Be careful what you wish for... "I'm actually a smart girl who would make any man an excellent wife. But no man sees that. No man is interested in my mind or personality, just my whatevers. So here is my wish: I'm board stiff. I want Adventure, Excitement, and Romance.” So begins Piers Anthony's 38th Xanth novel, in which Irrelevant Candy, looks at her reflection in the water of the shallow well and sees luxuriant midnight black hair to her breathtakingly slender waist, matching dark eyes in a lovely face. A torso coming yea-close to absolute perfection. She was man's desire. That was part of the problem. And in the shallow magic of a wishing well, she asks her wish to be granted. Something happens. A sudden whirlwind surrounds her, lifting her up and ripping off her clothing. She is changing, somehow. Then she falls flat on the ground. Literally. She has been transformed into a flat, stiff board with two knotholes for eyes.

Millie, a ghost for 800 years wants only one man--Jonathan, and he's a zombie. To prove himself, Magician Dor volunteers to get the potion that can restore Jonathan to full life. But he has to go back through time to do it, to a peril-haunted, ancient Xanth, where danger lurks at every turn....

He was the largest land mammal of perhistoric times--a rhino. Now computers and genetic engineering have brought one of these magnificent creatures back to life and into the life of a boy named Thor. This moving and suspenseful tale will enchant readers, and offer an irresistible reminder of the bond between the creatures of the wild and the child that lives within us all.

Two worlds--the scientific Proton, and the magical Phaze--exist side-by-side. Now, Mach has crossed from Proton to Phaze, switching places with his counterpart Bane. And both must learn to survive in environments alien to their own nature.

The mysterious prophecy that has shaped the life of Kelvin Knight Hackleberry and his family seems nearly to have run its course. The Two Kingdoms that were joined by Kelvin to form Kelvinia have now been united with three others, to make a great confederation under the rule of the young twin kings, Kildom and Kildee. Kelvin has earned some time to rest with his family. Charles and Merlain are now twenty years old, and so is Dragon Horace, their brother who is the Great King of all the land. But the clouds of the last battle are gathering. The evil Professor DeVale and his witch servant Zady had been foiled in their attempt to destroy Kelvin by using his children--their evil plot has led to a stronger, more peaceful land under its rightful rulers. Now they will try one last time to pervert all that is good in the universe of the frames--and although the Prophecy of Mouvar has been accurate up to now, still there is a chance that evil will prevail.

For a bored, young princess of Xanth, there's nothing more exciting than a Quest. Especially when all you do is sit around Castle Roogna. But when Ivy uses the Heaven Cent, it takes her not to the top of Mount Rushmost, where the winged monsters gather, not to the sea where the merfolk swim--but to Mundania, a world much like our own (that is, boring). It is here that she meets a young college student so dull that he doesn't even believe in magic, or princesses, or Xanth! Does he have a lot to learn. The thrilling climax to the trilogy started in Vale of the Vole and continued in Heaven Cent.

Militia, a beautiful female criminal, targeting prominent men. But when she goes after Newton Oswald she is a fly entering the spider’s lair. For Oswald is himself a criminal, of a more serious nature than she. He and his former victim Maria see Militia coming, as it were.

Chthon was Piers Anthony’s first published novel in 1967, written over the course of seven years. He started it when he was in the US Army, so it has a long prison sequence that is reminiscent of that experience, being dark and grim. It features Aton Five, a space man who commits the crime of falling in love with the dangerous alluring Minionette and is therefore condemned to death in the subterranean prison of Chthon. It uses flashbacks to show how he came to know the Minionette, and flashforwards to show how he dealt with her after his escape from prison. The author regards this as perhaps the most intricately structured novel the science fantasy genre has seen. It was a contender for awards, but not a winner.

There is trouble in Xanth again. The Gap Dragon had escaped and was ravaging across the land, the forget-spell was causing mass amnesia, three-year-old Ivy was headed right for a hungry dragon. Could things get any worse? Probably.... From the Paperback edition.

The cast of cosmic characters: A prodigal worm, a telepathic, egotistical, totally unscrupulous little alien running away from his father becomes the biggest prize in the universe. Capture the slimy brat and win an entire planet! A cosmic hustler, an effete snob who ekes out a comfortable living as the president's son-in-law and perfects his reflexes with endless contests of cosmic pool, becomes the most important element in a delicate game of interspatial espionage—and the galaxy's prime target for assassination. The most sensual woman on Earth, completes the star-crossed triangle in one of the wildest, wickedest romps in the annals of science fiction!

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. Through Pariah, he meets other sopath victims who band together to form a temporary nuclear family. But the sopath threat is getting worse, and soon their quaint little neighborhood is overrun by murderous, drug-running children. Now, on a mission for Pariah, Abner and his makeshift family must travel across the country to a mysterious town that contains a secret powerful enough to stop the sopath crisis. Instead, they find the most seductive and ruthless sopath of all. Her name is Autopsy, and she would like to add Abner to her slave collection. The old morality is dead. Now the sopaths will stalk the earth.

Welcome back to the universe-spanning realm of the Amoeba, where harmony is entrusted to an unlikely group of heroes, and where, when the ordinary no longer applies, the extraordinary comes into play. Tod Timmonds and his sexy team of outcasts are joined on this mission by a charming were-unicorn, Wetzel, whose special skills are as impressive and imperative to the mission’s success as his sexual prowess and personal quest to find the ultimate virgin. The new reincarnation of the team must navigate a trail that leads to new worlds and demands they placate the urgings of a variety of friends and foes of various species before they can restore the balance and the universal justice the great Amoeba seeks. 

In February 1989, science fiction writer Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth series, received a moving letter. It came from a woman whose daughter, Jenny, was in a coma as a result of severe injuries caused by a drunk driver. She asked Anthony to write to Jenny, an avid fan of his, in the hope that a letter from him would evoke some response. Her request resulted in a series of warm, supportive, and humorous letters written weekly from Anthony to Jenny. These were read to the patient by her mother. The original letters Anthony wrote between February 1989 and 1990, reproduced here along with Anthony’s comments, reveal the author’s wit, humanism, and social conscience. Jenny has come out of her coma, but is still confined to a wheelchair. Anthony also named a character in his next Xanth novel after Jenny, whose limited but definite physical responses to his letters indicated how important they were to her.