Hard Sell

by Piers Anthony

Mr. Fisk Centers buys real estate on Mars, where he drives a supersonic car in a suicide race and visits a robot mortician for a sample embalming. Reprint.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy, Humor, Speculative Fiction

268 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

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

[Timothy Hinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though presented as a novel, this is really an anthology of six short stories focused on the adventures of Fisk Centers and his adopted daughter Yola:

Chapter 1: "Hard Sell" - 3.5 stars
Chapter 2: "Black Baby" - 3.5 stars
Chapter 3: "Hurdle" - 4 stars
Chapter 4: "Death" - 4 stars
Chapter 5: "Life" - 4 stars
Chapter 6: "Libel" - 2 stars

These story titles are not used in the book, but the titles of the four previously published stories are on the copyright page. Anthony mentions the titles of the other two stories in his introductory note to "Hard Sell" in Anthonology.

Average rating: 3.5 stars

Apart from the final story, which is a dull, preachy rant about royalties payable to artists (Anthony can't stop himself doing this occasionally), this is a funny and intriguing series of light science fiction stories.

The casual racism in "Black Baby" seems odd for a futuristic story, I'm sure more so today than when it was originally published in 1972, but still, plenty of scifi stories (Star Trek, say) were depicting harmonious, multicultural visions of the future by then. Maybe Anthony emphasized it to show that his future world wasn't much better than our present? They may have robots and flying cars, but people are still jerks.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, dumb, anti-corporation anti-corruption story told from the perspective of a pudgy old man in the future and his accidentally adopted child.

[Ayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly funny and sweet! Sci if with a twist.

[David Caldwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has an interesting origin. It started off as several short stories that appeared in various sci-fi magazines at different times. The stories were converted into chapters and some new chapters were added to flush the whole out into a full sized novel, So the whole book was written over a period of a couple of decades.

Mr. Fisk Centers considers himself a competent businessman. In reality, he is an easy mark for almost every fast talking salesman that comes along. From getting entangled with a smart mouthed and streetwise orphan in an adoption scam, to racing a supersonic racecar in a nearly suicidial race, to buying land on Mars, Fisk goes from one misadventure to the next.

Having started as short stories, the chapters have a tendency to feel disconnected from each other. The story is also showing its age. I am sure that when it was written, the writing seemed progressive and quite forward thinking. But by today's standards, those same parts seem questionable in their level of political correctness now. Overall, not the best best or even the best by Piers Anthony. A mediocre novel that is harmless fun.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first this was a reasonably quick paced jaunt through some hard selling techniques. The future might have rocketships but jerks will still sell worthless junk for inflated prices to saps. Then the story starts to get bogged down as sap turns jerk to recover his lost savings.

The extract for Killobyte in the back of this edition doesn't bode well for wanting to read any more Piers Anthony.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

Learning about the inside world of pharmaceutical sales was interesting for about the first 30 pages! I patiently waited for something to happen, but it never did, just another 189 pages of very detailed information about one person's experience as a drug rep. Just not what I expected and I'm hoping the movie is better.

[Lbaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really liked the first half of this book, but grew tired of it in the second half.
Has been a long time since I have read Piers Anthony, not sure I would read another book by him unless one falls into my life, will not seek one out.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe I read this in high school; I think they had it in the school library. I don't remember much about it.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny book, really enjoyed this one.

[Dale Rosso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting story by Anthony.

[Michael Nalbone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cynical, outrageous, and light read.

[Andy Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh, this was...Dumb.

[Jessy J · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book hasn’t aged very well and is hard to read against today’s standards.
Once again Anthony really struggled to understand what a woman is, especially a young woman. Really creepy in parts, dude. If you’ve seen the movie Leon… yeah that.
Add to that, there’s some real overt racism in this book - but in a way that makes me question whether the reader is racist or the world he has written is racist. Either way it’s very uncomfortable.
The chapters were originally short stories and they’re bundled together in this staccato way that really means one doesn’t flow well to the other, with little reference to the previous in the current.

Saying all that, there are some good moments in this book of creativity. The first chapter is honestly genius. I found some moments of profound commentary (as usual) and Anthony’s classic blend of sci fi and humour in a way that is bleak, funny and weirdly relatable.

My personal opinion is that he could have taken ‘Hard Sell’ a LOT further, and stuck to that first short story, and created it into a novel, rather than this weird mishmash of short stories that seemingly had no where else to go.

[Josh Knox-Chinnery · Rating 1 out of 5]

My first DNF in at least 10 years. I got to page 59, where our protagonist casually observes: "She paused, serious and for the moment rather pretty in her brown-faced way ," and put the book right the heck down. I did some searching to find out if Mr. Anthony is a racist. No conclusive evidence beyond occasional language like the exerpt, which may be a result of the character's discriminatory traits, but many (all???) of his series feature plenty of sexism to encourage my opting out.

I don't read to be fed racist or sexist sentiments, so I'm giving Hard Sell a hard pass.

[TOM SERVO · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read. 5 short stories originally published in IF magazine back in the early 70s, combined into one book. I enjoyed the dynamic between Fisk and his adopted daughter who is a mischievous and outspoken eleven year old. I sort of imagined her as a foul mouthed Shirley Templteton like character. I think this might have been my first Piers Anthony book and I'll definitely check out some more books of his in the future.

[Gabi Aharonov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute scifi commenting on capitalism. CW child almost sold as sex slave (not graphic), lots of exploitation.

[Ellison · Rating 3 out of 5]

a man loses his fortune in a real estate deal, on mars. so, he has to do a series of odd jobs.

[Eileen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Racist, sexist, egotistical, and gross.

[Sean Randall · Rating 3 out of 5]

oh, it's shallow and pieced together and utterly silly. but I enjoyed it.

[Barry Tikkanen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good pulp sci-fi in the flavor of that found in the old radio dramas. A fun read.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a string of short stories that are linked together. Unlike, Anthology, I liked it.

[Melvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book.

[Timothy Howell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it years ago and I still remember laughing so hard at the main character's missteps.