Showing results by author "Piers Anthony" in All Categories

Chaining the Lady is the second Cluster book. Melody, a product of Flint and the Andromedan's mating in Cluster, must save the Milky Way Galaxy and create a place where creatures can transfer without limitations. Melody must survive in worlds unknown and alien to her, and she does that where others fail when her aura augments her skills and abilities.

Quiti and the rest of the Hair Suits have just set up the Hair Suite, the embassy of the alien Hair Balls, when they learn they have competition. Alien cyborgs called Chip Monks want to win Earth for themselves. The two species must duel for control. These rivals discover a third alien species that threatens to destroy Earth, and have to join up quickly in order to protect the planet they are both seeking to win. Along the way, they get swept up in a world of intergalactic politics, wormholes, and role-playing.

Phthor is the sequel to Chthon, less intricately structured and less complicated in plot, but still quite dark and ugly in theme and detail. Rather than flashbacks and flash-forwards, it has a Y outline, with the stem the initial story and the ends alternate futures, neither of which is acceptable to Aton's son Arlo. Arlo has his own encounter with a Minionette, and naturally, destruction is upon him and all with whom he associates.

The Cluster series of adventures is set in a future focused on colonization of distant planets, where every living thing has a Kirlian aura that can be measured. Through transfer, a refinement of mattermission technology, the minds and personalities of individuals with high auras can be sent to animate bodies that are physically distant. The first three novels in the sequence, Cluster, Chaining the Lady, and Kirlian Quest form a linked trilogy.

Lida Fisher knows that her beloved husband, Quincy, will die soon as the result of a rare and terrible brain rejection syndrome. But there is one hope. If Quincy consents to switch brains with one of the alien beings that have arrived from the other side of the galaxy, he will live on - albeit in the body of a starfish. And that means Lida must agree to let a new man into her life and her bed, one with the face and body of her adored husband but with the mind of an alien stranger.

When Shep participates in the student exchange program, he finds himself in the body of a man on a rustic colony planet. Then a native sheep comes to the door. It seems Shep must become a literal shepherd, to his dismay. These are very special sheep, deadly, telepathic, and precognitive, and their will governs. They also recruit a Vulture, a Python, and a lovely Elf girl for a dangerous journey. Then things get interesting. Soon Shep is deep in adventure and love. But he can't marry a native girl by proxy. Or can he?

Odd Exam is a novella from Piers Anthony about an unusual college entrance examination. Entrance exams are taken in the form of a multiplayer online game in a semi-virtual reality, with portals to other worlds and alien monsters. For those who qualify, board and tuition will be free. Can this be serious?

Hari, a remarkably well-set-up young lad, has spent his entire life in a small village with his pious widowed mother, and the purity of his soul is largely uncorrupted by worldly sophistication. But now, poised on the brink of manhood, he feels himself moved by strange new urgings - urgings that will lead him far from the quiet life he has known. Though these strings are unfamiliar to him, virtuous Hari recognizes them for what they are: a hunger for spiritual enlightenment.

As a young man, Kelvin Knight Hackleberry proved to be the Roundear of the Prophecy: He liberated his own Kingdom of Rud from the cruel usurper Zoanna, and then went on to defeat the evil king Rowforth in the alternate world of Hud. But now Zoanna and Rowforth have joined forces to take revenge on Kelvin -- and they intend to have it through his unborn child.

Before Tod Timmins meets the naked waif, the vampire, the wizard, and the others, he’s just a dull man engaged in manual labor. The job, good for the body but a waste for the mind, is the whole of Tod’s life—and it isn’t for him. So when a trail appears out of the blue, gambling on fate, he follows it through the city, across the country, and into a realm of adventure and uncertainty. Navigating the path, Tod encounters a mix of creatures—human, nonhuman, and others, something else altogether. They come from alternate realities.

He’s part bull. She's part lava. Together, they’re unstoppable. Carl Gray was a rodeo clown before a freak lightning storm fused him to a bull named El Diablo. Lavender is an islander whose mother is lava goddess and father is human. As a half-lava shape-shifter, she can mold her body at will. When the world receives a credible threat from a criminal mastermind named Villainous to destroy the human race, the United States government requests their help. Turns out, Villainous has managed to merge human intelligence with animal strength and speed, and such creatures are appearing all over...

Killing children is an ugly business, but the alternative is so much uglier. Abner Slate just watched his five-year-old daughter Olive kill his wife and son. Olive is a sopath. Born without souls, sopaths are children who will lie, cheat, rape, and murder to get what they want. There's one in every family these days, destroying America's heartland from within. After murdering his daughter in self-defense, Abner is taken in by a secret network of sopath victims called Pariah.

Volk is Piers Anthony's serious novel of World War II and forbidden love, featuring a romance between a Nazi SS officer and his American friend’s fiancée, a pacifist Quaker lady. Politically incorrect, it covers some hard truths. Not all Nazis were evil, and the allies also kept death camps. The author was in Europe as a child, deported in 1940, and raised as a Quaker, so has some basis to address the subjects.

Anthony and Margroff continue the saga of young Kelvin of Rud, a child of prophecy, whose adventures and destiny should keep listeners locked in from start to finish.

Life as the king of Agrabah is never boring, especially when the dashing Sinbad the Sailor requests a ship to save his kidnapped wife. Aladdin, never one to run from danger, agrees to help and accompanies Sinbad as they set sail to accumulate enough treasure to ransom the sailor's wife. Soon they run afoul of zombies, sirens, demons, nymphs, evil djinns, and a dastardly plot to take over his kingdom.

In collaboration with acclaimed nonfiction author Clifford A. Pickover, Piers Anthony, one of the most popular fantasy writers in America, brings listeners a disturbing tale of our own world, and the strange creatures with whom we share it.

Elasa the robot's friend Mona exchanges to the colony planet to occupy the body of a woman five months pregnant. Even so, she gets more than she bargained for, as she works with a precognitive lamb.

Herb Moss is a nice young man. He's a Vegan: a member of a genetically engineered species, part human and part plant, living on the planet New World. It's a good life, really: Herb's engaged to be married to his childhood sweetheart Lily; has a job with his father's firm; and can look forward to a solid if unexciting future. And as everyone keeps telling him, it's time to put down roots. If he happens to be bored every time he thinks about it - well, that's a normal part of growing up, isn't it?

The third novella in the Hair Suit series following Hair Power and Hair Suite. Quiti and her friend's child, Idola, help a lost alien child they name Flower. That soon brings galactic complications, for Flower's people are like Gypsies - not welcome at most planets. They wind up tangling with the dread Worms who can change time itself. They really need to make peace!

If you love axe-wielding barbarians, shape-shifting dragons, possessed toys, or cryptic assassins, then grab your traveling pack and join in the adventures.