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Talk To Xanth Creator Piers Anthony
Not only is Piers Anthony one of the world's most popular fantasy authors (his books have been science fiction and fantasy staples for decades) but he has been using Linux and StarOffice 5.2 for the past year. This is your opportunity to ask Piers about either the technical aspects of using Linux and StarOffice to produce fiction or about his upcoming work (new Xanth novels coming soon!) or almost anything else. We'll forward 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Piers tomorrow, and will run his answers (verbatim, as always) as soon as he gets them back to us.
Not that switching over to Linux is, of course, a bad thing, but what I'd like to know from Mr. Anthony is--What made him change to Linux, and how he progressed in switching over? What parts were most difficult?
With larger documents and the importance of formatiting in the publication process, have you had difficulty with publishers and document submission? If so, has your establishment (ie previously published work) allowed you to overcome opposition of the "we-don't-support-that" variety? Or did you find that publishers were open to alternate submission formats? Or were they already using other formats (I know some authors have actually typeset their works themselves, using LaTeX, but I assume they are few and far between).
In short, modern print publishing requires a lot of attention to detail and transmission of large documents electronically--how do you make it work with your chosen set of tools, when publishers probably don't expect authors to be using that paritcular set of tools?
You are a professional writer, not a professional computer nerd. With computer people, we try/run linux because we can. With people that are not full-time computer geeks, if they run linux, it's because something drove them to it, either something they disliked about their previous OS, or something they wanted from linux. Why did you switch?
Nathan Brazil?
I enjoyed many of your books when I was much younger, and I found that they had a fantastic impact on my vocabulary and imagination. However, at around age 14, I started to feel that the newer novels that you were producing (this was in 1990 or so) were much more commerically oriented (I particularly recall that making the Brown Adept a lesbian seemed out of character and gratuitously sexual.) I'm now a much more mature reader, and I generally eschew the fantasy and science fiction genres for their immaturity, prefering works with more developed characters. My question to you is: Where do you feel your work fits into the science fiction/fantasy genre, and more importantly, where does it fit into the greater literary scheme of things?
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* daring code hacker by night *
http://www.silent-tristero.com
science is a religion
I must have read at least 20 of your books between 11 and 17, but over time, they seemed to lose their luster. A lot of people I know had a similar fascination, and a similar segue into other reading. Do you believe that your work in fantasy is targetted at the juvenile market? Is that intentional or accidental? Have you had pressure from publishers over the years to try to be 'more mainstream' or perhaps specifically write to the young adult market?
How has your experience with transferring files between office programs and operating systems? Unless, of course, this never occurs between you and your publisher.
Piers, any plans to work in the Apprentice Adept universe again? I was a big fan of those books, although it seemed to get stretched in the later novels. I remember reading that you were moving to the Mode novels instead and had no plans for Adept, but that was years ago...
rm
Sci-Fi Storm
I love that series of books. I always thought that they would make one great (2.5 hour) movie. Now that special effects are both a reality and inexpensive (thanks largely to Linux and computer pricing drops), do you see a movie of this series in the near future?
Click here or here.
How can you keep your current and future work in the Xanth world from becoming commercially-driven drivel? I stopped reading Xanth books when they started to seem forced - written for the fans, written for the publisher, no longer written for yourself. Sure, they were still full of atrocious puns, and some ridiculously funny situations, but the depth seemed lacking. That was in the early 90s. Anything improved? Or am I mistaken, and you're still as engaged as ever, and not a victim (like Frank Herbert) of publishers demanding new books with an established fan base.
"A Spell for Chameleon" was the first book I ever bought with my own money (at age 11 or so). Somehow the early 90s Xanth work didn't stack up for me. It wasn't just that I have grown personally - I re-read "ASfC" just a couple years ago and still enjoyed it. Maybe I'll have to check out the latest opus and see if anything's changed (or if I have...).
I imagine that the publisher has its own ideas about how the printed books should be formatted, but WYSIWYG seems to the dominant paradigm in word processing today. I remember reading (a while back) about (geez, was it wordstar?) some custom macros you had so you could keep comments in-line with the text, but skip over or locate them easily. Do you do something similar now? Do you do some sort of markup for things like chapter-opening quotes, or whatever? (I suppose that means: can you mark a block as some StarOffice style and the publisher will read that and Do The Right Thing w.r.t. to its formatting in the book?)
Do you have a really nice monitor, or do you get hardcopies to do your revisions?
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
what's your favorite pun?
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
A really simple question...
As a writer myself I am curious how you go about writing...I read the notes you had in the in the "incarnations"(Your best in my opinion BTW) series so I guess I am looking to see if time and/or new technology has changed any of that....
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
If you were giving advice to a first-time author who wanted to shop around a fantasy manuscript -- and it was vibrant, original, compelling, and entertaining -- what publishers would you recommend? Assume the goal of this author is to be as widely read as possible, and the author is willing to do their part. (Grueling signing tour, visit tons of cons, etc) What publishers would be best at polishing the work and promoting it well?
Which operating system do you feel is most suitable for automating the summoning/conjuring of demons?
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
Hey Pier - what is the interprobability of a crossover series? Say Xanth and Incarnations? just kidding.
Running an 'alternate' OS as your main system for producing your works, have you ran into any incompatablities with distributing your works to publishers? Have they been willing to work with you on any incompatability problems? Are you happier writing on a free OS (in terms of flexibility, over all 'feel')? PS: Love the Incarnations of Immortality series!
"Powers. I have them."
So has Linux ever served as a source of inspiration for any of your writing?
(Maybe naming a character "grep" or incoporating recursive acronyms into the title or something)
FYI: The name for the Xanth novels is derived from Piers' name: Pier _Xanth_ ony.
How eager are publishers to get your work electronically when you submit it? Do you believe they'd feel the same about work from first-time authors? And do they try to insist on getting proprietary formats, or are they ready to handle formats like StarOffice?
Though you are most well known for Xanth, I would say that some of my favourite books are the Incarnation series. What inspired you to write these books? Is there/are there reasons other then ones expressed in the appendix at the end of each?
First, I just wanted to say, "Thank you," for releasing your version of "But What of Earth." The "co-authored" version that they put out was horrible in comparison.
I know this isn't a Linux or StarOffice question, but I'm very curious about who your inspirations were in the Sci-Fi realm. Who are your favorite authors?
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Does he still think computer manuals are scripted by demons in hell, or has he grown up a bit (along with our industry's improvements).
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
What was your inspiration for "On the Uses of Torture," and do you find that your fans are more or less interested in this kind of story than in your more well-known works?
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I've shamelessly stopped reading your books awhile ago, but I've always been fascinated by your commentary on writing, your choice of computers, life with macros, and your insistance on portable computing so that you could write whenever the ideas hit. Have you ever tried, or even switched to a PDA for your remote writings?
My Question: Can you continue to write novels so that nerds can read them without the title causing them to get their asses kicked more than already happens?
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Um....he wrote the novelization of the movie, based on a short story by an entirely different author...so really the translation goes in entirely the other direction....
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
As you appear to be a fan of Open Source Software, when are you going to release the code to the perl script you've apparently used to crank out the last fifteen or so Xanth novels, and will the code be GPLed or BSD-licensed?
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
About a decade and a half ago, I recall seeing you speak at a convention in Florida (according to rumor, the only con at which you ever spoke, though I don't know if this is true). As I remember, at the time you said you were reluctant to use a computer because you were already so fast on your Dvorak typewriter. Moving to a Linux-based system seems to me to be a rather dramatic switch, especially as Linux is generally thought of as a system of technophiles, the same sort of people who eagerly used CP/M systems with ADM 3-As twenty years ago. What prompted your switch, and what adventures (both pleasant and unpleasant) has it entailed?
In high school I read and re-read three series, Xanth, Apprentice Adept and Incarnations of Immortality. In 1988 my first son was born which drew most of my attentions away from your novels. In 1991 my second son and the real world drew me the rest of the way.
I see that there are now 10 more Xanth novels that I do not have. I guess I have some catching up to do!
Your authors notes were for me almost a series of their own. These, combined with your autobiography, "Bio of an Ogre", made me feel like I knew you. And gave new meaning and insight to most of your novels.
Have you ever thought of collecting them together into a book of their own? Sort of a Peirs Anthony self retrospective or 'The Ogre Speaks Through the Ages.'
comment directly in my journal
when starting off creating a new world for your stories, do you concentrate a lot on historical and geographical background, or get right into your main story timelines? basically, what process do you find to be the best when setting the stage for the depth required for epic fantasy?
MORTAR COMBAT!
If you write or edit your novels on you computer. Have you noticed any difference between how different word processing programs handle the reletively large document size, and does the format it's in affect how well the program can manipulate the document?
(as a subnote, do auto-spell checkers go nuts with all the puns?)
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
I've read just about every book you've written, and through your author notes, its pretty apparent that you're not afraid to change with the times and technology. My question for you is, through all of your years of writing, what was the hardest change in technology that you ever did? And what was the best change-over that you did?
Sig!
I got hooked on your stuff when I borrowed "Man From Mundania" from my Dad. I read it in a weekend and devoured all the published Xanth books, the Adept books, and the Incarnations. They were all great, and as a young teen, I didn't mind the completely gratuitous and explicit sex in the Adept books.
My mom was the one who had to drive me to the library, however, and I was unwilling to check out "The Color of Her Panties" with her looking over my shoulder. I already had to hide all the nude-covered xanth books under a big plaid hardback or two.
I checked out Tatham Mound because of your name, but I couldn't get past a main character named "Bear Penis". Good lord man, why all the sex? Would it be so hard to make your stuff PG-13 instead of XXX or R? It's hardly a major literary compromise.
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
Yes, Anthony sucks.... however, Discworld is Pratchett. Don't knock Pratchett.
Also, do you feel you are more productive using Linux and StarOffice?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I am curious if you read/enjoy other authors works. There are several I read that have very solidly stated that they do not, notably Terry Goodkind.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
was the original author. The story was "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale". Good movie, well realized, but IMHO the short-story was better, there was more than one level of uncertainty about whether or not the whole experience was a hallucinatory holiday. IIRC the short story ended up with the revelation that the hero had saved mini-space aliens that could destroy the earth. They were grateful to the hero so the Govt. couldn't kill him. Still, a good movie.
Does your frequent focus on nakedness and panties of your very young female characters indicate an attraction on your part, or is there a good reason for this? (Re: _The Color of Her Panties_ which pictures (among other things) two mostly-naked young women.)
Do you feel this is appropriate for books aimed at 10-14 year olds?
"You're soft where?"
"Open Sores"
You've incorporated mundane technology into the Xanth world before. Will the idea of open source software make it into a future Xanth novel?
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Do you perfer fiction over non-fiction, historical novels, science books, any authors of note (or hidden jems that you'd like to mention), subjects which have made you stop and rethink issues?
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Mr. Anthony,
From your in-story commentary and author's notes, we have a glimmering of your opinion on people who don't pay for books.
What is your opinion of people who borrow the books you've written from libraries. Also, what is your opinion of fan-authors who write fanstories based on your work?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Are you confusing him with David Brin? He wrote The Practice Effect, which actually reminded me much more of Stasheff's the Warlock In Spite of Himself than anything by Anthongy.
Hi Piers,
I've had the chance to enjoy several of your Xanth books over the years. However, I find it disappointing that, like many sci-fi authors, you choose to include lots of "naked women" imagery in your books. This makes your books unappealing to the female side of your audience (including myself), and it makes it hard for me to recommend your books either to younger children or other women who might be interested.
I don't mind sex in books; what I (and a lot of other females) mind is the clear delineation of women as either sexual objects or as somehow "needing" a male to rescue them from various plights. Your earlier books did not have much of this imagery, and indeed the Xanth series seems relatively free of it, but I've noticed that some of your books do draw this conclusion. Unfortunately, the fantasy category seems to have more of this type of book than most other categories.
In a world of fantasy books dominated by male fantasies, what is your suggestion to the relatively few females who do enjoy fantasy and sci-fi books?
As a point of reference, I enjoyed the Phule series by Robert Asprin, as well as The Hitchhiker's Guide and, of course, several of the Xanth books.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Ah, you've read his underground novel, 'Pornucopia' too.
There seems to be a movement within the current publishing industry (that parallels the ones within the movie and record industries) to shut down or hamper the abilities of consumers to, in my opinion, fully appreciate their Fair Use rights. Members of each industry are scared, quite understandably, by the capacity of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks and the Internet in general to allow their works to be shared on an unprecedented scale without compensating the creators of the works or holders of the copyrights on the works (this is usually labeled piracy, although this brings rather silly images to mind I'd prefer to avoid). I understand that this has happened with at least one of your books; another reason why I'd like to eventually ask you a question on the topic. However, I'm concerned that the direction some would like to take. For example, Pat Schroeder of the Association of American Publishers seems comfortable with the idea that public libraries might have to start charging patrons for access to continue offering the same services they do today.
Assuming you don't mind metaphorically throwing a rock into a hornet's nest, what are your thoughts on these matters? Are public libraries (or P2P) a greater harm to society by permitting hundreds of people to get by on the purchase of one book, or are they a boon for offsetting the damage 100-year copyrights do to the public domain (from which we have historically drawn our knowledge and inspiration for art and culture)?
BTW: I love your books.
Mr. Anthony
I was recommended to your novels when I was quite young, and found many of them quite good. I very much enjoyed the Incarnations of Immortality, particularly the first novel of the series. However, I quickly discovered the controversy surrounding your work, and learned why when reading the Bio of a Space Tyrant series. Re-reading the Incarnations drove this point home for me - how do you respond to all the charges of sexism in your work? The female characters in your novels are almost always pathetic damsels, even when in powerful roles like the Incarnations. No matter what they are always drop-dead gorgeous and hopelessly smitten with the male protagonists.
I found the characters in "And Eternity" in particular most ridculous, such as the young prostitute and the heroic pedophile. The writing of the prostitute reads like it was done by someone who had never met a woman, a child, or a person living outside of a country club. It was the 700 Club concept of what a poor prostitute girl on the street must be like - with the pointless sexual fantasy of this little girl lusting after the judge. Half the novel is spent in a sad attempt to justify pedophilia.
I often wonder how can a man with a family of women understand so little about them, continually adding Barbie doll after Barbie doll to his stories?
So my question is this: How do you explain the anachronistic objectification of women in your novels?
Granted I'm writing for a persepctive of someone who hasn't read your work in many years (I gobbled up the Incarnations of Immortality, Xanth and Blue Adept novels in college). Based on your writing and the snippets of biographical information you snuck into forewards, etc, you never stuck me as as "bleeding-edge hardcore technical" kind of guy. Granted also that Linux has worked hard to outgrow its reputation as a "hackers only need apply" operating system; even now, though, it does so with only a certain amount of success. I wondered: how did you discover Linux, and what brought you to adopt it (and welcome aboard, by the way!).
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
What kinds of things typically get your creativity moving, and how do they push you towards a given "type" of series... In essence, what would tickle you to create 'Mode', rather than expand on 'Xanth' or 'Ogre'?
I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
One his authors notes (back when I actually read his stuff, so quite some time ago - maybe 8 years or more) mentioned how he was adjusting to a new computer he'd gotten - I believe it was a VAX machine, and I think he also mentioned a Dvorak keyboard. He's been using computers for a long time, certainly pre-dating Linux. This was right around the time I was getting into computers myself, and I remember being impressed when he talked about setting up user directories and such.
Mr. Anthony,
What are your views toward copyright laws as they exist in the U.S. today? More specifically, how do you feel about the length of time that a work is protected, is it long enough, too long, or just right?
P.S. I think it was really cool that you completed the novel for that kid that died before he finished it.
Casca
OK, I'll be up front about this... I admit I haven't read anything of yours recently. (The last I read was "... And Eternity").
However, I recall in the postscripts to several of the Incarnations novels, you described going from CP/M to DOS as your writing platform. How was the change from DOS/Windows to Linux?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
while a freshman in college my roomate purchased the legend of xanth the game. We both then proceeded to skip every class we had until we figured out the game. The books lend themselves very well to RPG games which are very entertaining. Dont know if you all remember the hanging participle. My question is will you be invovled in any projects in the futer with regards to video games. I keep thinking of warcraft but only with Xanth charactors. It would be so much more entertaining. I know this is a little segway from the main topic, but lets get real star office supports all word formats, including formating. The only drawbacks I would see is in the desktop publishing dept. The lack of a Pagemaker or Quark type app.
Anthony might have a little more say because of his success, but generally, authors have NO IMPUT into the cover design for their books. The cover is viewed as an advertisement for the book, and is designed and controlled by the advertising department.
Most of the questions here seem to relate either to Xanth or Space Tyrant.
Do you get any feedback/comments on your other novels or series, such as Macroscope or the Omnivore/Orn/OX trilogy? Which of your series is your favorite and why?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
In note that you also say: So, what don't you like so far? What do you want us to improve? Are there any author-specific tools that you miss from Microsoft?
Cheers,
crush
I read them. In fact, I re-read the first one a lot of times, but I read them all at least once. I noticed on his site he's e-publishing them now. Neat.
Personally, myself and most of those I've talked to who are widely read believe that his best work was the first trilogy of the Split Infinity series -- Split Infinity, Blue Adept, and Juxtaposition, and some of the earlier Incarnations books. I did enjoy Bio when I was younger, but it is a bit pulpy now.
I'm not sure anyone on /. is old enough to remember, but Piers Anthony used to write rather lofty science fiction. Perhaps the most polished of the pre-Xanth phase was the Orn-Omnivore-0X trilogy but there were many other notable works (Macroscope, Var the Stick, etc.). He also had a wacky story in Again, Dangerous Visions--imagine a barn full of women being milked. (Got milk?) At one point he would have been considered a "serious" science fiction writer.
Early Piers Anthony used to be very difficult to find, but nowadays it is being regurgitated in significant quantities at used bookstores.
My question is: What prompted Piers to mostly stop writing Heinlein-esque SF and take up fantasy instead? It has to be more than "just the money" because fantasy wasn't the dominant genre in the late 1970s, and even successful SF/Fantasy writers don't really do it for the money anyway.
I'm a fan blah, blah... Favorite series' were "Bio Of A space Tyrant" and Incarnations of Immortality blah, blah...
I've tried switching from Windows to Linux for production purposes but when push came to shove I always reverted to Windows when a project is time sensitive (looming deadline). Even on a fast computer I have noticed a lot of lag in peripheral response. I've also encountered a few bugs that would hang the application and force me to kill it and restart. Have you experienced similar problems? If so, how have you managed not falling back on the Windows crutch?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
What is your view on the future in ebooks? What has been done so far (like Stephen King's attempt) could be qualified as either a success or failure, depending on your view.
Do you favor a closed, centrally driven system (keeping the publisher/distributer chain much like it is now) or something more like each author being able to make his own manuscript and hang his own "publisher" shingle? I suppose as a person with a highly developed creativity skill <g>, you couldn't have something completely different in mind, could you?
Mr. Anthony,
As someone who has named both of his cats, all seven of his computers, and one of his cars after characters from Incarnations of Immortality, I would like to know why you haven't chosen to return to their mythos.
Consider the fact you have done so with many of your other mythos'! (Bio of a space tyrant, Apprentice Adept, etc.)
Further, with Incarnations, there are a world of possibilities left. Chance, hate, love, hope, all the minor incarnations you mentioned in books previously (I would really like to see hope)..
Your writing weaves a world that one can live in, and while Xanth is nice, I deeply prefer a world where death is kind, and evil is human and flawed.
It helped me through the pain of losing my mother to serious illness, and has been my favorite fantasy world since.
I read in one of your author's note that the story of the original characters from IoI was "complete" and that you didnt see a need to continue their stories, and I can agree with that.
That doesn't stop new characters in the same mythos from being created. Whether set before, during or after the events of IoI, there is definitely room to weave plenty of stories.
Any chance of seeing some more of them?
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
After reading enough of your books, which at the beginning I loved immensely, I became bored by the repetitiveness, and similar themes throughout. (This in no way takes away from the books I have enjoyed, such as "On A Pale Horse", etc.) One theme which started to bug me was how in almost every story, one or more characters would have to run around in public while nude for no apparent reason.
Could you please explain your rationale for this? What are your other favourite plot devices?
Bork!
In case you decided, for some reason, to read all of these comments, Thank you.
Thank you for Orn, Omnivore, and Ox, which taught me the rules to the Game of Life (Martin Gardner/ Scientific American).
Years later, as I still write alife experiments and study emergent behavior, I know that had it not been for those few books, my life would have been much poorer.
Thank you.
No Zen is good zen
Just out of curiosity why did you switch, how did you first come to hear about Linux? Also please forgive this question being so long but not being a developer or a system administrator would you recommend linux to joe average? Why or why not?
It's amazing how spiritual an elaborated beer commercial can be. -- Philip K. Dick
I've tried a few times to run star office in a business envrionment, and have found that while importing documents and spreadsheets is very easy with the more common MS office, exporting these leaves something to be desired.
Specifically, formatting seems to be lost or changed. As a writer, I would assume that how your works are formated would be important to you. Have you had any issues of interoperability with Star Office and other platforms that your publisher/editor might use?
Or, have you reached the point where you can make those people sort of 'deal with it'.
The Internet is generally stupid
I am curious of your books what are your personal favorites and why? (Xanth, Incarnations, Bio of Space Tyrant, Modes, Adept series... hey wait! you should know your own works better then I do...)
Finally, the guy I've been looking for!! How the hell should I set up X so that when I su, I can run X programs as root?
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
We're not talking about a motivation for writing. We're talking about an already-written book, with the assumption in the question being that it is excellent. The issue is not: who will publish it? The issue is: who will support it so it doesn't become a 5000 copy print run lost in the annals of history? The question is: which publisher has the clout, enthusiasm, and experience working with a motivated writer who is willing to work on promotion, to help maximize the breadth of the book sales?
I remember in the afterword of one of your books from the early 1980's, you discussed the research you put into choosing your first computer. At the time the choices for consumers were basically Apple II, CP/M, or MS-DOS.
How many generations of computers have you used since then? What system were you using just before you switched? Were you still using CP/M?
Ive noticed over the last 10 years or so, that the number of obvious typographical errors in the novels I read has been on the increase.
Mostly, the problem is the use of the wrong word, or the omission of part of a sentence, rather than misspelling words
Is there something about the process that's changed, or is this the result of over-dependence on computers to "spell check" manuscripts? Does anybody actually read the final MS before printing the books, or is that just not done.
This is something that's been bothering me for a while, and I figured that since you're in the publishing business, you might have some insight.
-Mark
I've seen notice in one of your Xanth books that work may be in progress on "The Iron Maiden." I hope it is. :)
Thanks for spending some of your time to satisfy our curiosity.
The Internet has no garbage collection
Mr. Anthony, can you pinpoint exactly when your excellent work changed from actually being good to utter crap?
I used to read a lot of your works. "The Incarnations of Immortality" was ones of my favorites along with "Bio of a Space Tyrant". Those are the only novels of yours that I have kept. I enjoyed reading the Xanth novels, but after about the 25th or so, I realized that they just keep rehashing themselves over and over again. There is always the same formula, over and over again. When do you expect to do something original with the Xanth series, or have you completly given into just making money and stop writing good stories?
Piers, A Spell for Chameleon and the Source of Magic are two of the best sci-fi books I'd read up to that point.
In your copeous Author's Notes, you mention how you wrote these books with adults in mind, and were surprised to find that the Young Adult market was where you were selling most of your copies.
I'm curious why, upon learning this, you started pandering to that market? Each successive Xanth book became more pun-laden and slapstick, even when it got in the way of the actual story. Despite saying in nearly every Authors Note that you wouldn't accept any more reader-submitted puns, you go ahead and do it anyway, taking loose soap-operaesque plotlines and filling them with frivolous wordplay to tie them together.
Granted, the series seems to do okay, considering that you keep adding to it, but I wonder why you abandoned the style and quality of writing that won you the Nebula Award, in favor of Xanth installments like "Color of her Panties," irritating those readers who loved the Piers who wrote quality work?
Sadly, the decline of Xanth (around books 3 through 5 and on) can also be seen in most of your other series, including Incarnations of Immortality (after Being a Green Mother), and the brilliantly begun Apprentice Adept series (after the first trilogy).
Is the changeover to Linux and StarOffice responsible for this change in tone and direction?
Kevin Fox
The submission said Linux and Star Office 5.2
If I was switching to a new operating system, I'd try it out for a while -- that is, more than a year -- before I moved my entire job over to depending on it. So if he's only been trying it for a year, I would have expected that his books would still be written on some other system.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I'm an amateur writer. After several years of writing in my spare time, I'm getting to the point where I might have chance of getting published. At the moment I'm working actively on two novels--one more than the other--as well as whatever short story I get an impulse to write. In terms of novels, what's a good way in Star Office, to ogranize chapters? I tend to save each chapter as separate file in the novel's directory. That works for the more action oriented one because for whatever reason, each chapter comes out feeling like an hour long TV episode. It doesn't work for the other one because the action doesn't have the same film or TV quality as the first. So what tools do reccomend for organizing work in Star Office?
PS Don't read the stuff on my web site becuase it's old and really lame for the most part. The grammar on that stuff comes out as an unholy fusion of Perl and science major's English. Over the past few years I've had to teach myself all the finer points of English comp that I either forgot or never had in the first place. Besides, the html on my page is icky. Some day I'll get off my but and redo it, but that's some day, not today.
Judging from the amount of writing he has done and the similarity of many of his works I'd say a it wasn't so much a case of using a computer to write but that a computer was doing the writing (ref: 1984).
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
What are you feelings about E-Books and Audio Books? Are you in support of these formats? Do you feel this is the way of the future?
What are your feelings on file/music/book swapping as widely seen on the internet at present and the risks of losing some of your rights to control your content?
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
That said, after years of reading your works off and on, mostly Xanth and the Mode series (*thanks* for finally getting that final book out -- publishers should listen to the readers more often!) the one thing I have always enjoyed were your Authors Notes at the back. To be honest, I always read those first. I had thought, back in the day when I had deluded myself with dreams of being a published author, of doing the same. Even though it would be copying your style.
What made you decide to start putting those in the books? You are, as far as I know, the only published author to continually do so.
Hello Mr. Anthony. As a young adult, I devoured nearly all your novels, with my particular favorites including the Adept series, Incarnations, Bio of a *, and the first eight or ten Xanth titles. It's fair to say that a large part of my psyche and probably my vocabularly are attributable to you.
Recently I reprised On a Pale Horse with my girlfriend and I discovered to my discomfort that it dealt very explicitly with underage sex in a way that sexualized young girls in particular. Although the novel retained many charming qualities for me, I began to consider the female underage sexuality in the other books of that series, especially one of the later books (Of Eternity?) in which an underage girl uses a protracted stay in Purgatory in order to be able to have legal sex with a much older priest. Significantly, she is only 18 "by law". Physically and mentally she is 16 when she has sex with the priest. We are supposed to have any moral questiones calmed by this.
As I recalled more of your works, I noticed a recurring theme of young girls being exploited in sexual ways. The opening of Bio of a Space Tyrant describes the protagonist's shame and arousal as his young sister is raped. Later in the series, I hazily recall a wealthy character who kept pre-pubescent girls for sex, then released them for service when they matured. The character was depicted in a very sympathetic light - he was just misunderstood.
Finally, long ago I read a hardback book by you which attributed to you membership in a social organization dedicated to protecting girls against paedophilia.
As a fan an admirer, but also as someone who is disquieted by the influence you may have had upon my young sexuality, I would like to know candidly whether you are attracted to underage women. Naturally I am in no way implying that you would ever act upon such an urge, but the writing you have given us is very close to an act in itself, considering your very broad and impressionable audience.
Thanks.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
This sounds horribly flame-bait. .. let me clarify. I read a lot of your books. (proof is at my book tracker - under read books.) 'On a Pale Horse' was one of the first Fantasy books of note that I read - and still one of my favorites to date. [I always recommend it to friends, which explains why not only have I bought several copies, but I do not have it in my book tracker as a result.]
.. especially when your are well known in the sci-fi/fantasy world as a a 'creative' guy.
.. when does an author find that enough is enough ?
.. get pushed to the side. And books like 'Gollum in the Gears' [sorry , NOT a personal favorite of mine.] get catapulted to the top of the best seller list just beacuse it has the name Xanth on it ?
But before I elaborate
I have noticed , over the course of time, that your writing became more 'pulp' and less 'inventive'.
Its hard to be creative full steam, especially when you have a family to raise - and I'm sure
Robert Asprin once said something to the effect of "Writing the story was fine, but after 6 books the cute idea I had to put a meaningful/funny quote in the beginning of each chapter really became the stumbling block." Is this a similar event for you ?
Lets face is Xanth was certainly a money-cow for you. And the first four or five books were unique and interesting - My REAL question is
Do you ever regret that the Xanth series has overshadowed other deeper or more interesting works ? [Bio of a Space Tyrant for example.]
Where is the balance of satisfying your fans desire for more of the same hinge with the fear of cheapening/overdoing your story ?
Why do books like 'FireFly' or 'Macroscope' both great ideas - and brilliant books
Does this actually affect your writing style / choice / income in any way? Does it discourage you to write less mainstream work ?
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Being tightfisted with patents, copyrights and look-n-feel seems like a good thing to do if you are responsible to shareholders for performance. Something the Linux community appears to have completely forgotten -- as evidenced by the complete lack of financial successful Linux has had. Like they say, "There is no such thing as free lunch" and Apple can't run its business that way.
Once linux reached critical mass, Its become way more programmer friendly than the alternatives, to the point were I myself have ditched other platforms completely.
There isn't a more friendly programming environment than Mac OS X. They give you all the tools needed to create applications. Professional tools and more programming tools available than Linux. Can you write Windows, Mac OS X, Mac Classic and Linux apps on Linux? You can on Mac OS X.
Admittedly, with a BSDish foundation, thing are supposedly better for the latest Apple operating system, but with most of the code that makes osX what it is being closed, I dont see them as any better than Microsoft.
So Apple uses the "freest OS" as its base and releases its source code (even though it doesn't have too with BSD) and you think they are no better than Microsoft? Are you joking?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Ah, but did you tie the boat up at Anthony Pier?
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
I must confess that I only knew of your Xanth and Adept books prior to going to the Piers Anthony website linked here on /. I had no idea you'd written so many books (126 by my rough count). The earlist publication date I saw was 1956, which means you've been writing for approx. 45 years.
How are you able to churn out almost three books a year?
When you're writing a series, how many of the books in the series do you outline prior to writing the first word of the first book?
Did you have a number of books (27 & counting) planned for the Xanth series when you wrote 'A Spell for Chameleon'?
Why has the Xanth series continued?
Thath not a lithp either. Thith ith a lithp.
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
Mr. Anthony,
:)
I first would like to thank you for helping me discover SF/Fantasy. Books like A Spell for Chameleon, Macroscope and Tarot introduced me to characters who solved their problems by thinking critcally about them--a trait I consciously tried to mimic and have never lost. (Since then, my critical thinking has led me to vastly different conclusions than yours on many fronts, but that's a different matter.)
Anyway, this being a technical web site (nominally anyway) I will ask a (nominally) technical question. As a Linux user and sometime writer, my biggest problem has been with the quality of the fonts. As someone who spends hours a day staring at the screen (4? 6?) I would think this would be more of an issue for you. Do you find that fonts under Linux are lower quality than under Microsoft? If so, is it enough to bother you? What font and size do you typically write in?
Thanks,
Jason
Think! It ain't illegal yet!
George Clinton
As a way of illustrating to people here about why you do what you do; If someone gave you a billion dollars tommorow and you never had to 'work' as a writer again.. what kind of books would you write? For fun or to make a point, or both? Just to delve into cool worlds, or to explore how people think? Stuff like Xanth, or Bio, KilloByte, or Tatham Mound?
I'm sure you're no stranger to criticism so don't mind the trolls around here - Thanks for the worlds, the laughs, and the thoughts.
Gavin Duggan
(I (alwayth (thought (that (a (true (lithp (would (contain (more (bracketth))))))))))
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
How is a company that ships every copy of the OS with development tools less developer friendly than one that does not? As a programmer myself I am very turned off of Windows and find OS X about 100,000 times better to use - better in every sense of the word, from programming to just being a user trying to get stuff done.
How about an OS that ships with many open source tools like GCC and Apache, and contributes fixes back to them. That's not developer friendly?
Sure Apple was and still is overly agressive in some areas legally. But to say we are better off with Microsoft in the dominant position than Apple astounds and eludes me, both from a technical and political standpoint.
Would you rather have a leading company that makes the iPod, based on normal MP3's, or a company that is trying to fulfill every wild fantasy/nightmare about DRM that companies can dream up? Supporting Apple is supporting the one major computer company that is really fighting for your rights. That I think is why a lot of Linux people support Apple as well, because the goals of each group align well (or at least as well as a companies goals can align with a grass-roots movement).
P.S. - I do use Linux and OS X regularily, along with Windows at work (of course).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You gotta be kidding. Pointing someone to Robert Asprin as a step-up from Piers Anthony? He burned out in the early 90s, and after having his future earnings garnished by the IRS, only writes with other people. One of his last books (which I read, of course--I wanted to relive junior high), "A Phule's something-or-other", got about halfway through and was completely unravelling. I think Asprin got blocked, so he handed it off to some kid, who resolved all the threads in about a page and a half and wrote another story that was completely unrelated for the second half. The later books in the 'Myth' series (yep, read them all too) were apparently therapy where Asprin worked through a mid-life crises by writing boring drivel. Sure, the books were clever and usually entertaining, but please don't mistake them for being anything but pulp sci-fi fantasy.
I encourage anyone who is tired of Piers Anthony and the rest of the crap shoved between the Mystery and Romance sections at Waldenbooks to grow up and try something different, even if isn't that 'good'. Read some Louis L'Amour, or Sherlock Holmes--they are highly entertaining although not really 'Literature'. Or try out W. S. Maugham, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Hemingway, or Steinbeck for a historical kick. Trust me, these will all speak to you, you only need the courage to dare to read a book without a picture of a dragon on the cover!
In the words of Johnny Carson, I did not know that.
Not to speak for Mr. Anthony, of course. But your question confuses me.
...
Mac's are always touted as the "Creative Artist" machine.
PR department.
Substitute "Graphic Artist" and/or "Musician" and there may be some truth to it. Apple has had graphic tools far longer than PCs, and was the only serious graphics-capable platform in the personal machine space for some years. After that the legacy continued to give it a leg up. And the OS, with its object-oriented accessability, leant itself to music add-ons as well. PCs, on the other hand, were text based, with graphics eventually bolted on as an afterthought.
But writing is text based. And Apple was trying to close its box, and using incompatible 3" drives, about the time early adopters like Piers Anthony were looking for a CPM replacement.
Meanwhile
Seems like a successful author like you would be able to afford one of Apple's high end systems like the TiBook or the PowerMac G4.
Ever heard the term "starving artist"? Goes well with "impoverished student". Doesn't apply to the established pros, of course. But for people just starting out the platforms they chose will be the ones they can afford. Once they're successful it will take a BIG potential improvement for them to take the risk and climb a new learning-curve by switching.
As with other materials, tools, and instruments, a graphics artist or musician might shell out extra for a platform that supports them well, as a cost of doing good art. But why on Earth should a novelist or poet spend an extra cent for bells and whistles?
The war of the apples and the clones was fought on standards-and-price vs. slickness-and-snob-appeal. Business picked IBM for reliability, joe user picked clones for compatability and price. Then it snowballed, with market share leading to more application development and business adoption leading to PC formats as defacto standard for moving from paper to data submission of manuscripts. Apple was relegated to a niche while the clones won the general market hands-down.
Seems to me that Mr. Anthony made the right choice of hardware up front, then moved to a better choice for OS for that hardware as soon as the pro-quality compatible applications necessary to support his workflow became available.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Not many people are aware that you attended Goddard, a very unusual institution of higher learning in Vermont. For those of you who don't know, the college was famous for its radical politics in the 60s, after Piers attended. No tests, no grades, student-designed courses which were called "group studies" and led by "facilitators."
When I attended Goddard in the late 80s it was still a hotbed of radical politics, but also a strong proponent of critical thinking. Not a place where orthodox opinions hold unexamined sway. Although my politics have changed, I attribute my flexibility, independence and career success in part to this college experience.
Do you believe your educational background has played a significant part in your success? If so, how? Would you recommend any changes to traditional educational techniques? Lastly, in line with the interests of the slashdot crowd, you're one of only a few authors to embrace linux as a desktop OS. Would you draw a link between using this "alternative os" and the "alternative" years in college?
My cat can eat a whole watermelon
I found Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls sadly disappointing and boring, when I read it in high school. I wound up skipping through many of the pages. While I probably should, one of these days, give a shot at another Hemingway book, I am having a little trouble seeing why he's so great. Perhaps that was his one bad book. And no, I'm not the cheap-action type; I had previously read War and Peace and enjoyed it far more. My first exposure to Steinbeck was The Pearl which was horrid, but then I got to read The Grapes of Wrath which was excellent. I think you are discounting the ability of sci-fi and fantasy authors too much though. Asimov, Bradbury, Card, Herbert, Heinlein, Stephenson, Jordan, Tolkien, and others who I can't remember off the top of my head, are all fine authors with excellent books in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Just because the setting is fictional doesn't mean that the story is bogus. Sometimes, some things cannot be well orchestrated in the boundaries of "factual settings". Consider the whole theme of Dune. Prescience is not real, is it?
As for Piers Anthony, I enjoyed the usage of puns in Xanth. Eventually it got old and I stopped reading the series.
Those who do not know the past are doomed to reimplement it, poorly.
Mr. Anthony --
A number of posters have asked about the finances and feasability of your decision to move to Linux and StarOffice, and I'm eager to see your answers. Others have asked about dealing with publishers who are not used to accepting documents in Something Other Than Word. Some have asked about your motivation, too.
My question is slightly different. On your web site and in your books, you devote some attention to the efforts of previously unpublished authors to break into the market with that all-important first novel.
Is the reason you were able to successfully make this transition and get your publishers to go along because you are Piers Anthony and not [insert nobody here]?
I know you have a significant financial stake in Xlibris, which you discuss in detail on your web site, and you've talked about using that influence at times to get Xlibris management to make life easier for their customer-authors. You also have the selling power for a traditional publisher of someone like King, Grisham, Steele, or Grafton, in your genre.
Would [insert nobody here] be able to successfully sell a first novel to a major publishing house because of the formatting issues? Would [insert nobody here] be able to entice an agent into even looking at it? All else being equal, why would a publishing house bother with someone new who wanted to do something strange?
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
Listen up, US folks. In most of the world, including where I live, the age of consent is at least two years lower than 18. I am constantly jarred by references to child pornography and underage sex where the participants turn out to be 16 or 17. Try and be a little less inward-looking, please.
I know many people are aware that most "bestseller lists", even the venerable New York Times lists, are faulty, subject to bias, and sometimes influenced by publishers & retailers, but does it ever stick in your craw that almost all organizations claiming to list the best-selling books of the week / month / year purposefully exclude children's / sci-fi / romance literature? Does it ever matter to you, or are you happy with your royalties & fan mail?
No matter what some may think of your work (I enjoyed it but grew out of it a long time ago) you remain a successful writer making a living by writing, which is more than most writers of "meaningful", well-reviewed, yet inscrutable literature can say. What are your feelings about the lack of respect much popular literature gets amongst these "cri-tics"?
Apologies, couldn't avoid the Xanth pun there at the end. I'm sure I've got the first dozen or so Xanth books along with most of IoI in a box somewhere in the attic back home...
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Mr. Anthony,
Are there any Linux puns yet cavorting in the happy land of the Ogrechobee? A daemon amongst the demons? If not, on bahalf of Slashdot at large, I'd like to beg for one.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Not for nothing, but were we reading the same books? The only writings of his I've remember seeing that have anything to do with non-standard sexuality are Firefly and some of his short stories.
Am I just not remembering his Xanth and Incarnations of Immortality books well? (I read them probably 10-15 years ago) I also don't remember much along those lines in the Adept or Mode books...also read those quite a while ago.
Please detail which novels/stories you mean, if nothing else for recollection's sake.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Will you get your publisher to put out some nice high-res desktop backgrounds promoting your books? I find that this is a very cheap form of advertising, and something that we all love to have. Heck, reformatted cover art is more than good enough...
I want my root desktop containing dragons and whatnot...
May we never see th
It was a DEC Rainbow using a modified Dvorak layout and running CP/M. A few years later, another similar end note indicated he had switched to an IBM PC compatible machine.
Does this question cost me a year of service?
Have you ever regretted any of the character moves or plot lines you chose over the years in one of your series of books?
Of particular interest to me is Neq the Sword from the Battle Circle series. I have wondered for nearly 2 decades what the hell you were thinking when you had Neq kill Var in the beginning of this book after Var lowered his guard. As a result of this situation, I never developed any rapport with Neq, pretty much wanted him to be slaughtered by Vara and loathed the existence of the third book.
Of course I was 13 at the time, and I'm feeling much better now.
I figure I read over 10,000 pages of your work when I was young. Thanks for the entertainment and odd vocabulary.
-Rothfuss
Like much of America, I'm moderately lazy with regards to computers, and my present Windows98 machine works reasonably well. You switched to Linux and StarOffice - what inspired you to change, and how/why should inspire me, like much of the country, to change?
Well, I think I speak on behalf of parazoo-cum-daemon-philes (paradee's for short) everywhere when I say:
Don't knock unicorns humping the devil until you've seen just how far a unicorn's horn can actually reach up a demon's butt. Unicorns are hard to please and demanding lovers, while most devils are polyamourous sluts that will sleep with everything.
Your criticism of unicorn-demon-sex is just to be expected from a narrow-minded society of unispecieist cretins. One day, you will be the weird ones, and believe me, we'll laugh at you then.
Don't you feel it is relevant that a man who has impacted a very large number of young people (many of ourselves included) may have consciously or unconsciously chosen to promote paedophilia?
I am not one of those who believe that any art, including fiction, is unintentional. I would like very much to understand why Piers Anthony repeatedly choses sex with young girls as a topic for his novels and why he is overwhelmingly inclined to justify the act in his work. Keep in mind that the entire work is fictional. The fact that the fictional characters endorse the act, including the fictional young girls, tells us more about Mr. Anthony than about the world around us.
However you are right that the question is offensive and for that I apologize.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Which distribution of Linux are you currently running? Have you tried any others? And if so, which appealed to your creative book-writing persona the most?
Mr. Anthony, it is with very mixed emotions that I pose this comment/question. On the one hand, the stories and characters that you created and I read about in my mid-teens have endured the test of time. 'A Spell for Chameleon', 'Split Infinity', and 'On a Pale Horse' are tales that I'll think about fondly from time to time for the rest of my life.
On the other hand, I'll always remember the disappointments I had reading most of the subsequent books of the Xanth and Incarnations series. From my perspective, you have the ability to bring some very clever ideas to initial life, but then make the mistake of milking those ideas until they're utterly lifeless.
I would humbly encourage you to stick with singletons or at most trilogies in the future, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ANOTHER XANTH NOVEL!
My question is, at what point should an artist pass by commercial success for artistic integrity? Do you feel that you've gone past that point a few times?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Rather ironic. I started reading Asprin after Anthony recommended him in a footnote! Though he did offer it merely by virtue of being the next alphabetically...
Which of your own books you enjoyed writting the most? Which books by others did you enjoy reading the most?
Are you planning on upgrading from StarOffice 5.2 to OpenOffice.org 1.0 or StarOffice 6.0? Which? If not, is it because of a feature which OpenOffice.org is lacking, or just comfort with StarOffice 5.2?
Following up: Several news writers have e-mailed us (OpenOffice.org) asking for specific features designed to make OpenOffice.org more freindly to professional writers. As the "iron man" of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, do you have a feature you'd particularly like to see?
-Josh Berkus
OpenOffice.org Marketing
Volunteer Lead
agliodbs@openoffice.org
Not a question for Anthony per se, but just a note that people who find Incarnations of Immortality interesting might also dig the Nobilis roleplaying game, which riffs on similar themes. It's been getting rave reviews, one of which can be found here.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I just wanted to ask what made you decide change the Xanth novels from "serious fantasy", to the way they are today. By serious fantasy I'm talking about fantasy with a semi-serious story line, like the first Xanth novel. The first book seemed fairly serious but the other books went downhill.
Now all the Xanth novels seem to be huge pun books with very little of interest to adult readers.
BTW thanks for all the good books. I loved the Incarnations and Bio of a space tyrant.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
So it seems that he isn't interested in free as in beer.. but some other reasons - namely being free from Microsoft. So that is my first and obvious question:
Why do you want to be free from Microsoft? - I can understand why from a technical perspective a move to Linux would be rewarding, but as a professional writer, what was it that made moving to a new and, as you say, problematic system worth while?
Yarg, have you read his Novels of Human History?(Isle of Woman, Shame of Man, etc) Each is a history lesson big enough to hurt somebody. He even has a grad student that rusn about doing his research(last I heard). I know someone who's anthropology class used one of the novels in that series as a textbook!
No, I did not read all your books, but I'll compensate by stating I'm twice fan of your X=(a/nt)^h serie. Twice, because I read them all both in french and english, when possible.
And your novels are standing out into the american sci-fi crowd, because they are really as funny and pun-ridden in both languages !!! Er, well, actually they are even funnier in french, but I have a cultural bias, as french is my mother thongue. So, kudos to you and your translator(s) !
I'm really wondering of what kind of hoops did you did had to go through to:
Another serious question: switching to Linux always pose the problem of file exchange with boring third-parties, like colleagues, editor, etc. Are you just using plain text for that matter or the edition word is more open than we think ? What's your favorite(s) tool(s)/file format(s) for your business ?
By the way, which language(s) do you speak/write/pun ?
[Pruneau
I need to dig up more of his adult-oriented stuff.
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
I remember in many of your 'end-of-book' Author's Note, you detailed a fan of yours that threatened to kill herself and needed your help.
After 4 or 5 mentions of this girl in various books, my question is this: did you help this girl in someway? did she ever attempt or succeed at suicide?
on a side note, thanks for the many hours of pleasure i had as a teenager reading your books. i lost count somewhere after 50.
Heck, I find LotR has all sorts of homoerotic allusions, and don't even get me started on Grimms Fairy Tales. But these are just places the mind normally goes.
Actually I just think that Tolkien was the biggest prude ever--notice the roles women play. Their are little girl hobbits, matronly mother hobbits, and chaste beautiful viriginal virtuous elf queens that even Gimli falls in love with!
I don't believe that's true. I've been around a publishing press awhile, and generally the authors don't care much (just so long as they like what's on the cover) but sometimes have very specific requests. And unless those requests are ridiculous, they're usually honored.