Defending the Indefensible

Piers Anthony was one of my favorite writers when I was in high school. I read a few of his Xanth novels, set in an extremely magical version of Florida (Anthony's home state and mine.) I read the Apprentice Adept series, most of Incarnations of Immortality (always had a hard time finding "Wielding a Red Sword" and "Being a Green Mother," for some reason, and I clearly remember having "grown out" of Anthony before the final book, "...And Eternity" came out.) There were a few stand-alone books - I specifically remember the sci-fi semi-porn "Ghost," and I may have read a few others from his many series over the years.

Anthony is very much a love-him-or-hate-him kind of writer. His fans love his lousy puns (can't blame them) and his haters deride his "juvenile" writing style and his repetitious characters.

I would guess a majority of speculative fiction fans around my age have read at least a few Anthony books, probably just because there are SO DAMN MANY. Last I checked his bibliography, he had over 80 titles (almost thirty of which were in the Xanth universe.) This may explain why his characters can blur together.

Poking around a little on the Internet, it looks like his non-fans who are willing to admit they've read any of his work will admit to one or more of a short list of his titles: "Spell for Chameleon," the first Xanth novel, "With a Tangled Skein," a book from the Incarnations of Immortality series, or "On a Pale Horse," the first of the Incarnations books. Almost universally, they try to restore their "cred" by saying the writing was "pretty bad" but that the story was good, or the concepts were. (The people who admit to reading "Spell for Chameleon" but who aren't fans bring up wretched puns.)

There's also a lot of talk about the sexism that's rampant in Anthony's books. It's been a long time since I read "Spell for Chameleon," or any other Xanth novel, but they get brought up a LOT when people start talking sexism in Anthony. I wonder how many of these people have read "Incarnations" recently. Particularly "On a Pale Horse," the one it's "socially acceptable" to have liked, even as a kid.

First, a quick note about "Split Infinity." I thought it was a very tightly plotted little story. But in the first few pages, I started to wonder just what Anthony was saying about women. The first prominent female in that one is a sex robot who has been programmed to fall in love with and protect Stile, the main character. There's some interesting philosophy in there about how he treats her. The next major female character is Stile's mount, a unicorn... who not only does he have to break to ride (fair enough, she's a wild horse, sort of,) but who he gets to sleep with because she changes into a girl at night. A girl who literally barely speaks for herself, and mostly seems to be there to move Stile from place to place and give him something to screw at night. The Lady Blue, the main love interest for the rest of the series, is more acceptable. In a way, I kind of felt like Anthony was trying to work through something with his treatment of women in this book. But of course, they're all super-hot and have giant boobs. At least Blue has an agenda of her own that she's perfectly capable of carrying out.

Okay, back to "On a Pale Horse," that "good" Piers Anthony book. I got through three chapters last night, somehow.

In the first chapter, the two female characters have to be rescued - the ghost girl from a living mugger (what the muppety fuck? What's he going to do, kill her?) and the live girl from her own bad driving. Yes, that's right. Her own bad driving, a trait which the lead character tells us is universal among women. Danica Patrick must scare Anthony senseless. And for the record, both the rescued damsels would be "duly grateful."

The second chapter, we get another couple of women. One is the Incarnation of Fate, in her aspect as Lachesis. She's middle-aged and therefore (to the main character) unattractive, which may be why she's allowed to be competent and intelligent. The other is an old lady from down the hall who really isn't there for much.

The third chapter, though, is the real peach. It ends with a woman attempting suicide because her husband just left her for a younger woman (it happens, sure, but it's still kind of a crappy message.) It's the football game that's really bad.

The teams are in some sort of all-women's league, and the team names are the Ewes and the Does (I guess we're lucky neither team was the Crimson Tide.) The players are all hugely endowed (Anthony certainly seems to be a major-league breast man) but otherwise only sort of attractive, since they're kind of burly. The field they play on is marked in feet, rather than yards. It may be a full-sized field (the hundred and fifty foot line is referenced in there) but it sounds like the plays only have to work a third as well as boys' plays would. And to top this off, these burly chicks, who make their money playing a sort of magically-assisted full contact game of football, prefer to fight by pulling each others' hair. I am not - and god help me could not - make this up.

Not everything has to be "Buffy." Women's issues don't even have to be discussed. But nearly killing off a woman because she's a bad driver? Then those grotesque football players? And all this is without bringing up the sketchy morality that seems to be in play in the Incarnations universe.

I remembered "On a Pale Horse" fondly, but I really didn't remember this crap. I wonder if any of the people who are willing to defend it while decrying the sexism of Xanth have read it recently.