From archive (archive) Subject: Out of Phaze by Piers Anthony From: djl@pbhye.UUCP (Dave Lampe) Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Date: 4 Jul 87 19:19:22 GMT This line deliberately left blank. OUT OF PHAZE by Piers Anthony Out of Phaze is the fourth book in the Apprentice Adept series. The first three Split Infinity, Blue Adept, and Juxtaposition form a self-contained trilogy. This book is takes place in the same universe, but twenty years later. While it could be read on its own, many of the references will be missed if you haven't read the first three. The story revolves around the sons of Blue and Stile who are drawn into the vendetta against their parents. Again the main characters change frame from Proton where science works to Phaze where magic does. This time they change minds, but their bodies remain in their home frame. This series is the one that I like best of any by Anthony and I am glad to see him return to Proton/Phaze. Although this book does reach a conclusion of sorts, it is obviously the start of a new series. A good book but not destined to be a classic. My recommendation would be to wait for the paper back to come out and then read it. Ace/Putnam ISBN 0-399-13272-4 $17.95 (hardcover) Dave Lampe @ Pacific Bell {dual,ihnp4,hoptoad}!ptsfa!djl (415) 823-2408 From archive (archive) Subject: Preview of "Green Mother" (no spoilers, long) Keywords: Piers Anthony, Michael Whelan, cover art From: granger@cg-atla.UUCP (Peter Granger ) Organization: Compugraphic Corp. Wilmington, MA Date: 4 Sep 87 16:07:11 GMT A friend of mine (thanks, Jo!) works for a distributor who recieved a copy of the jacket for _Being a Green Mother_ as a promo from Del Rey. She gave it to me, and I thought you sf-lovers might be interested. Since all this is on the book jacket, I don't think it's a spoiler. (Ahem...) Orb was the daughter of Niobe, who had relinquished her role as the Incarnation of Fate to have a daughter. For this was a world where magic was as real as science and where the Incarnations of Death, War, and others were drawn from human beings. But even in this world, the gift with which Orb had been born was rare. She had magic within her, manifesting whenever she sang or played her harp. None could resist the magic of her music. But still greater magic lay in the Llano, the mystic music that was said to control all things. The quest for the Llano had occupied her life and taken her all over the world, but she had found only a few tiny themes of the great music. Then she met Natasha. He was strikingly handsome, with a charm that she found irresistible, though he was scrupulously formal in her presence. And when he sang to her, she realized that he must have a greater magic than hers; unquestionably, he was an even finer musician. He began teaching her the music of the Llano which he had learned. He sang her the Song of Morning and the Song of Day. And she found herself falling completely in love with him. All seemed lovely, until Niobe came, again an Aspect of Fate. Her mother bore the news that Orb was to be chosen for the role of the Incarnation of Nature -- the Green Mother. And Niobe warned Orb of the prophecy that had been made years before -- that Orb was to marry Evil. Could she be sure that Natasha was not really Satan, the Incarnation of Evil, laying a trap for her? Satan was a master of illusion who could pass almost any test, apparently. And with the powers of Nature to add to his own, he could overcome the powers of Good. Orb believed she could be sure. But then she discovered too late that she was wrong... ************** For your further enjoyment, here is the traditional bit of story from the back of the jacket: TO MARRY SATAN! Orb brought out her harp and propped the music against a tree before her. She began to play it, and the song took her, its magic manifesting. There was power... Suddenly the scene changed. Instead of the plain, there was now a kind of church, except that instead of religious symbols, there were demonic ones; instead of comforting or esthetic stained-glass scenes, there were depictions of torture and misery. Satan appeared. He was red, with small flames playing about his limbs and glowing horns and tail. He turned to gaze at Orb, and his eyes were windows to Hell, flickering with passion and violence. "Now you will marry me!" he proclaimed. "Never!" Orb retorted. But fear washed through her. The prophecy had said she was to marry Evil. And Satan was Evil Incarnate! ************** Even if you don't like the series or the author, take a look at the book when it comes out. Michael Whelan did the cover, as for the first four. He has gone beyond anything he's done before. Orb is even more beautiful than Niobe (_With a Tangled Skein_) or Friday (_Friday_), which are also by Whelan. This is not just a great cover painting, it's a great painting. _____________________________ My opinions, that's all. | Pete Granger Compugraphic doesn't care | a.k.a. Ghostwheel about any silly sf! | decvax!cg-atla!granger From archive (archive) Subject: Vale of the Vole (by Piers Anthony) Review Summary: Enjoyable read Keywords: puns, good guys win, magic, Xanth From: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va. Date: 12 Oct 87 20:38:28 GMT VALE OF THE VOLE Piers Anthony Avon Books US$3.95, Canada$4.95 October 1987 ISBN 0-380-75287-5 324 pages, Paperback (****) Your eye is caught first by a very good wrap-around cover painting by Darrell Sweet, whose style is starting to become recognisable and desireable in itself. The publisher blunders badly by stating on the back cover "The start of a thrilling new Xanth trilogy", when, as all loyal fans know, this is merely volume 10 in the _only_ Xanth trilogy, the volume Anthony promised he wouldn't write until he fleshed out his anemic Apprentice Adept trilogy with a least a fourth volume. He's done that, so the nearly unbearable wait since GOLEM IN THE GEARS is finally over. The puns are redolent as ever, like Limburger cheese an acquired taste. In fact, a couple of these top all but a couple of Spider Robinson's Callahan's Saloon stinkers. Apply clothspin to nose, dive in! The story is typical of the series: Baddies are causing mischief in some part of Xanth, a new set of hero(ine)s is introduced and old characters assist in setting things to rights. This story has the most animal like character yet, Varley Vole. There are broad hints of sexual activity, fortunately all offstage (I haven't yet forgiven Anthony his Cluster series), although some of the preliminary groping is explicit. Visits to the land of dreams via the hypnogourds, treks down magic paths, exploration of strange realms, and all the other stock (and beloved) parts of a Xanth novel are right in place. If you've developed the habit, or want to know what all the discussion is about, this is a good place to start. Recommended. Kent, the man from Xanth. From archive (archive) From: samhend@cs.vu.nl (Hendriks Sander) Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam Subject: Piers Anthony (was Re: Forensic Magic) Date: 11 Nov 88 14:06:04 GMT In article <4122@okstate.UUCP> brazell@a.cs.okstate.edu (Kyle Brazell) writes: > > Many of my friends have a low opinion of PA's works, I was wondering if this >is a common feeling or are they just wierd? My father recently brought me 'Heaven Cent' from Piers Anthony's Xanth series and I loved it! It was really funny if you ever wondered how Polymorph Self should work, this book gives an excelent explanation. So far this is the only PA book i have read, so a can't say anything about the Immortalities series. Sander Hendriks (samhend@cs.vu.nl) Free University Amsterdam the Netherlands From rec.arts.sf.written Sun Nov 15 13:32:55 1992 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!kth.se!sunic!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!news.netmbx.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!math.fu-berlin.de!news.belwue.de!ira.uka.de!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Anthony: Mercycle Message-ID: <1992Nov14.030807.24221@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1992 03:08:07 GMT Lines: 39 I spotted Piers Anthony's "Mercycle" in a used book store and (don't ask me why) let my curiosity get the better of me. I should have read the author's note first. It turns out to be one of the books Anthony was unable to sell back when he had to sell a book on its own merits. Anthony's description of the improvements he made in the manuscript makes it clear that the original was actually much worse.) The cover art -- a youth or young man on a bicycle, underwater, looking at a naked mermaid swimming by -- is true to the story. It's meant to be science fiction, btw, not fantasy: The mermaid represents the first step towards adapting people to live on Jupiter. Really. (Yes, this is supposed to be taking place in the twentieth century.) There's not much point in going into detail about the story, not because it would be a spoiler -- we're told 80% of the secret fairly early, and the other 20% has little or no bearing on the story -- but because this is another Anthony a-small-group-of-people-travelling-together-experience-personal-growth story, and the setup is irrelevant. This book stands as further evidence that editors really do serve a function. (Not that this comes as a surprise. Whenever a name author reissues a book with the n-thousand previously cut words restored, it's a good bet that they were cut for a reason. In this case n represented the entire book, and the reason was good.) Why am I posting this? Isn't finding fault with a Piers Anthony novel breaking down an unlocked door? Well, not really. The usual problem with a Piers Anthony novel (aside from the fact that people sometimes forget that it's targetted at children) is that it's so similar to ten previous novels. For some people that's a plus. Even those people are advised to steer clear of this travesty. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you! -- Dorothy Parker From rec.arts.sf.written Mon Jul 12 15:06:05 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!olivea!charnel!rat!decwrl!csus.edu!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Anthony and Lackey: If I Pay Thee Not In Gold Message-ID: Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 03:43:32 GMT Lines: 21 I got "If I Pay Thee Not in Gold", by Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey, from the library. I was expecting the worst, of course, but I was morbidly curious. I was also in for a surprise: It was better than I expected. It reads like a superior (punless) Xanth novel: The plot is pure (and generic) Piers Anthony, and the writing is better than his usual. This isn't to say that you should run out and get this book. What it means is that if you like *Piers Anthony's* books, you should find this one better than most of his fantasies. Whether or not you like Mercedes Lackey's books will have little or no impact on whether you enjoy this one. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com 'T is with our judgements as our watches, none Go alike, yet each believes his own --Alexander Pope Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!netcomsv!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: roberts@mukluk.decus.ca (Rob Slade) Subject: "Phaze Doubt" by Anthony Message-ID: <009853FA.CDC6B1A0.5053-rasfr@mukluk.decus.ca> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Organization: The Internet Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 18:57:10 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 78 "Phaze Doubt", Piers Anthony, 1990, 0-441-66263-3, U$5.95 The Phaze/Proton series is a combination of fantasy and science fiction, so Anthony doesn't have to be accountable for much. In this, the last (oh, please!) of the series, though, he falls prey to "fiction series disease": the overwhelming urge to explain mistakes you made earlier. Proton/Phaze has been portrayed as having the south pole pointed towards the sun, and yet has light overhead everywhere. This, explains Anthony, is because Phaze/Proton is a hollow shell surrounding a black hole. The black hole, as everyone knows, sucks light into itself so that light falls straight down onto the surface of the planet. In fact, because of some other diddling earlier in the series, Proton/Phaze is a half-sphere. Presumably this means the half shell is in orbit around the black hole. Black holes do not "suck" light. (At least they don't in our universe and this is where the book is set. No magical help, this time.) A black hole is a gravitational field which is so intense that the orbital velocity; the speed an object must travel in order to stay in orbit; meets or exceeds the speed of light. This means that light which is close enough to a black hole will not be able to escape: it cannot go faster than the speed necessary to maintain an orbit. However, gravitational intensity decreases, the further you are from the source of the field. Therefore, light further away from the black hole, while it may be bent by the gravity sink, will not be "pulled in". Let us consider the gravitational strength of a black hole. The space shuttle flies in a fairly low orbit, low enough that we can, for purposes of calculation, say that it orbits at the level of the earth's surface. The shuttle flies about 40,000 times slower than the speed of light. Therefore, if the earth were to become a black hole, the gravity would be strong enough to smear everyone into a paste. A black hole can be made arbitrarily small, and therefore it is possible to postulate a black hole which, at a planetary distance, generated a gravity of only one G force. However, (1) such a black hole would be vanishingly (you should pardon the expression) small; and, (2) a one G force wouldn't have much impact on light. Ah, but what if the Phaze/Proton-on-the-half-shell is in orbit about the black hole? Well, leaving aside the difficulty of landing on such an object, there are three problems. The first is that such an arrangement would have almost no stability in terms of staying right side out. The second is that, although you could make the orbit arbitrarily fast in order to counter an arbitrarily strong gravity, you would be subject to tidal forces because of varying distances from the centre of the orbit. At the very least, people on mountain tops would weigh less than those in the valleys. At the worst, the most likely case when you are talking about gravity strong enough to bend light, Proton/Phaze residents would have feet weighing several tons while their heads were attempting to fly into space. (Anything lifted above the head would likely make it.) The third problem relates to the poles. I know that Anthony postulates four, but I am talking about the real two on the spin axis. These would have no centrifugal boost, and gravity would therefore be correspondingly stronger. However, the problems of characters being immobilized by weight at the poles would not last long: the poles, themselves, would tend to collapse inward. The problem of running a mining operation on a thin-shelled planet is left as an exercise to the reader. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKPHZDBT.RVW 940523 %A Anthony, Piers %T Phaze Doubt %I Ace Books/The Berkley Publishing Group %C New York %D 1990 %G ISBN 0-441-66263-3 %O USD5.95 %S Phaze/Proton ============= Vancouver p1@arkham.wimsey.bc.ca | "If a train station Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca | is where a train Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca | stops, what happens User p1@CyberStore.ca | at a workstation?" Security Canada V7K 2G6 | Frederick Wheeler Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news-in-east1.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!rpi!gatech!18.181.0.27.MISMATCH!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: Harriet Klausner Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Muse Of Art, by Piers Anthony Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 11 Jun 1999 14:14:23 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 32 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: harrietklausner@worldnet.att.net NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2369 MUSE OF ART by Piers Anthony Review Copyright 1999 Harriet Klausner From prehistoric times to some time in the future, the arts have been the distinguishing feature that sets humanity apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Whether it is prehistory, ancient Egypt, World War II on the German-Russian front, or even the twenty-first century, science and technology have also kept step with the arts. However, "tribal" conflicts (wars between countries) still plague humanity by 2024 when global annihilation begins in the small country of Tuva which is surrounded by Russia and Mongolia. MUSE OF ART, the fourth volume in Piers Anthony's Geodyssy series, is an interesting look at the history (including a future "history") of humankind through various short and short-short stories at different eras. Through it all, Mr. Anthony clearly demonstrates he fully relishes this project that summarizes the generalization that history repeats itself. Most of the periods never fully develop. This leaves readers to feel that they are missing out on something. Still, Mr. Anthony provides his audience with an intriguing look at the lessons of history that each generation ignores even as they rewrite the "facts" to fit their own needs. Historiography lives in Mr. Anthony's opus. Harriet Klausner %T MUSE OF ART %A Piers Anthony %I Tor %D May 1999 %O $26.95 %P 445 pp. %G ISBN 0-312-86896-0