Piers Anthony is the most under rated author in the history of the world.  He has never had ANY award from the United States even though he had the first New York Times bestseller for an original work of fantasy. He has also had over 20 New York Times bestsellers since then.  I love all his books and I have read almost all of them (I finally found Vision of Tarot, Caliban's Books is great).  He is the writer of the Xanth series which is one of the most popular series of books in all time.  My favorite series of his is the Incarnations of Immortality series. I like those because it has a GREAT plot and VERY interesting character twists. And EVERYONE in those series is related to everyone else in some way.  When I first let my friend, Wenjia, borrow 'On a Pale Horse', the first book in the Incarnations of Immortality series she hounded me to death with questions.  These were questions like, "Why do they call him Death if he is not dead?" How can you answer questions like that? Please if you have the answer e-mail me at [email protected].

My favorite quote from this book is located in Chapter 11, titled 'Satan's Case.'  In it Satan, Prince of Evil, is lying to Zane, Death, about the function of Hell.

"Ho! Ho! Ho!" Satan laughed, like a jolly Santa Claus.  Here is another quote it is from Politician: Part 3 of the Bio of a Space Tyrant series.

"I was now a successful drug mogul, but I was still pure."  This coming from the governor.  Those just funny.  Well, I think they are.

    All right, now is the time for everyone to start seeing green.  I found out that the first Xanthos was a talking horse in Greek Mythology (actually it is a little more complicated, but you get the gist) and e-mailed him saying that, among other things.  He emailed me back with a nice letter, thanking me.  At the very end, it turned out that this was only the fourth e-mail he had ever written personal, and I was the first fan he had written to.  The first two letters were to his daughters and his sister, and the third was to a pro-writer.  Needless to say, I was overjoyed, and told all my friends (and around the fifteenth time, warned me against annihilation).

My very beat-up copy of 'On a Pale Horse.'  The guy driving the car is Death.  I wish I had that car, badly.

Last Updated on June 14, 1999