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Mood: Fed Up WIth Life ]
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Currently: Listening to Guy Love from Scrubs ]
So I was doing some more research for the next installment of "What’s to Read After Harry?", and I was looking at other After Harry Booklists. Something I noticed was that two major booklists suggested Piers Anthony’s Xanth series. And I thought to myself, WTF?
First off, Xanth, while full of bad puns that appeal to the teenage geek, is also full of sexist representations of men and women. At times, it borders on misogynistic. It is just not appropriate fiction for kids, a significant portion of the Harry Potter audience.
Second, while Anthony may have produced some good fiction (First three books of the Apprentice Adept as well as the book On a Pale Horse.), he suffers from what happens to some authors. Publishers realize that his name sells, so anything they write will get sold. If not to their main publisher, to a smaller one who knows that the Anthony name is going to generate sales. So books that should not have made it out the door, including back catalog ones.
Third, Anthony has not learned when a story is over. He has taken a fan’s suggestion to lengthen at least one of his series, that was over. I would humbly submit Mr. Anthony, that while fans are lovely people who shell out a great deal of money for your work, they aren’t normally the best sources of ideas for further adventures of characters. Fanfiction.net is but one site on the Internet that proves my point. And given that I made the mistake of reading one of those series inspired by a fan . . .
A quick look around the boards here at Revolution SF reveals that there are many of us who share my views, so I ask, why is he still popular?