X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Piers Anthony


Balance puzzle

Niobe, the protagonist of Piers Anthony's novel With a Tangled Skein, must solve the twelve-coin variation of this puzzle to find her son in Hell: Satan has disguised the son to look identical to eleven other demons, and he is heavier or lighter depending on whether he is cursed to lie or able to speak truthfully.

Face of the Screaming Werewolf

Published in 2006 by Piers Anthony's Random House POD imprint, Xlibris, Face of the Screaming Werewolf by Ken Gage recycled imagery and dialogue from the film to tell a strange story involving Satan's war in heaven, robots, sadomasochistic vampires, the nature of elitism, and aliens (mostly from the planet Venus).

Kissimmee River

In protest to the canalization of the river and its resultant damage to the habitat, Florida author Piers Anthony based the plot of the tenth Xanth novel, Vale of the Vole, around the straightening of the "Kiss-Mee River," an obvious parody to "Kissimmee."

Leigh Marble

The son of two Harvard, Massachusetts software engineers and nephew of science fiction novelist Piers Anthony, Leigh Marble is also the direct descendant of 19th century spiritualist Hiram Marble who spent years vainly searching for pirate's treasure that he believed lay buried within the abandoned cave of Dungeon Rock (now part of the Lynn Woods Reservation of eastern Massachusetts).


The Horror Zine

The Horror Zine has published established, professional writers, including Graham Masterton, Joe R. Lansdale, Piers Anthony, Ramsey Campbell, Elizabeth Massie, Simon Clark, Tom Piccirilli, Melanie Tem, and Bentley Little.


see also

Incarnations of Immortality

A few other series have used the technology/magic combined motif, notably Apprentice Adept, another series by Piers Anthony, and Four Lords of the Diamond by Jack Chalker, although that book had an actual technological basis for the explanation of its magic, in contrast to Piers Anthony's work.