Piers Anthony is the pen name of Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob, an Englishman who became an American citizen in 1958. "My major motivation as a writer," he observes, "has been my inability to quit writing, and my dissatisfaction with all other modes of employment." As a result of this focusing of energies, Anthony has been a veritable writing machine in recent years, authoring or coauthoring twenty-four novels since 1967. Born in Oxford, England, Anthony was brought to the United States as a child, celebrating his sixth birthday on board a ship. He found his early schooling in this country unpleasant, but he thoroughly enjoyed college. In 1956 he earned his B.A. from Goddard College, submitting as his creative writing thesis his first science-fiction novel. He married Carol Marble on 23 June 1956 and later served in the army from 1957 to 1959. Anthony's moral convictions made military service difficult for him, and, as he...