Centaur Aisle

About the Author

Piers Anthony is the name of a hopelessly Mundane character who has difficulty taking About-the-Author notes seriously. He was born in England, moved to Spain, had his sixth birthday aboard the ship that brought him and the former King Edward VRI of England to the New World, and took three years to get through first grade because he couldn’t learn to read. Naturally he grew up to be a writer whose interest was in islands, peninsulas, Kings and illiteracy. His early problems in math still manifest in his tendency to crowd five or six novels into a trilogy. He now lives in the backwoods of Florida with his brown-eyed wife, blue-eyed daughters, and brown-eyed horses and dogs. The old railroad tracks that cut through the hill in sight of their house bear a suspicious resemblance to the Gap Chasm; the drooping live oaks with their Spanish Moss are reminiscent of tangle trees, and if the local sugar sand isn’t very sweet, at least it is excellent for miring vehicles. The Land of Xanth is real for those who understand it. Those who don’t believe in it are relegated to Mundania: it serves them right.

Piers Anthony lost count of his novels when they approached the number of his years of age. His first was written in 1956 and was never published. His second, Chthon, was published in 1967. Now he turns them out at the rate of about three a year. The first Xanth revelation, A Spell for Chameleon, won the August Derleth Fantasy Award for best novel of 1977. But the real success of Xanth is indicated by the fact that it has generated more fan mail than any other series by this author, from people ranging in age from nine to (censored). Xanth is spreading; a tangle tree was recently spotted in Colorado, and night mares have ranged even farther out.