Happy Birthday, Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob – better known to SF & Fantasy writers around the world as Piers Anthony  – was born on this day, in 1934, in Oxford.

Anthony published his first short story in 1963  and followed with his first novel, Cthon, in 1967, but he  is probably best known for his Xanth series of fantasy novels, which began in 1977 with A Spell for Chameleon (winner of the British Fantasy Award for best novel) and is still going strong almost forty books later.

For many writers, that would be sufficient work for a fifty-year career, but not for Piers Anthony; his output extends to a well over 150 books, taking in series such as Tarot, Incarnations of Immortality, Bio of a Space Tyrant and many more – as well as dozens of singletons.

Good thing the number of candles on his cake is for years rather than books – Happy Birthday, Piers Anthony!