Bio of an Ogre

by Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony, the mastermind behind the worlds created for the Apprentice Adept and Xanth series, now journeys to a different world--his own. Millions of fans will eagerly join Anthony's personal odyssey through the real life of a master storyteller.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, Humor, Biography Memoir

297 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Though he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.

Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting autobiography that appeared thirty-some years ago when Anthony was at the height of his popularity. It's a well written book, and if Anthony comes off as a bit egotistical and arrogant one can just assume that he did an honest and accurate job in writing it. He lays out both the good and bad events of his life and reflects on how they contributed to the development of his writing career. His observations and opinions of many things would not coincide with many other peoples, but he presents his viewpoints cogently and convincingly. The book includes some very interesting appendixes that give a further look into his personality. I'd like to see an updated edition.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Particularly interesting to read from the perspective of a would-be writer, as Anthony focuses on the travails of his life as a writer. He is a mostly balanced assessor of the folks he has dealt with, but his slightly ruffled pride in his more intellectual and less successful books, as well as an attempt at humorous tone (I would characterize it as "authorial chuckling while showing off one's intellect")emotionally distanced me from from wholly empathizing with his journey.

[Phil J · Rating 1 out of 5]

I agree with everyone else who says that this book made me loathe Piers Anthony on a fairly personal level. However, everyone seems to be missing the excellent novella included as an appendix.

The backstory is that Anthony was teaching a college class (!) and one of his female students took a disliking to him. (Easy to imagine.) She sent a badly written novella to his publisher with his name on it. The novella is a razor-sharp satire of everything that is terrible about Anthony's writing. Hilariously, Anthony includes it in his autobiography with no shred of shame or irony- he seems to think she was earnestly trying to copy his style!

I guess I owe this book some thanks because it is part of what ended my Piers Anthony phase back in high school. (The other part was realizing that his books are awful.)

[Blake · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a bit of a mixed bag, this book. On the one hand, I found parts of it interesting and entertaining. On the other, I felt a bit disillusioned by seeing the "true face" of an author I've always loved. Half the book was him blowing his own trumpet and the other half was airing every grievance ever visited on him, with blame almost always being anywhere but with him. It seems a bit telling if someone asks you to write your life story and it ends up as one long series of complaints...
But either way, I've read it now so I can't change that. I just hope it doesn't colour the way I read his books now.

[Slartibartfast]

I was really dissapointed with this book, guess I wanted him to be like I imagined, not the arrogant writter that this book made him appear.

[John (Hey Y'all Listen Up) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthony is my favorite author, so I may be a little biased. I really enjoyed reading this. Anthony has a way of stringing words together that is a joy for me to read. A must read for any Anthony fan. It also has great advice for anyone wishing to become a published author.

[☺Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the Xanth books when I was younger. They were fantastic in every sense of the word, clever and chock full of humor! I was hoping that Anthony's memoir would be something along the lines of Roald Dahl's memoir Boy: Tales of Childhood - which I loved. Nope, Piers Anthony makes himself sound like the oftentimes unlikeable, arrogant, and crotchety ogre of the title. Not an entirely entertaining and enjoyable read as Anthony uses quite a bit of the book to settle old scores with publishers, family, friends, fans, neighbors, critics, other writers, etc. The only reason I gave this three stars instead of the two I feel it deserves is because I still reread my favorite Xanth novels - Ogre, Ogre; Night Mare; and Golem in the Gears - wonderful books!

[Peter Cook · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this because I was on a Piers Anthony reading kick and I wanted to find out more about him. I was grossly disappointed by what I read. I learned Anthony's writing method. He seems to have given up on producing original material by around 1980. He writes three novels a year and does them in a production line process. He said he doesn't need the money. He admitted that in some of his writing, like the Bio of a Space Tyrant, he uses it to bludgeon the reader with his opinions. That is most uncool. Reading this book was one of my motivations for stopping to read Anthony's work and to never buy one of his books again.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I do enjoy Piers Anthony's work, I don't think I would really like him as a person. At least not based on his own description on himself. Sometimes being right doesn't mean you are correct. But since he is so obviously proud of his foibles, I don't he would ever change. I'm not actually sure he is still alive! Oh well, it was well written but not enjoyable.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this when I was at my peak of Xanth fandom. Piers Anthony seems like quite the character.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one's been on my backlog for about 30 years (and it's been out of print for nearly as long, for reasons I'll get into below, so I had to find a beat up paperback on eBay.) Piers Anthony was my favorite author in middle school. He was an interesting guy because he always have an extensive appendix of author notes and ramblings at the back of each book which gave some insight into his life and inspirations for his writings. His major rival in the fantasy fiction industry was writer Roger Zelazny, which was also the favorite author of one of my friends so we were always comparing notes and trying to outread each other (I can't even come close anymore.....)

This autobiography was written at the age of 50, with each of the 5 chapters covering a decade of his life. The biggest impression I get from this book is that Piers is very confrontational, and his reputation as being an orge is not just an expy of some of his Xanth characters. Be it his publishers (God forbid he actually expect them to follow his contract terms!), his neighbors, his children's classmates and their parents, or even his army superiors, most of this book is his stories about everyone he wanted to fight.

There's a large chapter that goes in very technical terms about a legal battle he had with an early publisher over payments. I have a feeling this is the reason why this book is no longer in print (and was never available as an ebook) because it, pardon the pun (Piers would be proud) pulls some real punches about the industry and led to him being nearly blacklisted, which forced him to switch from sci-fi to fantasy so that he could start over with different executives.

I also realized that there was a large amount of his earlier work that I never got a chance to read (he had exactly 50 books published in time for his 50th birthday) and even though I haven't read anything else by him since college, some of it may be worth checking out. He also published a second autobiography another 20 years later which I may read in another 20 years from now.

This book has an interesting appendix which includes some of his first short stories, which never got published before, as well as rejection letters explaining why.

[Cumoy Beau · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have never read any of Piers Anthony's books, but I wanted to check him out, so I grabbed Bio of an Ogre from the used book store, thinking that a fantasy book written from an ogre's perspective would be interesting (hey, if I was a smart guy, I would have been in the non-fiction section).

It turned out to be the author's autobiography, which was a disappointment, but I figured I would read it anyway, it could be an illuminating experience.

And it was. WOW this guy has a persecution complex. He views every event of his life as an injustice. He was taken from his beloved nanny to live with his parents in Spain-- what an injustice! He scored the winning goal in his school sports game, but the umpire called the game for the other team-- what an injustice! He didn't get a job as a teacher despite being the single greatest student to ever attend teaching college-- what an injustice! He got into an argument with another parent when picking his kid up from daycare, he got a bad review in a fanzine, his house was infested by lovebugs-- what an injustice!

It really made me think about the way I live my own life-- would my autobiograhy be filled with nothing but complaints against the unfairness I love to gripe about? That would be sad. Maybe I should have a think about what my life story should be about, and live my life in that way.

It's a bad sign when the appendices written by your mother and father are more interesting than the content of your own bio. The best bit is the writing advice he gives at the end, I have already started implementing it in my own work.

I still want to read some off his fiction, it will be interesting to see what it's like to first read an author's works AFTER reading their autobiography.

[Ann Hein · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 30 year old book! Keep that in mind. I hope there is a later bio...

Having read many of the Xanth books, I was interested in reading about the author's first 50 years. His early years were not happy and the section of the book about his writing struggles were so real! And most writers aren't able to make a living at it. I found his description of working with publishers not too interesting, but I've never wanted to sell a book.

His experience with education courses in college, student teaching and actual teaching are very realistic. I know because I've lived through it, too.

I also liked his description of his home in Florida and how the area helped him formulate Xanth.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never read Piers Anthony growing up but became intrigued with the author after he was featured in a This American Life segment. Interesting look at writing as a discipline, business and craft and appreciate that he's not afraid to present a warts-and-all look at his seemingly irascible personality. I've always found the Author's Notes to be my favorite parts of Piers Anthony books and if you're like me, give Bio of an Ogre a chance.

[W.J. Manares · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book might help on Anger Management, Child-Rearing, Marriage, Self-Defense, Writing, and many more daily struggles. Be ready with a pen and paper to take down all quotations found inside this masterpiece that could be useful in one's life.

[Eachan HARRISON · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best Autobiographies I have ever read!

[Naomi Martinez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed that I didn’t like this book more; I’ve always loved his other works. I wonder if his writing about himself was of such a different style that I couldn’t enjoy it, despite really wanting to. Regardless of his writing style and content, I also learned more about the author and realized we would not have been friends in real life.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piers Anthony, the mastermind behind the worlds created for the Apprentice Adept and Xanth series, now journeys to a different world--his own. Millions of fans will eagerly join Anthony's personal odyssey through the real life of a master storyteller.

This is an interesting autobiography that appeared thirty-some years ago when Anthony was at the height of his popularity. It's a well written book, and if Anthony comes off as a bit egotistical and arrogant one can just assume that he did an honest and accurate job in writing it. He lays out both the good and bad events of his life and reflects on how they contributed to the development of his writing career. His observations and opinions of many things would not coincide with many other peoples, but he presents his viewpoints cogently and convincingly. The book includes some very interesting appendixes that give a further look into his personality. I'd like to see an updated edition.

[Carolynn Markey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will say I only skimmed this book. I related to him a lot, I've also has miscarriages like his wife and they are really tragic. I will say I don't like the tone of this through. He comes across pompous, but I suppose writing about oneself can do that. Also I found his atheism ironic, as I am a deeply religious person. I love his xanth series, but perhaps I didn't need to know so much about who wrote it. Sometimes that can ruin things. Hence why I only skimmed it. My love for his books must not be tarnished! Not to say it would be, but I am afraid to go there.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Piers Anthony. I read every Xanth book, but after awhile, they became mundane and monotonous. I think one can only write so many books based on puns.

But the Immorality series is great.

Try some Xanth books and see if you like them.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great take on one authors struggles with Publishers ( a struggle he totally whomped!)

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young adult 10-15

[Kirsten]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13640118

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome read learning about one of my favorite authors. =)