Bio of a Space Tyrant [Hardcover]

Piers Anthony (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 768 pages
• Publisher: Book Sales (March 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0706431642
• ISBN-13: 978-0706431643
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,370,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Piers Anthony is one of the world's most popular fantasy authors, and a New York Times bestseller twenty-one times over. His Xanth novels have been read and loved by millions of readers around the world, and he daily receives hundreds of letters from his devoted fans.In addition to the Xanth series, Anthony is the author of many other best-selling works. Piers Anthony lives in Inverness, Florida.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BIO OF A SPACE TYRANT, July 1, 2000

By 

Ugly Gentleman (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bio of a Space Tyrant Series (Refugee, Mercenary, Politician, Executive, Statesman) (Paperback)

I happen to own all five books of the Bio of a Space Tyrant series, in paperback format. I've read each one at least twice. I was looking to replace rather a worn-out copy of Politician - but now it appears I will have to scour the Out-of-Prints. This pentology tells the epic tale of one boy's rise from humble beginnings as a refugee to becoming a powerful leader, visionary, and elder statesman in a setting where the political climate holds close parallels with our own global situation of the early 1980s.

In REFUGEE, we follow Hope Hubris as a teenager with his family, forced to escape from Callisto (counterpart to Cuba or Haiti) into space and brave the depradations of pirates in the hopes of finding a better life elsewhere. Raped, plundered, and set adrift by pirates, the survivors resort to cannibalism to survive - eating their own friends and family.

In MERCENARY, we find Hope and his sister Spirit as the only known survivors of their family. Now in the military of the United States of Jupiter (counterpart to our United States), they proceed to ascend the ranks, gather allies, and mount an expedition to wipe out piracy throughout the solar system.

Returning from their successful mission, Hope turns to civilian life and embarks upon a career as a POLITICIAN, with the eventual goal of becoming President of the United States of Jupiter. With the help of his wife, Meghan, his sister, Spirit, and others, he succeeds - with a twist. Massive opposition from the incumbent president, Tocsin, leads a Constitutional assembly to suspend their Constitution and government and declare Hope Hubris to be the sole source of lawful government.

Backed by the military of which he was once a part of, he takes power as Tyrant in EXECUTIVE. Under his rule, he enforces sweeping social changes in government - addressing recurring societal problems within health care, education, crime, and the economy by executive fiat. While this approach solves some problems, his harsh rule lends strength to oppositional forces that eventually force him from power.

In the last book of the series, STATESMAN, a middle-aged Hope Hubris travels the solar system, promoting peace and sharing his vision of developing light-speed travel as a means of settling mankind into the stars before political and populational pressures cause the solar system to erupt into an unsurvivable System War III (counterpart to what would be our World War III).

The Bio of a Space Tyrant series really is an excellent read, but it can definitely bore others. If you want, you can read Mercenary first. The military tactics, intrigue, and human manipulation angles can be very interesting. It might then lead you to want to read the others, including Refugee, the book that began it all, or Executive, which is also somewhat fun.

I hope you find this review useful in determining whether these books are worthy of your purchase.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Lame and tedious, September 3, 2009

By 

Lew - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bio of a Space Tyrant Series (Refugee, Mercenary, Politician, Executive, Statesman) (Paperback)

When I was in junior high, I really enjoyed P. Anthony's Xanth series, most of all for the creativity. I also remember enjoying Battle Circle, the Adept series, and some of the Incarnations of Immortality. Never anything too special, but enjoyable. This series however, gets worse and worse as it goes on. The first 2 are nominally entertaining, but Anthony seems to become bored with the story later on. He doesn't seem to have the energy to develop the story anymore, so he glosses over major events with a quick summary abstract, so that major episodes became "just so" stories. Anthony constantly refers to events of the past, assuming the reader has not read previous installments. Therefore, the educated reader has to suffer through multiple summaries of Hope Hubris' history. Eventually, the book degrades into what appears to be Anthony's own attitudes or dreams about sex and politics, which are all the more boring because of their one-sided nature. The sex in the book is especially boring in its predictable, stereotypically male approach. She's hot, she can't resist him, he nails her, she's happy just to have been the subject of his rutting. Lame. The political world is somewhat creative. Perhaps during the cold war era it may have seemed more appropriate. Reading it today it appears trite and tedious The scientific aspect has its moments, but even when the technology is exciting the explanation of it is grade school. Anthony seems desperate for the reader to know he's done some research. Overall, the books are highly predictable. Each chapter is nearly guaranteed to have an attempt on Hope's life, a sexual encounter, and a miraculous turn of events in which Hope trumps the odds.
My good memories of Piers Anthony will have to remain in my junior high and early high school life. Perhaps my maturity level at the time explains my enjoyment. But reading this series today (25+ years later), I wonder if those books (Xanth etc.) were even that good. This series is better left on the used book store's shelf.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lost in Bio., April 13, 1998

By 

Lori Richards ([e-mail]) (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bio of a Space Tyrant Series (Refugee, Mercenary, Politician, Executive, Statesman) (Paperback)

I was an early lover of the Xanth series and then the Incarnation series. Although not all of Piers Anthony's books/Series have given me equal pleasure, I found a second hand copy of of all five books of this series years ago and plunged into a most vivid world of imagination for a week and a half. I was consumed by this wonderful story of the adventure, ingenuity and growth of Hope Hubris (what an appropriate name!) and his sister. I somehow lost the books among many moves and am hoping I can buy them again to share with my son.