Memories of Xanth

I remember overhearing two kids talking about some books they were reading. The boys were excited about how cool they were and how "adult" these books were.  They felt like they were getting something over on the adults and the other kids who weren't old enough, weren't mature enough to handle reading those books.  I was one of those kids who they didn't think could handle the adultness of these books.  I didn't know what they were, but I knew I wanted to read them. I was quietly desperate to be part of any sort of group and these were books.  Books!  I love books!

This was the end of seventh grade and my family was in the process of packing up and moving from New York City to some small town in Minnesota.  Those kids will never know it and I don't remember their names, but they set the course of what I would read over the next twenty years and more. 

I had never read much fantasy before I was thirteen.  I'm sure I had read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but that's probably about it when it came to fantasy (I devoured The Hardy Boys).  But when I heard those kids talking about the adult books they were reading, I just had to read them.  I don't remember what they said, but I remember where they were in the classroom and I remember what the series was.

They were talking about Xanth. 

Looking back over the last twenty two years, it is difficult to imagine that Xanth would have been nearly as formative as it was, or that anyone today would consider Xanth "adult".  Juvenile, sure.  Adult? 

Consider the perspective of twelve and thirteen year old boys, though.  There is plenty of adventure and Piers Anthony talks around sex and violence and growing up and, if my memory is worth anything in this reminiscence, it seems to hit that sweet spot for a thirteen year old boy who doesn't know much about anything at all but wants to disappear into some other world for a while.

So when I read A Spell for Chameleon for the first time in the fall of 1992, I was hooked.  Xanth was magical, and I don't mean anything to do with the magical nature of the world created by Piers Anthony.  Xanth was magical in how it transported me to a different world with characters I could care about and follow on grand adventures.  Xanth was magical in the escape it represented.  That the escape also happened to be to a place where magic was possible and the danger was not too real and always fun (and often funny) was just a bonus.

My life had just been uprooted from Staten Island, which as the least populous of the five boroughs of New York City still had a 1990 population of nearly 379,000 people - but that was still part of a much larger city with over seven million.  I landed in Rush City, population not quite 1700.  There was culture shock, and I buried myself in the public library and with the help and prompting of the librarian at the time, Jeanette Monthye, discovered new worlds that were so much larger than the small one I found myself in.  When I think about Xanth, I tend to think about everything else except the novels. I think of my life at thirteen, about how the books made me feel, about escape and magic and wonder and discovery.  I think of the journey.

At the time when I first discovered Xanth, Piers Anthony had written fifteen or so novels in the series.  I didn't know that at the time, I just knew that for quite a while, there was always a new Xanth novel at the public library for me to read.  I have very specific memories from the earliest books in that series and it laid the groundwork for my venturing on to other science fiction and fantasy authors. 

Without Piers Anthony, I don't progress to David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Raymond Feist, Terry Brooks, and Katherine Kurtz.  Without Piers Anthony, I'm probably not reading Jeff VanderMeer, Elizabeth Bear, George RR Martin, or Ann Leckie today. 

I don't have the twenty two year journey of reading science fiction and fantasy if I don't take a first step.  The first step was Xanth.

strange conversations you don't expect to have

At this point the name Piers Anthony mostly conjures images of pun-riddled novels and juvenile views of sex in said pun-riddled novels and not a whole lot else.

Which is why I was surprised to find myself in a conversation yesterday at Fourth Street discussing the good parts of the Piers Anthony oeuvre.

I believe it started with someone mentioning that she remembered seeing a note in a volume of the Incantations of Immortality series that Anthony needed to take a break from the series because he needed some fast money and was going to return to Xanth to quick churn out several volumes in quick succession. I would be curious to find out which book that was so I could try to backtrack and figure out which Xanth novels were the cash grab. Regadless, this person said that she immediately lost all respect for Anthony.

I replied that I would have gained respect for the man. At least it was upfront and honest and since we really don’t know what his situation was, it’s hard for me to judge that. Maybe it was medical or family related.

On the other hand, I remember reading an interview with John Grisham where he baldly stated that he had to turn in a new novel every year to eighteen months to be able to “maintain his standard of living” and that just rubbed me exceptionally wrong.

Of course, it is difficult to understand motive on a potentially apocryphal story for Piers Anthony.

What was interesting, though, was the rest of the conversation turned to the stuff Anthony did well. The early Xanth novels before he punned his readers to death. Macroscope came up (nominated for a Hugo, even), as did a couple of other books. I mentioned the Battle Circle trilogy.

Battle Circle, if you are not aware, is a trilogy comprised of Sos the Rope, Var the Stick, and Neq the Sword. It’s a sword & sorcery type of story, only set on a post-apocalyptic Earth. I haven’t read them since I was a teenager (so, about fifteen years ago), but I remember being entertained by the storytelling. They’re a bit shlocky, if memory serves, but decent enough.

Piers Anthony was my gateway to twenty years of actively reading fantasy and science fiction, starting back when I was in seventh grade and overhearing a couple of kids talking about how awesome and “adult” the Xanth novels were. How the other kids weren’t mature enough for them. I laugh now, but immediately following my family’s move from Staten Island to Minnesota, I had everyday access to the Rush City library and sought out those books and absolutely loved them.

Today I don’t think I could pick up a Xanth novel after book 10 (if not book 7) and make it through, but back then…couldn’t get enough and I was current through everything that was published.

So, it was with weird fondness that I was part of that conversation, remembering back when Anthony was spinning entertaining tales and didn’t require 5-10 pages at the back of each book identifying what ideas came from his readers. The description of Macroscope that was given made me exclaim, “man, that was back when he could still THINK!”, in pure surprise at the inventiveness of it all.

It was a weird conversation, but pretty damn cool.