Anyone?,......Anyone?.......Well I love his novels. ON A PALE HORSE has to be one of his alltime best. His Incarnations of Immortality series is an awesome group of books, altogether. Followed by FIREFLY in a very close second.


Probably, most people haven't read the Firefly out of the two I've chosen. But this is an excellent book. It starts a little slow but it gets fantastic. That's one of the reasons I chose this as second. It does have quite a bit of a large portion about sexuallity and sexual tones, but it is a fantastic book for a read.

What can I say about On a Pale Horse? Well, this book was read by me about 10 yrs ago. I didn't read books til I borrowed this one from a friend. It's about a guy who aquires the position of death. He goes out and reads people's souls to determine whether or not they go to heaven or hell. He also has a battle with satan. It's a very intricate battle, it's got alot of mind games in it. This is all I can say really, I don't want to give the book away. But it is fantastic. It's the only book I've read twice, and the only book I've read three times.

I used to be into him, but got kinda tired of him. I never read the Immortality series. Read most of the Xanth series (probably about 20+ books), but after a while it got kinda tired.

Then I read the Phase series which I liked, especially the 'Game' aspect of it, but in retrospect I don't think it was a great series compared to others out there.

Since then I haven't tried any of his other books.

I used to be a big Piers Anthony fan, about 15 years ago. I read all of the existing Xanth and Immortality novels at that time. Then I got really, really, sick of his writing. It all became very formulaic, and fantastical when it didn't necessarily have to be.

I really liked On a Pale Horse, but I don't think he even knew what he was writing when he started writing it, it had a very chaotic beginning as far as trying to guess what kind of a world it was set in.

I used to read Piers. I read the Immortality-really cool, Phaze--pretty cool, Xanth--cool to begin with, then too much, and a series about a space tyrant. The last one was really good. Five books in the series and it goes from a boy on a refugee space ship, to him being a military leader, to planetary leader, to everything leader.

Like the others here, I wish I hadn't read so much Xanth. After the 15th or so, I couldn't read him anymore. That was about 10 years ago. The others are worth reading though.

I too burned out on the Xanth Series, but not on Piers Anthony. I just finished the Mode Series which is very cool. My favorite series, like PerpleNerple is the Incarnations of Immortality Series. I really like the idea that normal people can assume the roles of the incarnations of Death, Nature, War, etc... I just picked up Bio Of An Ogre and started reading it. A lot of who Piers Anthony really is, is contained in his author's notes at the end of his books, but I want to find out more. So far, only up to ch. 3 so far, it is pretty interesting.

-CM-

On a Pale Horse is one of my alltime favorite fantasy books. I loved the Immortality series and read most of Xanth, but I also disliked most of what he has written in the last few years and have stopped buying his books.

This is one of those authors that I've been meaning to check out for ever, but have never gotten around to. I'm sure everyone's got one or two authors like that on their list.

Maybe some of his stuff will get nominated for the book group. That would kind of force my hand a little bit and put one of his books ahead of some other stuff I have waiting.

I am such the fan. I have read every Xanth Novel at least twice. My absolute favorite is Ogre. Ogre. His writing style is facinating. Within the first pages you get captured in the writings

If anyone hasn't read the Firefly novel. They should give it a try. A most excellent book.

I've read all of the Xanth series, All of the Incarnations series, the "Battle Circle" Trilogy, The Virtual Mode trilogy, Through the Ice (w/ Robert Kornwise), If I pay thee not in gold (w/ Mercedes Lackey), and the Apprentice Adept series. I really love his stuff. I've never tried the Bio of a Space Tyrant series, but I did try Firefly. I think I may have been to young when I tried it, but I just couldn't get into it.

I have ONLY read his "On a Pale Horse" and it was awesome. I never saw the movie with Brad Pitt as Death, "Meet Joe Black" (I think) but the trailer reminded me of the Anthony book. Is the Brad Pitt movie any good? I think a special edition is coming out soon. Is it worth a buy or a rental?

I just recently purchased several Tolkein books and will be spending much time reading critical Middle Earth stuff for the time being, but I did really enjoy Anthony's "On a Pale Horse." I never read anymore of the series. What are the books in the "On a Pale Horse" series? Should I give them a read? What would be five critical Piers books you could recommend?

I tried to read the Xanth series, but gave up after the first three or four novels. I read the Apprentice Adept series, the Bio of a Space Tyrant books, the Cluster books, various other sigle books. Never got past the first On a Pale Horse in the Incarnations of Immortality series.

If "Meet Joe Black" is supposed to be a rendition of "On a Pale Horse", then that is one $hitty interpretation. I hope this is just a mistake on your part.


Incarnations of Immortality series:
1. On a Pale Horse
2. Bearing an Hourglass
3. With a Tangled Skein
4. Wielding a Red Sword
5. Being a Green Mother
6. For Love of Evil
7. And Eternity

Thanks for the series info. No, I never watched "Meet Joe Black," but the idea of Death in the movie reminded me of the book.

Pudthai,

Make sure you read Firefly. It is excellent.

Nerp

Well, I have to say I am not really an Anthony fan (although I did enjoy the first three or so Xanth books). I think his best novel is 'Hasan', which is different than most of his other work. An Arabic fantasy, written pretty well.

I've read the Incarnations, when I was a teen, and got on a big Anthony kick, but luckily steered clear of the Xanth stuff. I read Tarot, Mode, Adept, Incarnations, and several of his standone novels (Ghost, BiOgre, But What of Earth).

Anyway, I'm just finishing his second autobiography, "How Precious Was That While," and am reminded why I don't read him anymore.

What the Hell is this thread doing back from the dead!?!

I got into Xanth when I was a pre-teen. At that time, there were 8 or 9 of them. I read all of those, plus the Space Tyrant stuff, plus the original three Phaze/Proton books, plus some of his older stuff. I read another 3 or 4 Xanth books as they came out, plus all of the Incarnations of Immortality books as they came out, plus the next 3 Phaze/Proton books as they came out. Somewhere in there, I also read Firefly.

Unfortunately, though, when I went back to try to reread Anthony as an adult, I realized it was pretty crappy writing. (no offense to anyone who likes his writing). So I haven't read anything by him in a decade or so.

From his own mouth, it's no wonder his writing is so flat. It's ironic that he talks about writers that he liked as a juvenile, these stories he read that don't hold up when he re-reads them as an adult. That's exactly how we seem to react to him.

Just a couple things he's mentioned about his writing regimen: he watches movies WHILE he's writing, and he's managed to completely disassociate the mechanics of writing from any sort of inspiration.

Xanth was good up until about Nightmare...I liked Split Infinity, but Blue Adept and Juxtapostion weren't as good as the rest. I only read about 2 or 3 of the Incarnations titles, and that's about when I stopped reading.

I also really liked his Dentist short story collection, and the one with the guy who got suckered into buying land on the moon was ok too.

His Letters to Penny was pretty good too. Very touching, I thought; though one does, understandably, have to wonder about his motives.

I've read quite a bit of his stuff (Xanth, Mode, Space Tyrant, Incarnations of Immortality, Adept, etc.,) and I've enjoyed all of it. I have a habit of re-reading the entire series of books whenever a sequel is released, so I have probably read Xanth 15-20 times or more.

AFAIK, the movie version of "On a Pale Horse" hasn't been released yet, and was NOT "Meet Joe Black." The last I heard in the movie forum, the casting for the main role was a black comedic actor, possibly Cedric the Entertainer, or some such. In my opinion, that is horrible casting, because the character was specifically white in the book and didn't understand what blacks went through, as there was quite a bit of interaction with a black character.

I read somewhere it was Jamie Foxx.

Emphatically no. Tried to read one of his books once and it was so awful that I couldn't make it past about 100 pages. The most amazing part was the sheer number of cliche he packed into that little bit of reading. So uninspired, I've never so much as touched another of his books.

Maybe it was a bad book and not representitive, but anyone who puts his name on a book that abysmal doesn't deserve a second chance.

I read like 4 or 5 Xanth books - it was a subseries or something with Vale of the Vole, Heaven Cent and some others. I enjoyed them well enough but had no inkling to go further.

I still have a soft spot for "Pale Horse," but the immortality series got progressively worse as it went along IMHO. There were some good spots in it but as we got on to War and Nature and God (!) and Satan, it was all a little much for me to follow or care about. And I'll admit, his writing style just odesn't hold up well once you're in your thirties instead of 15 or so liek I was when I read most of his books.