth. Wenda has her own challenge: she's a sexy nymph but seen from behind she is hollow, being carved from wood. This gets reversed so that she is hollow from the front.
Medusain Cautionary Tales. A captured alien shape changer seduces her captor to escape, but there's more going on to the seduction.
I read the Phaze January 2011 first edition paperback with cover art by Niki Browning. The cover is more elaborate than the first trilogy's, with tastefully hidden but tantalizing nude couples. It's interesting that Roman numerals are not used for the title, as they were for the first three.
Relationships vol. 4 is a collection of short stories and
novelettes of erotica with the theme being relationships between the
average and normal person, not movie-like, nor glamerous people. The
stories were written for this volume and were not published elsewhere.
Relationships vol. 4 was finished in July 2009. The July 2009
newsletter has a note about the story Running the Line
, written
in June, that Anthony was worried wouldn't make it past the sensors. It
made it in.
One story stood out to me: Birthday Suit
. I read a story once
of what I thought was of the same name. I remember it being by Anthony,
and was reminded of this series' style. It was about a woman who wore a
birthday suit, an invisible, see through clothing that was not possible
to tell by touch or sight that she was wearing it, yet after sex, it
was clear that the suit's membrane acted like a condom. My memory is
that I read it in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
but I was not able to find a record of it. I thought that this was a
republication of it, but it was actually a story in
Anthonology.
It seems like I've seen that idea by a couple authors, so perhaps read
something similar in F&SF.
Some story ideas intended for the Relationships series end up being clearly connected in such a way that ultimately, they found their way into a separate book: Eroma. The sequel is Relationships vol. 5. The titles are as follows:
Rolesis a novelette about a young man out for adventure, and four middle-aged women who pick him up hitchhiking in the rain and offer him a week of sex with the four of them.
Friday. A man proposes but is told he must spend a week in the sex commune Eros Acres before she'd say yes, and would understand if he said no afterwards.
The author finished Eroma in August 2009. I read the Open Road Media 14 February 2017 edition paperback, first published by PDP in 16 February 2011, as well as the ebook. The Open Road Integrated Media ebook paragraphs are not indented, so the ereader must be configured to add a space after the paragraphs. I found the printed edition far more readable. Eroma was written before Well-Tempered Clavicle.
Eroma is six stories that seemed slated for the Relationship
series, but which had unique story lines that (mostly) fit well
together. The stories are independent, and can be read one at a time, but
should be in order. There's parallels with the Apprentice Adept
trilogy and its game format, as well as stories that are similar to
those in Killobyte,
which was more action oriented. Even Xanth has computer alternate reality
frameworks. Eroma doesn't qite match the brain damage
Pornucopia. The castle
scene in Killobyte
seemed similar to Maiden Heaven
.
Eroma is the last work Anthony finished before his daughter Penny's death.
Finished in January 2011, the first collaboration with J. R. Rain, and first published as an ebook 3 March 2011 (the paperback coming out the following year). I started Aladdin Relighted after One and Wonder with the 20 August 2014, CreateSpace printed, Amazon print-on-demand paperback edition that is unmarked as to publisher or artist. The next written work is Trail Mix: Amoeba. The sequel to Aladdin Relighted is Aladdin Sins Bad.
Aladdin Relighted read quickly, a fun action and adventure book, taking off from the time of Aladdin's losing his kingdom that the genie of the lamp had provided him in the famous tale. A beautiful woman hires a vagrant merchant to find her son who is soon to be killed, a hunt on several levels.
A side note from the February 2011 newsletter discussed copyright,
but first a bit of background. In the consitutional convention, it was
debated whether the US constituion should forbid copyright and patents
all together. In the end, a clause allowed limited
laws to be
passed by Congress. The first was signed in to law by George Washington,
a law for a 10 year copyright, requiring renewal with a process that
expected justification as to why a monopoly, against the natural rights
of the people, should be granted. The European law that we began to honor
in the mid-twentieth century started with the life time of the author,
then was extended every 25 years. That is now 95 years from publication or
120 years from the initial authoring. So now we're worse than Europe and
the UK, which our copyright laws were originally intended to temper.
Thankfully, the irony of Orwell's Ninenteen eighty-four being
occasionally withdrawn from electronic devices (such as Kindles), being
under copyright in the US but not the UK, is not lost on even Anthony. I
believe Senator Hatch's interpretation of limited as being a day less
than infinity
is nonsense and illegal constitutionally.
Anthony has always struggled to keep rights to his works by licensing to publishers, instead of selling the entire copyright, so that he can ultimately recover the work and find publication elsewhere. This is due to the problems of publishers remaindering works, keeping the work from being republished or reprinted. Anthony notes that authors and heirs can now recover rights 35 years after contract, and reprint their works. Personally, I wish the original sensibility of US copyright would return, but perhaps that requires too much bureaucracy overhead to evaluate the merits to the public of copyright renewal after limited (i.e. short!) periods of time. Perhaps the saturation of the market might justify a return to even shorter periods. 35 years after contract to recover rights seems excessive to me.
Pandora Park was written in November 2005, after the Xanth novel Air Apparent. According to the December 2007 newsletter, a publisher was never found for the book until Premier Digital Publishing (PDP). The December 2005 newsletter has a description of writing it and what the book is about.
I read the 13 September 2013 Premier Digital Publishing (PDP) paperback edition, first published May 2011. PDP was bought by Open Road Integrated Media, but did not offer a publish-on-demand option. Oddly, neither the PDP, nor the Open Road Integrated Media Kindle, edition have an attribution for the cover artist, whom I thought did an excellent illustration for the book.
Of all of Anthony's children's books, this is my favorite, though Balook is a rough tie with it (especially because of the elegant illustrations of that book). The park in question has a magical forest that a boy from the States, and a girl from China, are able to meet and interact in, getting to know one another. Having had such experiences in real life (not literal magic, but certainly magical), this story brought back some fond memories.
The June 2011 newsletter notes that Aladdin Sins Bad was planned to be written in June and July of that year. The August 2011 newsletter confirms the success of that plan. The submission draft was finished in August, the last to be written on PCLinuxOS with OpenOffice, switching to Fedora (the new name of Red Hat Linux, not to be confused with Red Hat Enterprise Linux) with LibreOffice, the community fork of the Oracle, and later Apache, OpenOffice.
Aladdin Sins Bad was first printed 8 August 2011. I read the 4 September 2014, CreateSpace printed, Amazon print-on-demand edition. Aladdin Sins Bad is the sequel to Aladdin Relighted, and is followed by (and concludes with) Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman.
Aladdin, and the son of the woman who had hired him, go on a sea voyage to rescue the wife of Sinbad the sailor, and find buried treasure. It's a typical adventure for an Anthony and Rain Aladdin story, full of nymphs, demons, djinn, and sirens.
Lost Thingsin The Horror Zine, edited by Jeani Rector, What Fears Become, by Imajin Books, printed 13 September 2011. The story was later collected in Cautionary Tales. A telepathic boy, and his telpathic seeing eye dog, return home after his mother dies. There's more here than meets the eye, so to speak.
The first chapter was written in 2001 on WordPerfect 8 on Linux. The next four in February 2010, then disrupted by book reading and proof gallies. (Sometimes he does review blurbs, sometimes it's an aspirational author wanting an opinion, which sometimes leads to a collaboration.) The May newsletter indicates another chapter written, but he had to care for his wife who took a fall fracturing knee and elbow. He finished the first draft in May, according to the June 2010 newsletter, so the author's note date of 10 June 2010 is from the completion of the novel.
The Sopaths was finished after
Well-Tempered Clavicle and before
Luck of the Draw. The next writing was the
story Privy
, which is found in the collection
Cautionary Tales. Afterwards was the
story Statues
, for Relationships vol. 5,
and its sequel, Just Desserts
, then Difference
. I read the
Fantastic Planet Press 15 September 2011 paperback edition, an imprint
of Eraserhead Press. The cover art is a young nude woman with a dark,
cloudy or ominous background, by Dan Henk.
The story turned out to be better than expected. It is uncomfortable in places as it tackles brutality and sexual explotation by children of others (including children). Anthony imagines what it is like for children to be born with no conscience. Thankfully, he moves some of this off-screen, out of the direct line of the story. The real story is how survivors make a family and try to discover what has happened to them, which makes the story more bearable.
The submission draft was finished in November 2009. Well-Tempered Clavicle was finished after Eroma. This is Xanth #35. Its sequel is Luck of the Draw. I read the Tor 11 October 2011 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet.
Picka Bones plays music with his bones, enough that a princess falls in love with him, but she has meat on her bones that disgusts him. There are others with issues. Naturally, they go to the magician of information to figure out what to do. Oh, it gets better: do they need to open Pundora's Box (yes, Pun-dora), or one might think of it as the Good Magician Humphrey opening Pundora's Box, to get the answer to their problems?
Living Dollin Cautionary Tales. A boy discovers a doll in his grandfather's attic, only to realize it's magical, but there's a down side to the magic: it is the result of a local sorceress. What to do?
To Be a Woman was begun after
Esrever Doom in December 2011, but finished
after Relationships vol. 5 in January 2012. It
is the first Anthony novel targeted only for electronic publication,
partly because of its size, and is the first Anthony story of novella
or novel size that never has seen print publication. First published 1
April 2012 directly through Amazon (Premier Publishing), it was later
collected together as part of The Metal Maiden Collection by Open
Road Integrated Media. As Anthony remarked in the March 2012 newsletter,
These days I don't worry much about traditional publishing; it is
dying
.
This is Anthony's version of The Bicentennial Man, (my
description, not Anthony's). Unlike Asimov, however, Anthony picks a
female android instead of a male robot, and makes her, as Data in Star
Trek might say, fully functional
. She wants to be recognized
legally as a person, (the Asimov connection I'm seeing). This remains
a viable question to ask, especially without the laws of robotics and
other Asimovian optimistic trappings. In this case, she wants to marry
a human male, so the female perspective adds to it, and it seems to me
Anthony is actually not bad with this.
My own thoughts on traditional publishing is that it's not dead, but isn't adapting. In general, I believe people still prefer printed books, but also like to keep reading while waiting in queue at the grocers. The typical cost of an electronic book, where copying is almost instantaneous and without cost, while still requiring a device from which to read, has pressed the boundaries of legal prohibition vs practical. Years ago, we recognized the cost of a Xeroxed book wasn't too different than buying at least a paperback, if not fancier hard cover. It doesn't make sense to me to spend much on electronic books (a few dollars, depending on what service might be provided with the purchase), especially with prohibitive digital restrictions. Ultimately, the problem is that publishing has become more entrenched in the old ways of doing things. Not having a print copy is frustrating: if Amazon goes out of business, my copy is tied to whatever was on my device, and possibly disappears entirely or becomes non-functional. (For instance, my wife still has an old iPod that is the only place multiple MP3s can be found that she paid for, but is having a harder time with it working for her needs.) I buy the print copies I want, wait for deals on the electronic books I want (such as Anthony's) that have no print edition, and in general I ignore electronic books otherwise. As to universities charging in the three digits for electronic books I find appalling. It shows the problem with modern publishing (and the wayward direction education has gone).
I like the idea of paying for a subscription service for media, whether movies, music, or books. That way you know you're paying for the service. Certainly, it brings up other problems of author pay, copyright, and digital restrictions. Copyright as we have it today doesn't benefit the authors, unless they have their own publishing means. I like the idea of on-demand print and digital copies separate from a service for a cost that is not hyperbole to the format.
Written in February 2012 after To Be a Woman. The idea was separate for Shepherd, but when written, a character in To Be a Woman was used chronologically following that story, thus Shepherd should be read after To Be a Woman, but is otherwise not connected and can be read by itself. It was published directly through Amazon's Premier Publishing, along with To Be a Woman, 1 April 2012.
Oh the tangle of this one. A student joins an exchange program that has him exchange bodies, perhaps similar to Anthony's Cluster without the aura, mind transfer with body exchange allowing one's thoughts and awareness to control a body elsewhere. First he finds out the animals of this world are not only telepathic, but able to defend themselves against a human, but then he finds himself falling in love, and has a dilemma when it's time for the exchange program to be over.
Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman was started in or before March 2012 and finished in May. See the April and June 2012 newsletters. The June newsletter referenced Amazon print on demand (POD). That would fit the ebook licensing statement inside the printed version. Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman was first printed 20 May 2012. I read the 4 September 2014 print-on-demand edition from CreateSpace, which now appears to be owned by Amazon. It doesn't identify the cover artist. Anthony must have put these with Open Road Media later, which does not offer a POD option.
Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman is the sequel to Aladdin Sins Bad, and the conclusion to the trilogy. Aladdin Sins Bad and Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman can be read as a single book, a single story in two parts. It is the story of the rescue of the nymphs encountered in Aladdin Sins Bad that escalates into saving the world, meanwhile wrapping up loose plot threads.
Written mostly before Esrever Doom, but completed afterwards in December 2011. I read the Phaze 7 August 2012 first edition paperback with cover art by Niki Browning. The cover follows on the vol 4. cover, but is not as tantalizing. This is the last volume I read from a Mundania Press imprint, now out of business. The sequel is Relationships 6.
Relationships vol. 5 is a collection of short stories and novelettes of erotica with the theme being relationships. Here's the titles:
Inversionsummary,
Just Dessertswas written in July 2010 as a sequel to
Statues. Mark and April keep at the statue game as they work, then are caught in the act and confronted by their partners.
The story Medusa
is mentioned in the
December 2009 newsletter as being the first writing done after
Well-Tempered Clavicle,
but it was rejected for Relationships vol. 5, later collected in
Cautionary Tales.
Rat Baitin Cautionary Tales. A mother allows herself to be seduced by a demon to save her daughter.
The book Relationships vol. 5 was in-progress,
and the stories Medusa
and
Rat Bait
followed, the latter written
after the first chapter of Luck of the Draw in December
2009. These didn't make it into Relationships vol.
5, but are found instead in Cautionary
Tales. Inversion
was the story that followed, and it did
make it. Other stories were written for Relationships
vol. 5 up to Difference
, after having finished
The Sopaths, then Anthony moved on to
finish Luck of the Draw, starting with chapter 2 in August
2010. The submission draft was finished in October 2010.
I read the Tor October 2012 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Judie Dillon. Darrell K. Sweet has been doing covers for Anthony across publishers for years, so this is an Anthony staple that has changed. Luck of the Draw is Xanth #36. Its sequel is Esrever Doom.
I guess when the author cleans out his garage in the real world, it spawns a whole new set of ideas, especially if you're a writer. An 80 year old man cleaning out his garage. Next thing you know, the man is in Xanth. There's a fountain of youth, a love spring, a magic talent, and a girl. Oh, and a dog is brought along, because who would leave Mundania without a dog? (Cat people: hush.). Oh and the demons are back with their games. Go figure.
The two previous novellas lay the ground work for this story. To Be a Woman was written as a separate story. Flytrap is a sequel in a way to both it and Shepherd, but mostly to Shepherd. It was noted that Flytrap was reviewed in July, so presumably that's the galley read through by Anthony, making it a June-July novel. See the August 2012 newsletter, where the sequel was announced.
Flytrap was originally offered by Premier Digital Publishing (PDP) 19 December 2012. As far as I'm aware, there is no print media version available. I read the August 2013 collection The Metal Maiden.
Mona mind exchanges to a planet with a human colony. Her host is a pregnant woman. It's the same planet as the telepathic sheep, and Mona knows the android who got married. This novella wraps up some loose ends introduced by Shepherd. It ends on a cliff hanger and the story is concluded in Awares.
Awares was reported as complete in the September 2012
newsletter, and was first published on 19 December 2012 by Premier
Digital Publishing. As far as I'm aware, there is no print media version
available. I read Awares
in the August 2013 The Metal Maiden
collection by Open Road Integrated Media. This is the conclusion to
the series.
An aware is a human chameleon, one who is so aware of their surroundings that they blend in, physically and socially. The emancipated android of To Be a Woman, later appearing in Flytrap, discovers the plot for an alien invasion from a planet of telepathics and must find a way to rescue Earth.
The work on this anthology was first announced in the November 2010 newsletter, and finished in December 2010, a collaboration with Evan Filipek. I read the 1 February 2013 Fantastic Planet Press trade paperback edition, an imprint of Eraserhead Press. The cover art is by Alan M. Clark. The March 2013 newsletter has a description of it, including that Anthony had to pay for it to be published, (explaining the delay in publication).
One and Wonder puts together ten stories of classic science
fiction. These are the stories that Anthony has mentioned in his author's
notes and biographies as influential in getting started as a writer,
espeically The Equalizer
. According to his autobiographies, he
originally tried to draw and paint before he engaged writing, and finished
his bachelor's degree in creative writing. One of the Asimov stories I had
lost, when selling my collection to pay for rent after the dot-com crash,
was included in this collection (the first of Asimov's robot stories).
The January 2013 newsletter indicates that Dragon Assassin was half complete by the writing of the newsletter, finished after The Twitter Collection in January 2013. I began reading it from the back of the print edition of Aladdin Sins Bad.
First published 5 March 2013, I read the Amazon, CreateSpace 28 August 2014 paperback edition. It has beautiful cover art of a woman with long hair with a sword, and man to the side, also with a sword, and a castle in the background. That's a good enough sense of the story. In a way, this felt like early Spenser novels from Robert B. Parker, but when Spenser was having a bad month, wasn't quite on his game at least with the ruffling feathers games he played to find out the who-dunnit. This is a who-dunnit, like Spenser going to the Terry Brooks Magic Kingdom, the dragon game. OK, enough silly mixed story references. This was an engrossing story, typical Anthony but with J. R. Rain's investigative sensibilities. I can see why Anthony tried out WereWoman.
Adele Adair and the Misty Monsteris a Xanth story. Thirteen year-old Adele is part of a business to track monsters and capture them with her brother, who never listens to her. They find themselves in Xanth with the Lake Wails monster.
Aliena was announced in the January 2013 newsletter, and finished by the author in February 2013, (see the March 2013 newsletter). It was written after the collaboration Dragon Assassin. It was also the sixth work of Anthony's without a print edition, first published by Premier Digital Publishing, 24 June 2013. I read the Open Road Integrated Media Amazon 2014 Kindle edition.
Aliena is about an Alien symbiant in a beautiful woman host. They fall in love with a man she lives near, then things go wrong and the human host rejects the alien. The alien must join with another human. Will her lover accept her with a new body?
Following are thoughts that came to mind as I licensed my second ebook, for a cost for the first time. If you only want to know about Aliena, skip the rest of this entry.
Aliena is the first book I licensed for electronic use for a cost. That's not to say I don't have electronic books, mainly public domain or free of charge, (my second Amazon Kindle book, the first of which I got on a zero-cost deal). See, I have some issue with the exhorbitant prices of an ebook versus a printed book. A printed book has the cost of the paper, the binding, distribution, and advertising. There's something about the feel of a printed book in your hands in a nice looking arrangement and cover. An electronic book you have to read on your own device, and it costs the distributor and publisher almost next to nothing for one copy versus thousands. That's not to say an ebook doesn't cost for typography, editing, copy editing, advertising, and a hosted sphere (if digitally locked by anti-copying encryption, otherwise copying can proliferate without traceable cost once the first copy is distributed).
Certainly, services cost a little more, such as Amazon, because of keeping the book on its services. Amazon downloads on to the Kindle, or Kindle app, on 3 allowed devices (so you can read on your phone on the run, and on your tablet at home). It's when the cost of the ebook becomes similar to the printed version that I raise an eyebrow and have refused to purchase a license for such texts. College text price gouging I find especially problematic. My guess, from newsletter comments, is that the author doesn't agree. Remember the days when we all recognized that a printed book was nicer, and more compact, to read than a Xeroxed copy (and certainly less effort than hand written)? There was motivation that was natural, and fair use laws made more sense in this context. So though I neither believe that software or writing (or art) should not be subject to copyright (at least the idea of plagiarism seems ethical, and societely beneficial, to protect against, one of the seven copy rights, though that seems like a public benefit too), I am convinced that copyright of the type we practice today (not the original constitutional concept) is deeply flawed and creates all sorts of problems in the digital age. The Lockean land ownership analogy no longer applies, and the social contract has become digitally duplicitous in favor of publishers, not the public nor the author (the original social copyright contract).
Aliena came about when I was on a holiday with my family and realized I had forgot the Anthony novel I was reading at the time. I was aware that Anthony had works that had never made print, and were only available in electronic format. I got on my tablet, saw Aliena for $2.99 and figured that was a winner. I enjoyed the book while enjoying my vacation. Other Anthony ebooks I've got when specials are run that let me get the book for the right price.
Odd Exam was developed in May 2012 and written in June 2012 after the author finished Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman. It was first published with Premier Digital Publishing 25 August 2013, and is the third novella that never saw print publication, being only published electronically. I read the Open Road Integrated Media Amazon 2014 Kindle edition.
A virtual reality college entrance exam becomes more as this multiplayer game becomes recognized as a real existence on another world, fighting others and alien monsters, and along the way falling in love and dealing with romance. I really enjoyed this story, my favorite so far of the ebook-only novellas.
The March 2011 newsletter announced its writing, and the consideration for Amazon publication. Amoebe was finished in April. It was written on PCLinuxOS with OpenOffice. I read the 13 September 2013 Premier Digital Publishing (PDP) paperback edition, copyright 2011.
Trail Mix: Amoeba is about Tod who finds a magic forest trail, right at his office door, which then follows him home. This idea reminds me of Stephen King's Drawing of the Three, where after Roland's chase of the man in black, he discovers a door, with a door knob and frame, but nothing else, as if it is calling him to open it and walk through. So he does. It starts out somewhat like his Geodyssey stories, finding a trail and meeting a prehistoric woman, then gets more into science fantasy with a small, bug eyed monster they call Bem, then straight into fantasy with a sexy vamping vampire who vamps Tod then doesn't stop, vamp of course being a euphamism. The vampire was a bit over-the-top at first but the character settled in as the story progressed. Then others are met along the way and the purpose of the trail becomes clear. I'm liking the main approach: 10 chapters and ten stories, all of which follow the same format (perhaps similar to Eroma), and in a way a short version of the early ChroMagic trilogy i.e. of a digestable size. This was great for night time reading.
Trail Mix 2: Beetle Juice was announced as a possible sequel to Trail Mix: Amoeba in the March 2011 newsletter, and confirmed being finished in May in the May and June 2011 newsletters. Odd that it was a possible sequel as it was the original planned story, according to the author's note, Trail Mix: Amoeba being more like a prequel to give Trail Mix 2: Beetle Juice its foundation. Curiously, Trail Mix 2: Beetle Juice has nine chapters, not ten. I read the 13 September 2013 Premier Digital Publishing (PDP) paperback edition, copyright 2011.
Wetzel is introduced at the end of Trail Mix: Amoeba, a were unicorn, and handsome male that has telepathy. The story starts with background on Wetzel, and moves straight into sex. The mission, the main directive of the plot, doesn't become clear until about half way into the book. Trail Mix 2: Beetle Juice is a story heavy on character and theme, especially Wetzel and the preservation of a species against poachers.
Dolfin Tayle was started in August, and finished in September, of 2013. See the September 2013 HiPiers newsletter. That seems to have been written quite quickly, so makes me wonder if it was started earlier than August. Relationships 6 was written inbetween the collaborative efforts with J. R. Rain on Dolfin Tayle, finished after Dolfin Tayle and before his later follow up novel Aliena Too.
First published 29 September 2013, I started reading Dolfin Tayle from the back of the Amazon edition of Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman, where the first chapters are provided as an enticement to buy. I finished reading the 28 August 2014 Amazon CreateSpace paperback, with unattributed cover art of a dolphin and a human swimming in the water. The on-demand print date was 3 November 2018.
The dolphin, Azael, is a young female dolphin, orphaned from her pod during a human fishing expedition. Tayle is a human girl that is contacted by Azael, and becomes involved in an adventure to save the world. I have always felt strongly with Anthony about environmental issues and our interelationships with other animals and the biosphere.
Are other animals people? This is a curious assumption in the story that has got me thinking. We have such difficulty with diversity in human society. We feel estranged and sometimes assaulted by those different than us. Perhaps the next societal evolution of humanity will be in recognizing sapience in species in their context, such as in dolphins, but perhaps also horses, dogs, cats, and so on. Yet not only sapience, but the feeling sensitivities of other living creatures in general.
Dolfin Tayle shows a profound, and simple, sensitivity in portraying other animals, as well as children, in their experience. This is a strength of Anthony's work, but I find that the collaboration with J. R. Rain has only enhanced Anthony's writing and story telling.
One thing I noticed more consciously with this book, and somewhat with Dragon Assassin, was something also noticed with Anthony's collaboration with Philip Jose Farmer in The Caterpillar's Question: a kind of bait-and-switch between the authors as they wrote chapter(s) and left things off for the collaborator to follow up on, perhaps as they emailed each other the next segment of the story. It's almost too much, a kind of cliff-hanger chapter ending that breaks the reader's suspension of disbelief, and thus became stopping points in my reading, not cliff hangers to move forward with. However, it was a small thing, perhaps not worth the writing of this paragraph.
Esrever Doom was written after Aladdin Sins Bad, beginning in August 2011. The submission draft was finished in November 2011. Esrever Doom (Mood Reverse spelled backwards) is Xanth #37, the last Tor book from Anthony, and the first written from scratch with LibreOffice on Fedora Linux. Did something about the Macmillan buy-out of Tor not go over well, or did Xanth-onlyism finally get to be too much for Anthony? I read the Tor October 2013 first edition hard cover with jacket art by Judie Dillon. Darrell K. Sweet has been doing covers for Anthony across publishers for years, so this is an Anthony staple that has changed. The map print does not fit the entire page, unique to this volume, but the same map as previous Xanth books. The sequel is Board Stiff.
Kody finds himself in hospital, then wakes up in Xanth. He begins a quest to find his way back to Mundania, but earns his keep along the way in Xanth. Reversal seems to be a theme as of late. The Good Magician Humphrey doesn't seem to be immediately involved. The beginning is fascinating and immediately brought me into the story. Esrever Doom is as good as any other Xanth.
I read the 20 January 2015 Open Road Integrated Media hardcover. This is a reprint of the Premier Digital Publishing (PDP) January 2014 edition, first printed 17 December 2013. Open Road Integrated Media bought PDP. When I got to the end of this edition, the last two paragraphs was missing. I have an email from the author with the missing text, which he noted, and later posted, in the April 2018 HiPiers newsletter, (yeah, I was the fan he mentioned there). My guess is current editions have been corrected. Board Stiff is Xanth #38. The sequel is Five Portraits.
Board Stiff was begun after Awares in August-September 2012, and interrupted for part of the Writer's Retweet series. Board Stiff was finished December 2012. It was finished on a new system76 Linux system, but using Fedora (not the pre-installed Ubuntu) with KDE. How does Anthony create a character that is a literal board and make it work with relationships, love, and all? I enjoyed the book.
Wood Knot Dewin Cautionary Tales. Though answered elsewhere, this essay directly addresses the difference between science fiction and fantasy (or science fantasy), or as Anthony sometimes states the difference between science fiction and SciFi. It also has an excercise for writers. It was written in 2011.
Jack and the Giants is a collaboration with J. R. Rain,
started in February of 2014. See the March and April 2014 HiPiers
newsletters. First published 11 June 2014 by J. R. Rain's private press,
I read the 20 August 2014 Amazon CreateSpace print-on-demand paperback,
with unattributed cover art of a castle and bean-stalk flourish around
the title. The jacket art has the title as Jack & the Giants,
but the rest of the block (that is the part of the book that is not
the cover) is and
, which reflects the real title. I suspect the
ampersand was stylistic art to emphasize the word Jack
and the
word Giants
.
Jack and the Giants is a bit of a romp, not only in plot, but in how each chapter seems to build up, or digress, depending on how you look at it, into new parts of the story. The fun really is in the beginning where Jack can't keep his eyes off the receptionist at his job, which he is fired from, and thus loses the hope that maybe she really had been interested in him. If fantasy were to be reality, they'd hook up and find a way to make that work. I can't tell whether this story suffers from the back-and-forth exchange of writing between the authors, a writing process that Anthony seemed to latch on to with The Caterpillar's Question. (Maybe I'm only imagining that this is how it was done.) The romp, the what's-happening-next plot development, and some macabre fantasy elements are unified under this simple question: does the lovely receptionist and Jack get brought together and find a way to stay so?
Descantin the electronic Fantasy Scroll Magazine, September 2014, #3. The April 2014 HiPiers newsletter claimed this was available in March 2014 direct from the publisher (now defunct). See the January 2015 newsletter for a description. Still obtainable from Amazon. A new king of Xonia, Hubert must sing at ceremony hosted by his rival in a border dispute. He annouces a duet, and it is to be the rival king's daughter.
Five Portraits was written out-of-band, not long after Board Stiff, and right on the heels of Aliena, finished in May 2013. Perhaps being in-band was a once-per-year requirement of publishers, and with the move to Open Road Integrated Media, that restriction is at least less strict. I believe right after the collaboration Dragon Assassin. Five Portraits is Xanth #39.
I read the Open Road Integrated Media 20 January 2015 hardcover edition. As with Board Stiff, I have no idea who did the cover illustration (on the actual hard back: there's no dust jacket). Three novels with Open Road Integrated Media were first published with Amazon as a batch at the beginning of January: Five Portraits, WereWoman, and Cautionary Tales.
A basilisk becomes human, gets a soul, and rescues five children from Xanth's future, a future where apparently Xanth will cease to exist (is the author preparing us for his death?). Meanwhile, the pun virus of the previous book that nearly whipes out Xanth still has some residual after effects.
It was prepped in May 2013 and written in that June, following Five Portraits. WereWoman was written at the suggestion of Anthony's collaborator, J. R. Rain, (see the June 2013 newsletter). I read the 21 October 2014 Kindle ebook from Open Road Media. I'm not sure why Open Road Integrated Media doesn't credit the cover art to the Anthony novels.
WereWoman is a Noir fantasy about a shape changing for hire detective who specializes in supernaturals. A witch hires the detective to find the murder of a warlock. This leads to the murder trail of other supernaturals and sexual intrigue that is a constant in the story. The July 2017 HiPiers newsletter notes the possibility of a sequel, with a working title of E Motion. However, nothing seems to have come of it.
As a side note, relating to the June 2013 newsletter. There's no connection with WereWoman other than this is the newsletter where the writing of the novel was announced. Instead, there's a comment in that newsletter about Jennifer Odom who was killed in a field, taken there after leaving her bus stop on the way home from school. At the time, the murderer was unknown, and as far as I know, it was never mentioned who that actually was. In 2023, Jeffery Norman Crum was charged with her murder based on matching up DNA evidence from other similar crimes he had commited. Now you know.
It appears to have been finished in July 2013, and a note in the August 2013 newsletter gives details. This was assembled after WereWoman was completed. I read the Open Road Integrated Media 21 October 2014 Amazon Kindle ebook edition.
Cautionary Tales is a collection of short stories and essays. Each story or essay is prefaced to indicate if there's something to watch out for, in case the reader wishes to skip reading that story (or essay). It was not as bad as I thought from the title, though a couple stories were a bit intense. Basically, this comes down to Anthony has stories that don't fit the main stream market. It's not clear why he's shy about it in this volume as opposed to previous, e.g. Anthonology and Alien Plot.
In some ways, I like this about face in returing to shorter works. Anthony hit the pinnacle of size with his ChroMagic series: huge quarter million word tomes. Unfortunately, there's stories building up again that haven't been published or collected in the same way as Cautionary Tales. I'd rather read small novels that are actually published, than know there are stories out there I can't read at all, (e.g. Prostho Minus!). There's also a bunch of one-off stories that get into a magazine or anthology which won't be available for some time, if at all, or are difficult or too expensive to find.
Published works have commentary in their respective web note elsewhere on this, and the previous, web page. Following are notes on previously unpublished works found in this volume. Initial sales are noted for where they were to be published, but those dates and publications don't always match up and Anthony doesn't seem to have kept track.
Adult Conspiracywas written before Harpy Thyme, where the second chapter seems to solidify the torpedo as canonical by referencing it.
Root Pruningwas written in 2006. The note claims an amateur (typically fan) magazine, in this case unspecified. A small, biographical essay on answering what it takes to be a successful writer.
Privyis about an outhouse that's not been used in decades, yet stinks worse than an in-use outhouse.
Religionwas noted in the February 2013 newsletter. The editor's website is teachnotpreach.com, but reading the contents list, I'm not sure if Anthony's essay was accepted.
The Author's Note mentions essays that are not included, nor otherwise
published. As follows: Syntax of Dreams
(an essay on an idealized
last lecture), Blockhead
(a speech about being a blockhead for not
always writing for money given at a convention), Ten dollar bill
(another convention speech about a ten dollar bill given to someone but
they have to share it with someone else, i.e. share it, meaning a part
of it is allowed, no explanation having to be given).
Star Man was begun in August 2013 (see the September 2013 newsletter), and was finished in 22 November 2013 as Aliena Too, after the collaboration with J. R. Rain, Dolfin Tayle. I read the Open Road Integrated Media Amazon Kindle edition, published 21 October 2014. I have no idea who did the cover illustration, design, (or clip art?).
Aliena is a sapient star fish, an alien from outer space that interacts with humans as a symbiant. Aliena helps a woman in Aliena Too to rescue her dying husband, except the tide turns: it is not the mind of the lover that is preserved, but the body. Can Aliena learn to love a new mind in her husband's body? Can she teach the host to know how to love her back?
The author's note indicates the possibility of a sequel about Aliena's child, but at least so far has not been written.
Cuisine to Die Forin The Horror Zine, December 2014 A man and a woman fall for each other at the Fat Farm, where a miracle diet to help them lose weight is administered.
Written around Captive, Lavabull was started March 2015, finished May 2015, and first published as a J. R. Rain publication with Amazon 6 October 2015. I read the 16 December 2015 Crop Circle Books paperback. See the April-June 2015 HiPiers newsletters. In the May newsletter is confirmation of the every-other-chapter writing. Their next collaboration after Lavabull is The Worm Returns.
Anthony and J. R. Rain seem to be playing with differing genre types, this one being a super hero novel about a shape shifting lava girl, and a minotaur-like half-bull. They hook up and become a superhero team, and ultimately lovers. All they want to do is help people.
As a note, at one point Anthony describes a computer logic gate. Yes, he prefaces it by saying it's a vague understanding, and I think that preface has merit, even if it's blamed on the character's vagueness. However, a logic gate is not like a traffic light exactly. It's a counter. It's a fundamental building block of how the computer stores data, whether in a register, memory, or cold storage. It controls the flow of electric current (perhaps where the traffic light fits). When it's on, it closes the gate, when off it opens it. After all, a computer is a sophisticated calculator. This provides a binary count of 0 and 1 (or 1 and 2). Two logic gates can thus store four numbers 0-3, (this doubled collection is sometimes called a nibble, or half a byte, where a byte's word size is 8 bits or 4 logic gates). I myself may have a vague understanding, not being an electrical engineer, but that is what came to mind reading this part of the book.
Hello Hotelis visited by Eric when his flight is cancelled at the airport. He identifies the sign
Hell tel, laughing at him with the missing letters:
O Ho. A relevant portent for an atheist.
Aorta's Artin the Horror Zine, December 2015. See the November-December 2015 HiPiers newsletters. The Weapon Shop is under threat from The Cartel. His His assistant is learning weapons from him as payment for her help. They're also falling for each other. Maybe they can hold off The Cartel together.
Neris was begun in January 2014 and announced in the January 2014 newsletter regarding making notes (meaning the notes were from December 2013). It was finished in January too, but I suspect some editing bled into February. After Neris, some short stories were written, and then the Xanth novel Isis Orb.
I read the 30 June 2016 Excessica Kindle edition. The cover art is green with a photo in the background of a waterfall, with a (presumably) nude woman in the foreground, sitting with her knees held to her chest. As with other electronic publications of this period, the cover art is unattributed.
Neris is the story of the male half-god son of the Old Man of the Sea, the Greek god Nereus, and his human mother. The beginning of the novel puts it right into the porn category, with a sex scene worthy of Pornucopia, but then settles down into a more common Anthony fantasy story. The theme is a worthy one: industrial polution and environmental sabotage due to greed.
As noted in the July 2016 HiPiers newsletter, there was supposed to be a sequel about Siphon, called Siphon's Soul, but I've not heard a word about it since.
The Worm Returns is a collaboration with J. R. Rain, written during the writing of Soul of the Cell. See the December 2015 HiPiers newsletter for the announcement, and the January 2016 newsletter for the submission draft read through making it the last thing written in 2015. Mentioned were two other projects in that newsletter, but it's not clear what, possibly The Worm Returns being one of them? I read the Crop Circle Books 5 April 2016 publication, the same imprint started with Lavabull, but with unattributed cover art of a gunslinger shooting at the reader, the bullet shown in mid-flight, over the background of a 19th century western US town.
The Worm Returns is about the gunslinger Bad Buffalo that shoots a magical sprite's acorn. The sprite realizes that Buffalo's sharp shooter accuracy can help her to save the Earth from the loss of magic. So she recruits him to shoot the worm holes closed that allow the eaters of magic through to Earth. The adventure goes from there, until Buffalo realizes that her influence on him is having a good affect on his attitude. I had fun with this story, its humor, and light, unique take on fantasy. J. R. Rain is a good callaborator for Anthony.
I read the eXcessica epub novella, published April 2016. The author's note indicates the idea is from the beginning of 2015, started in March, and finished in April with 32,000 words. (See the April and May 2015 and June 2016 newsletters.)
An 18 year old son of a wealthy family is abducted for ransom. He falls in love with his 20-something female captor, persisting through her imprisonment, but the prologue makes clear there's more going on here.
The first thing that stands out is an 18-year-old might talk like this with a high-school education if exposed to a deeper vocabulary and education, but a mid-20s female without a high-school education will not. This is an occasional problem for Anthony, where his writing style and the communication style of his characters are too similar, though perhaps I miss it more often as it isn't obvious when I'm immersed. Captive caught me early on, but was enough that to have suspension-of-disbelief required imagining the dialogue as paraphrasing, or description, not what was actually said. The first chapter explains a rehearsed dialogue, but even that in the prison scene didn't gel with the prison environment that dialogue would require. This seems like a discontinuity that breaks reading immersion.
As the story progresses, it fits in with the Relationships erotic themed stories. Was this one too big for that collection? It seems like a frat boy's day dreaming, being kidknapped by a more than willing woman. The use of rotating flash back chapters reminds me of Anthony's first novel Chthon, which had a complicated three rotating flash forward, present, flash back, sequence that rotated by approaching the present in the center of the novel then passing it by and reversing back and forward again, except this is much, much simpler, and easy to follow.
I read the 24 May 2016 FIDO publishing epub edition. See the June 2016 newsletter for the announcement. The author's note description has the idea notes begun 24 October 2014, started on 23 November, and finished three weeks later in December 2014, (see the January 2015 HiPiers newsletter, at the beginning, for the annoucement of its completion after Pira). The cover is unattributed with a picture of a brick with three holes next to a framed picture of a brick with four holes. It also has the copyright notices similar to Pira's eXcessica edition. Is FIDO an imprint?
Noah's Brick is a child's story. Anthony is good with these. I really liked his Balook and Pandora Park, and Noah's Brick is on par with them. Following Anthony's penchent for naming that represents the character, Noah is a play on the Biblical character. What seems like a fantasy turns into science fiction (or science fantasy as Anthony would likely prefer). He takes a couple of short cuts in explaining things away for the sake of the story pacing, but it works. Things are getting more dire with the environment, as predicted in the 1970s, and Anthony is becoming more urgent with his awareness of it in his writing.
The first notes were drafted 6 April 2015, a more complete summary written in May, then the first draft started 13 August and finished two weeks later. Hair Power was written in August 2015 entire, after the collaboration Virtue Inverted (which was finished after Lavabull). I read the Dreaming Big Publications 5 July 2016 paperback with cover art by Mac Hernandez. Hair Power is the first novella in a trilogy, though that was not originally planned. The sequel is Hair Suite.
An alien hair ball saves a suicidal young cancer patient from death. The alien is telepathic and becomes a symbiant with her to save her, but it wants something in return. This is a fun, saucy fantasy. It has a similar feel for me as Aliena.
The November 2011 newsletter indicated that Anthony was doing a new thing. Instead of having blog posts retweeted on his Twitter account (maintained by his blogger and publisher), he would have tweets that would be pieces of a story. In the end, that was five stories in all, averaging over 100 tweets per story, most finished in December 2011, but the last story, more of a novella taking up a majority of the book, was finished during the writing of Board Stiff. The completion of the final novella was announced in the January 2013 newsletter, and scheduled for tweeting throughout that year, and possibly into the next. In the June 2016 newsletter, it is noted the book was originally called The Twitter Collection. I read the Dreaming Big Publications 13 August 2016 edition paperback of Writer's Retweet, with cover art by Macario Hernandez III.
You can tell the paragraphs are small, but the stories follow from their own merit, and sometimes it seems that paragraphs contain several tweets as the book improves the typography and text layout. These are typical Anthony stories with a new publisher, Dreaming Big Publications, that was a common secondary publisher for him, the main one being Open Road Media.
The first print was individual stories published on Twitter. I wondered about separately documenting each story, but that felt like watching an author write a first draft publicly, and its not a cohesive whole strewen over several years of tweets. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.
The initial idea was recorded 6 July 2014. Pira was developed in August and written in September 2014. I read the Excessica, Amazon Kindle, 17 August 2016 edition with the typical unattributed cover art. The cover is a red background with the outline of a young woman, a blinding light eminating from her chest center, and an odd lace pattern around it.
One thing that is noted with Excessica is a lot of copyright
licensing statements: this is a work of fiction, it's for adults only,
the non-lawyerly all rights reserved
legally meaningless statement,
no copying, sharing, don't leave around minors, you will be sent to prison
for even non-monetary infringement. How anti-fair-use Elizabethan. I agree
with copyright benifiting author's, for a limited term, with
fair use and public consideration. However, our post-1950s international
copyright laws are a betrayal of our constitution's intent. For the
record, every copy of Anthony's work I have is licensed, and I have
followed copyright restrictions to the letter. Now that we've got that
of the way.
Pira starts as the story of a precocious little girl who is older than she looks, who matures faster than her age, who falls in love too quickly with our protagonist, perhaps so she is not only post-pubescent (what is the point of her looking younger than her age?), but of legal age (and perhaps functional propriety for the readers). Clearly, something is different about this girl, and her mother, and it is the unraveling of this difference that develops the plot.
I enjoyed the Judo scene from the chapter Judoka
. I imagine a
Japanese dojo would be more formal, but the description certainly matches
those in the US. Takes me back to Anthony's Jason Striker series. I like
that he remembers that level of detail so many years later, having been
out of the dojo.
See the November and December 2015, and January 2016 HiPiers
newsletters. The June 2016 newsletter mentions Soul of the Cell as
being published, but without indication when it was finished. I read the
eXcessica publishing, September 2016 Amazon Kindle epub, with obnoxious
copyright notices (yes, that's plural), and unattributed cover art. Though
I've ragged on eXcessica's epubs, I do have to note that their copyediting
seems to be solid, the epubs are readable, don't have many mistakes from
sloppy reliance on computer grammar and spelling checkers, and have good,
traditional paragraph separation and modern sentence spacing, and the
sexy THE END!
page with the back of a topless woman holding her
rear in tight jeans makes me smile each time.
Soul of the Cell seems to be one of the more obscure of Anthony's short novels. As with much Anthony has written in his self-publishing (and small or independent publishing) period, there's a lot of sex involved. However, this one rang true to its use in the story, being a critical part of it, not a mere distraction for entertainment. Soul of the Cell has hints of Anthony's earlier science fiction. Liberally educated adults are offered a chance at a project for a year's living wage, but they must behave as couples, randomly selected, with a final expected culmination. To what end?
Isis Orb was finished in June of 2014, after Jack and the Giants (see the January 2015 newsletter).I read the Open Road Integrated Media 18 October 2016 hardcover edition with cover design by Sarah Kaplan. The illustrations are to be unattributed. Isis Orb is Xanth #40. The sequel is Ghost Writer in the Sky.
It seems this took nearly as long as Tor did with their 1.5-2 year publishing cycle. A HiPiers newsletter points out this was due to an argument over licensing: Open Road Integrated Media wanted full copyright to be signed over. Anthony was ready to take Xanth elsewhere and move on, but they must have worked it out.
Hapless is looking for love. He's also looking for how to defeat the irony of his magic talent: the capability to conjure musical instruments, none of which he knows how to play. The Good Magician Humphrey, with the talent of information, sends him to get an orb from the goddess Isis, who naturally doesn't want to give it up. To control the orb, a totem from each of the five forbidden regions of Xanth must be retrieved.
Service Goat was written in June and July of 2016. It appears to have been finished after Fire Sail. See the July 2016 newsletter. I read the Dreaming Big Publications 6 December 2016 paperback, with cover art by Macario Hernandez III. This is a novella and seems to be Anthony's new (old original?) normal.
Service Goat is about a goat with mysterious powers. It also has alien UAPs. (The terminology has since changed, so that an unidentified flying object (UFO) is now unidentified anomalous or aerial phenomenon, with the new acronym UAP.) A blind girl, Caladia, the victim of a freak car accident, that turns out to have been an alien space craft. It too, for the same freak reason, crashes. The aliens want to explore Earth and need a willing human to help. It's a fun, light, quick read.
In the author's note is mentioned a stagnating collaboration. I believe this was Magenta Salvation, which seems to have picked up shortly after.
The Shellin the Horror Zine, December 2016.
The Shellis about a mysterious shell, and the beginnings of a love story. See the December 2016 HiPiers newsletter.
Hair Suite was finished in August 2016. See the July and August 2016 newsletters for more details. Hair Suite appears to have been finished after Service Goat. I read the 21 December 2016 Dreaming Big Publications paperback with cover art by Mac Hernandez. This is the second book of a trilogy. The conclusion is Hair Peace.
The Hair Balls have set up an embassy. Now another alien species, a kind of cyborg called the Chip Monks, wants to conquer Earth, and the Hair Balls intend to save it. Yeah, it's kinda silly, and typical Anthony sexy fantasy.
In the Shadow of the Songin Relationship 7. It was written in May 2015. See the June 2015 HiPiers newsletter. A car crash leads to an unusual school recital duet with a mysterious, but warm diplomatic figure.
The Journey is mentioned as in progress in the January and February 2017 HiPiers newsletters, finished in February as mentioned and described in the March 2017 newsletter. I read The Journey, the last collaboration with J. R. Rain, a paperback, published 10 March 2017 by Crop Circle Books, with beautiful, but unattributed, cover art showing a road through a forest, appearing to target a castle-like tower in the distance.
When Floyd reaches his eighteenth birthday, he is sent on a journey, required by every youth, to return with coming-of-age stories. This reminds me of what Latter-day Saint missionaries go through, spending two years of their life serving and proselyting others, (though likely without the sexual encounters).
The February 2017 newsletter is the one where I'm mentioned in context of a conversation regarding Jesus' existence. I've read and subscribed to The Humanist before, and it seems like a regular thing to try and wipe out the existence of the human being in Jesus in the midst of denying his divinity. Though it is certainly possible that Jesus is a legend based on the wild imaginings and experiences of later generations, it seems far more likely that the resurrection experience (whether or not that experience was materially real) was related by those who actually knew the man at one point. I suspect that the Jeshua of Christianity was a real human, but understand too that historicity by arguable secondary sources is suspect.
During the writing of the The Journey, two stories are mentioned as written in January. A third is mentioned as written in February, but Anthony was not satisfied with it. Then was the planning for Jest Right. See the January and February 2017 newsletters. Which were these stories? Relationships 7 notes that Tears of the Sun was initially finished in February 2017, though later revised in August 2017, not having the right song reference. The March 2017 HiPiers newsletter confirms this was the story. The Gantlet was also worked on (a draft finished?) in February, but is not mentioned in the March newsletter. Therefore, it's unclear what the two stories written in January 2017 are.
As to the collaborations with Rain, there was the beginnings of another story, later reported in the February 2020 HiPiers newsletter, but this is where Anthony's communication becomes irregular, following the death of his wife, and finally ceases work with other collaborators, of which Rain was the last.
Ghost Writer in the Sky was finished in March of 2015,
after Noah's Brick and some
short stories (e.g. Cuisine to Die For
), and before
Lavabull. See the end of the October 2014
HiPiers newsletter for the initial announcement. I read the 18 April
2017 Open Road Integrated Media hardcover edition with cover design by
Amanda Shaffer. It is Xanth #41.
A mysterious Mundane begins creating stories, innacted by the Night Colt during the day, that makes the inhabitants of Xanth carry out the stories, written in the sky. Meanwhile, other Mundanes find a portal into Xanth. That smells of the demons to me, but is it?
Mentioned in the August 2015 HiPiers newsletter, I suspect the
writing was finished in July 2015. I read the Dreaming Big Publications
18 July 2017 paperback, with cover art by Mitchell Davidson Bentley
titled The Good, the Bat & the Ugly
. The sequel is
Amazon Expedient.
Virtue Inverted is sword and sorcery fantasy, and might have made an interesting TTRPG framework. The multi-effect vampire bite lends an interesting change from the typical blood sucking immortal walking dead concept. It took me a bit to get into this novel, but it turned out OK. It's not Kelly's first novel, but his follow-up attempt. Anthony asked about it after reading his existing novel, and offered to help.
Relationships 6 was started in August 2013 with the stories
Feral Femme
and Cuddling and Kissing
. See the September
2013 newsletter. It was finished in December 2013. I read the Dreaming
Big Publications paperback edition from 22 April 2018 with the somewhat
saucy cover art, by Niki Browning of Peculiar Perspective Design, of a
shirtless man being embraced by a seductive but off putting woman with
long fingers and dangerous eyes. The following stories are included:
Pro-Tem. Summarized and written in September 2013. After a year of relationship, the liberal woman is now thinking of marriage. They need to find a way to make it work, after having originally agreed it was temporary and to remain unattached.
Mark of Moloch. The author was still not satisfied with the previous story's completeness. Written in a week, following
Mark of Moloch. The mission is to save a family of cave trolls.
Like previous efforts with his Relationships series, Anthony provides engaging, character driven stories. Yes, sometimes they're salacious, but always entertaining. The next volume is Relationships 7.
Amazon Expedient is mentioned in the November 2015
HiPiers newsletter, so I suspect was finished in early October.
Amazon Expedient is the sequel to Virtue
Inverted, a collaboration with Kenneth Kelly, labeled as book
II of the Pakk Series (though as far as I know it's a trilogy, and
never went further). I read the 3 May 2018 Dreaming Big Publications
paperback edition, with cover art by Mitchel Bentley of Atomic Fly
Studios: Amazon Detente
.
I read Virtue Inverted in the Fall of 2018. Starting Amazon Expedient over seven years later was a bit jarring. The first confusion was figuring out what a Pawben was. Pawben is introduced in the Preface and Epilogue of the first book. The first hint is he is a male human, who likes to smoke a pipe, who was remembering the Virtue story. Leafing through Virtue Inverted the Pawben doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else until the Epilogue. Hinting at the events of Chapter 13, this suggests that he is Benny, our protagonist, remembering the adventures he had, but recollected centuries later. I also couldn't find mention of the tortoise, which seems to be mentioned out-of-the-blue in Virtue Inverted's Epilogue. The little boy is Dale's grandson, whom the Pawben had promised Dale's son to watch after. There's also hints that the Pawben is a traveler between realms of existence. Virtue Inverted ends with a pet rat who is named Flack, and whom the boy wants the story of the original Flack as they make way for the tortoise's house. This is where Amazon Expedient picks up. This was all the reveal of the end of Virtue Inverted, so reading back to back this would probably seem obvious, otherwise the (re)reveal would have happened on its own upon finishing this novel.
I didn't pick up on it with Virtue Inverted, but is Kenneth Kelly a Pathfinder adventure gamer? Maybe my D&D and Pathfinder interests made me see feats and character class similarities, but this read like a simpler Dragonlance story. Amazon Expedient struck me as two story arcs in a campaign, the first moving towards a tournament, and the second a rising storm toward dominating the land of Pakk with war. It seems I picked up on the reveal towards the end of the story early on. It wasn't a spoiler, but predictable for those used to this kind of story. My kind of junk, as Anthony might say.
Hair Peace was written after Jest Right. See the January, October, and November 2017 newsletters. The writing was started formerly in September and finished in October. I am reading the 10 February 2019 Dreaming Big Publications paperback.
Magenta Salvation appears to have been finished in August 2016 (see the September 2016 HiPiers newsletter), and the submission draft in October. It was written after Hair Suite, but apparently took a bit longer than that to write. The next story Anthony wrote was a short novel called Self Image, which was finally placed in Relationships 8.
I read the Dreaming Big Publications 17 July 2019 paperback, with
cover art Spin Magic Vision
, by Mitchell Davidson Bentley. This
is the final book of the series. In the aftermath of the Kudgel army,
it's time to go North, to the Dwarvin stronghold, but everything goes
wrong, and the past of each of the characters catches up to them.
I am reading the 8 July 2019 Dreaming Big Publications trade paperback. Here's the story titles that were written before Hair Peace:
In the Shadow of the Song, the first idea was 30 July 2015, completed 11 February 2017 before Ghost Ensemble, but revised in August 2017 after Ghost Ensemble. See the February, March, and September 2017 HiPiers newsletters. The story takes place a year later, but this time Clive gets to sing, so does so with Stan's daughter.
the third story in a trilogy, thus a sequel to
Tears of the Sun.
The following stories were written in November 2017, after Hair Peace. See the December 2017 HiPiers newsletter.
Walk the Walkin Read the Read. A little girl is restricted to their new house until things get settled, but she encounters a little boy skeleton who looks lonely.
See part 4 for Anthony's current works.