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Firefly

Firefly

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Somebody definitely should confer with Freud
Review: Admittedly, Piers Anthony was one of my favorite authors until sometime in high school when I realized that he's just another dirty old man. Every book he's ever written has had some form of elicit sex or sex at the very least, and if it isn't elicit then it's presented as a purely animalistic function. This book is no different. In this book the widow gets to cure the impotent caretaker. And naturally the predator draws in his prey by, you guessed it, pheremones, and apparently if you get too close you can't stop orgasming (is that a real word?) Can you get any more adolescent? This guy is in his fifties or sixties and still enjoys writing about young girls and their menstrual cycles.

But I digress. If you're looking for something completely unrealistic and sexy, go ahead and grab this book and a moist towel and enjoy yourself.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Anne Rice would be proud of this...
Review: because she could have written it. This is one of the most erotic horror thrillers ever written and Anthony deserves a pat on the back. It is also one of those few novels that readers don't forget about because it works on the erotic parts of the brain.

The only reason this novel is getting some bad reviews is because some people don't want others reading it. Why? Because it's about a monster that eats it's victim alive after it immobolizes them with it's pheromones. The pheromones immobolize the victim by making them utra-horny, so while the victims are having extra powerful orgasms they are being eaten alive.

While not all that scary, it is horrific and is a fascinating read and a totally original one. Don't listen to the reviews. This book is definitely for the 18 and over crowd and should be read by adults. It's not easily forgotten. I read it 3 years ago and it still left enough of an impression to make me want to write this review.

Anthony is great a writing horror. He is original and nothing about this novel is mundane.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I little dirty book
Review: Comared to Anthony's other writings (such as Pornucopia), this is a mild novel. It is a collection of errotic stories losely pulled onto a sceleton of a horror novel (that isn't as scary as it is dirty).

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Fatal Flaw: Anthony Can't Kill the Evil Monster
Review: I enjoyed most of the book, but in the end wanted to fling it in the trash when the emotional climax never came. This book also suffers from the danger of all horror: That you identify more with the monster and actually enjoy seeing the victims tortured. In this instance, it means sexually torturing a child as well, often from the viewpoint of the monster. Child molesters might find this book highly enjoyable but many will find it unbearable. One wonders if the author is actually promoting sex with children or just exploiting it.

A lousy ending can almost ruin an otherwise good book, and in this foray into horror, Piers Anthony acts like a hack writer. Whether horror or not, he forgot that you don't spend an entire novel building up a set of sex crimes, only to say in the end, "that's okay, sort of." Without giving away the specific end, I will say it does not give you the emotional release of a noble hero (or even an anti-hero) destroying evil in the end. Anthony's wimpy ending might have something to do with his anti-capital-punishment liberal politics: He can't bring himself to really kill evil!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Writing on the wall, anyone?
Review: I have read this book twice. I loved it both times. I am a Xanth fan and have been for a long time. Then my husband handed me a copy of Firefly. I was thinking at first that it would be just like Xanth, which it is NOT. I discovered this when I opened it up and started reading. I do not scare easily, but this book scared me. I went to bed for weeks afterwards scared to death. Every sexual thought I had made me freak out in terror. It was good, but I hope he doesn't write another.

Piers Anthony is one of my favorite writers, and probably will. Right up there with Mercedes Lackey, Jennifer Roberson, and V.C. Andrews. Those people who gave this book a bad review missed the entire point of the novel. If you read the Arthur's notes (as anyone who reads Xanth should be in the habit of doing) you would have gotten the point. He is bringing into light a topic that often gets swept under the rug even today. I am glad that we live in a country where we can write about whatever we choose to write about.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not for the children or the intolerent
Review: I have read this book twice. I loved it both times. I am a Xanth fan and have been for a long time. Then my husband handed me a copy of Firefly. I was thinking at first that it would be just like Xanth, which it is NOT. I discovered this when I opened it up and started reading. I do not scare easily, but this book scared me. I went to bed for weeks afterwards scared to death. Every sexual thought I had made me freak out in terror. It was good, but I hope he doesn't write another.

Piers Anthony is one of my favorite writers, and probably will. Right up there with Mercedes Lackey, Jennifer Roberson, and V.C. Andrews. Those people who gave this book a bad review missed the entire point of the novel. If you read the Arthur's notes (as anyone who reads Xanth should be in the habit of doing) you would have gotten the point. He is bringing into light a topic that often gets swept under the rug even today. I am glad that we live in a country where we can write about whatever we choose to write about.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: firefly
Review: If i could give this book a lower rating, I would. Never have i ever seen such blatant abuse of the exclamation point in all my years of reading. The dialogue is sophomoric and even the sex scenes are unfulfilling. (Did anyone ever finish the actual act without "spending their seed" before they could even make penetration?)

He tries to justify Nymphs sexual tendencies by stating, "We have problems enough with world hunger and injustice, without making more by punishing people for deviant but perhaps harmless behavior" Sure he's speaking of homosexual, bisexual relationships (which i do not consider to be deviant in any since of the word) but to classify child sexual abuse in the same context is an abhorrence.

All in all, i did not enjoy this book and since i believe in finishing what i start, upon completion of this travesty, i promptly tossed it in the garbage.



Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I Read This When I Was 12
Review: If I could've picked one book that would seriously expose a little girl to the world of lust and sexual abuse, this would be it. I read this book years ago (I'm 18 now) and it strongly affected my attitude towards sex while growing up. Even now I'm not sure if the affect was bad or good, so my review is mixed. On one hand, I emerged from the experience much more open-minded than I had been, on the other hand, I was robbed of a rational and clear-headed view of the possible sexual relations between people. One thing I do know.. my parents were Not Happy with my reading choice that had heretofore been unrestricted at the local library.

Of the book itself, the sheer imaginative and erotic power of this novel is formidable. While I remember nothing of the writing style, I remember the ideas of the plot. The book, however, is definitely not for the easily shocked. I would recommend this book if you were looking for something sexually charged, but not if you were looking for a great novel. In any case, don't let your kids read it. Please.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Too pedophile-friendly for my taste
Review: 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

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Strange and Provocative
Review: This is one of the strangest books I've ever read. The basic premise was intriguing, some monster or being is attacking first animals then humans leaving nothing but film-covered bones. It seems to be able to get into locked rooms, and the victims are anesthetized by the use of powerful pheromones. The pheromones incite an orgasmic reaction rendering the victims helpless. The creature is nicknamed "firefly," as its digestive methods mimic that of the insect.

Except for the beginning and the rap-up at the end, Piers seems to forget about the firefly and concentrates on the four protagonists. The characters are interesting and unique but the dialogue is so unbelievably wooden. It's as if someone unfamiliar with the language wrote it. There is a noticeable lack of contractions at times. Also..., answers do just seem to fall into the character's laps. One of the them, Oenone (Ee-no-nee), is a storyteller and much of the book gives over to her various tales. Actually the whole book reads like a modern day fairytale. I can't say that I thoroughly enjoyed it or actively disliked it, but it would serve as an excellent conversation piece if read in a book club. There are many controversial issues explored such as domestic abuse and pedophilia.


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