Piers Anthony....The Source of Magic

I just finished it the other day, and started Castle Roogna...but, I'm quitting this guy.

The Source of Magic was...no offense to Anthony fans, but it was pretty bad, on a scale of 1-10, 5 being average, this rates at a 2. The storyline, if there is one, is pretty simple, and the adventure is totally worthless, because of the last 15 pages or so, you go full circle, and nothing gets accomplished.

As an aside, does this author have issues with woman?

And having characters comment on boobs. And notice boobs.


Even if a female creature is horrifically vile, Piers can still take time to point out that she has breasts. The harpy in A Spell for Chameleon, for instance. In that same book, the titular character (so to speak) also reflects upon the bodacious bosoms of a female centaur at one point.


Not a subtle guy, that Piers.

is that women are either thrown into two caste's

"worthless, to stupid to know any better, yet hot"

"Smart, hot, yet worthless to the man"

Very weird reading, the play on words was also quite hard for me to get over. Perhaps I'll give him another shot, with a different series, but so far, I have no inkling, desire, or emotional feeling towards any of the character, except Grundy, the Golem.

I had totally forgotten about it, but a woman I knew in the early 90s criticized his characterization of women in almost exactly the same terms that you just used. Kooky!

I kind of liked On a Pale Horse, but that's as much of the Incarnations series that I could readily stomach. In For Love of Evil, for instance, I seem to recall that he had a naked, voluptuous succubus thaw Ozymandias from his frozen prison in Hell by giving him an explicitly undulating lapdance.

"Stroke" fiction has a long tradition, of course, dating back to ancient times and beyond, but it wasn't really what I was looking for when I picked up the book.


Incidentally, Piers mentions repeatedly the succubus has big breasts.



If readers should happen to note my curious familiarity with Anthony's work, I disclaim that I had reason to page through that book recently after a friend mentioned another passage from it, in which the protagonist transforms into a duck for a long, cold journey across uncertain terrain.

I will say this, I admired his "xanth series" title: Crewel Lye -- A Caustic Yarn. Even so, I didn't actually read it.

I liked his older series: Omnivore, Orn and OX.

It didn't impress me enough to read anymore of that series.

I also read his novelization of Total Recall. The movie was better than the book. (Of course, Dick's short story was better than the movie.)