122 of 148 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Too pedophile-friendly for my taste, March 7, 2004
This review is from: Firefly (Mass Market Paperback)
This book has several problems, the worst one being that I found that the tone was much too sympathetic towards pedophiles.
In chapter 32 a leading character tells a story about a five-year-old girl named Nymph who is being sexually mistreated by her father and her brother. This girl, in her confusion, seduces an adult man who she encounters. The seduction is described over 10 pages and becomes pornographically explicit at times. The story is presented in the context that the adult man (whose name is Mad) should not be condemned because he only did what the child asked him to do.
In chapter 37 the same character tells a story about an old woman who happens to have a one-way mirror in the wall between a darkened room in her house and a shed built onto the outside of the house. One day two children, a boy and a girl approx. 9-10 years old, wander into the shed and eventually take off their clothes and try playing man and wife, without much success. The old lady is watching through the one-way mirror, and after the children leave she places a tube of lubricant in the shed. When the children come back next day they find this lubricant and use it and their playing is more successful. The old woman, who is watching again, finds this satisfying.
At the end of the paperback edition that I read there is an 8-page "Author's Note". (I believe this note is shorter or missing in some other editions.) In this "Author's Note" Piers Anthony tries to justify the stories of sexual activities between children and adults and the sympathetic slant towards the adults in the stories. In fact, he shoots himself in the foot:
"The games five year old Nymph played with Mad where a joy to her at the time, but it was nevertheless abuse by our society's definition (not necessarily that of other societies) ..."
"One of the included stories was written by Santiago Hernandez, in prison for pedophilia."
"On another occasion she (an innocent five-year-old girl) is left at home with a kindly uncle. He is very attentive and gives her what she likes best: candy. He plays a game with her, but cautions her that it must be secret or they won't be able to play it again. It involves tickling in funny places ... She loves it; no one else treats her like this. She looks eagerly forward to future visits with Uncle, and to the sharing of more secrets."
Now it's certainly true that the sexual abuse of children is a problem that exists, and pretending that it doesn't exist won't make it go away. But why make the pedophiles look sympathetic and why try to claim that (some of) the victims are not really victims? I simply can't understand how these pedophile-friendly sections of this book got past the editor.
Just out of curiosity, and to check that I wasn't completely off base, I did a Google search for '"piers anthony" pedophilia'. This resulted in quite a few interesting hits, many of which referred directly to this book.
The most shocking web reference I found was a message board where pedophiles hang out and exchange messages concerning their sexual preferences. (I had no idea that such a message board existed.) Here were several messages about how good the books of Piers Anthony are. So despite Piers Anthony's claim that he is not sympathetic towards pedophiles, the pedophiles certainly think that Piers Anthony is sympathetic towards them.
Neglecting the pedophile-friendly problem, what about the rest of the book? Well, until I hit chapter 32 I was preparing to give this book only two stars because I found that none of the characters are believable. They all do strange things and are driven by strange motives, and none of them act like normal human beings.
There is a lot of allegorical story telling in the book, and at one point I wondered if that explained the strange behavior of the characters. In other words, the entire book was perhaps intended to be an allegorical story instead of story about real people. In that case the allegorical messages, other than the suggestion that pedophiles aren't necessarily bad, went over my head.
Not recommended.
Rennie Petersen
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
57 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Writing on the wall, anyone?, March 6, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Firefly (Mass Market Paperback)
Like another reviewer, this book has ruined what was originally a longtime loyal readership of Piers' work.
As with VC Andrews "work," Piers' books were great reading as a teenager and it wasn't until I went back as an adult that I really started to wonder what the heck was going on with these two particular authers and how literary classics like To Kill A Mockingbird and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings were yanked off shelves in a censorship frenzy, while material like this sits on them instead.
Both authors were/are immensely popular, and both were writing fiction that doesn't just cover a sexual "taboo," but attempts to get you to sympathize with the people committing child abuse, incest, etc.
Firefly, as it's been mentioned over and over again, is not teen material...it's adult material...and then some. And since others have gone to the trouble to describe the plot and point out there are graphic scenes regarding child abuse...let me clarify that for you: the scene in question involves a child (under 10) having sex with an adult male (30's). This scene is not written from the perspective of a horrible thing having happened. And it is not just "graphic," it is explicit down to every last detail of the encounter and horrifyingly enough, it is written from the viewpoint of eroticism. Anthony shallowly does his little disclaimer saying that this child didn't understand love in any other way...but we're to see these two as a couple tragically seperated. We're to see the child as a lusty nymphomaniac who talked the adult into the situation and instigates it. It might be said I'm missing the point that Anthony was trying to make -that the child's perspective was damaged by abuse into equating all things sexual with love - but if there was a good "cause" there, he blew it by writing it out like a [poor quality] story in penthouse letters. It comes across as though we're to see molestation from a different perspective...that the child might instigate it and that sometimes it's "not the adult's fault, after all, he did ask her if she was 'sure.'"
With this scene in mind, I went back and looked over Piers' other work...books that I enjoyed as a teenager. It's ruined for me now. If shallow, hack writing (compare him to Bradbury, McCaffrey, Asimov and you find there just is no comparison at all, even in his more "serious" works) is what you enjoy and barely veiled pedophile fantasies don't bother you, by all means, read it, but I would suggest using the library to review Piers' books first rather than spending (wasting) your money and supporting this man. Going back, I see everything else he's written has that disturbing undercurrent to it and what creativity is evident in his writing has been soured.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Just awful; Anthony shames himself, February 17, 1998
This review is from: Firefly (Mass Market Paperback)
This book ended a 10-year relationship with Piers Anthony and his novels. I began with his Xanth novels and continued to consume well over 50 of his books. I read this book in 1993, after taking some time off from his work - I had come to the conclusion that he was becoming a hack. This novel confirmed it. Using the horror novel as a not-so-subtle means of preaching his message of "tolerance" in all things sexual, Anthony continues to degrade the memory of every book of his I had read and loved. If it had just been the message, I could have enjoyed the book on its artistic merits. Unfortunately, it has none. A total sham. If you're thinking of reading Anthony, I recommed "Macroscope" and the "Chthon" & "Pthor" books. These books, written 30 years ago, put his recent work to shame.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
