LETTERS TO PIERS ANTHONY

Dear Lord Xanthony

(Sent online Friday 30th of September 2016 to Piers Anthony)

Your humble Xanth Fan Number 3,675 formally requests the initiation of 'Project Xanth'.

Project Xanth Encyclopaedia  involves the usage of the Xanth Lexicon, together with carefully typed

computer documents using a word processor on the 'History and Timeline of Xanth',

a compilation of 'Maps of Xanth', 'Vocabulary of Xanth', 'Trade Secrets of Good Magician Humfrey',

'Proverbs of Good King Trent', 'The Secret Wisdom of Ivy', 'Laws and Customs of the Land of Xanth',

the Treatise 'Understanding the Magic of Xanth' by Bink, 'Lore of the Golems' by Grundy the Golem,

'Hidden Passages of Castle Roogna' and so on and so forth, till, verily, a full volume of magnificent

glory has been accomplished.

Yours faithfully

Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly

Canberra, Australia

 

Dear Mr Anthony

(Sent Online 26th of July 2017)

Perhaps one day soon, Mr Tolkien, Mr Lewis and Mr Green will take you aside, and have a chat about entry

requirements in the heavenly association of 'The Inkling's', and you will sit there quietly in the university

library, bemoaning the average intellect of the American Patriot, realizing that eternity in britannia in heaven

is probably 'A Far Better Option'.

Or maybe not.

I purchased a copy of 'Isle of View' on ebay just now.  Xanth book 13 now acquired, working on getting the full run

now as most other must haves have now been checked off the list.

Thank you for your writing devotions.

Daniel Daly

Canberra

 

Dear Mr Anthony

(Sent Online August 4th 2017)

Life goes on.  In your early 80s you are obviously not finished with life on Terra Firma yet.

My hope is that your thinking there is not a heaven is the result of thought which has not

yet considered all the possibilities of the nebulous concept of truth.  Perhaps a query to the

universe or to the power or to the old 'God' could be a consideration of whether more might

possibly lie beyond the grave.  It couldn't hurt.  Regardless, I am your devoted fan of much of

your work, and have some soft requests:

Incarnations of Immortality Volume 9:  The Life of the Universe

It involves Adam's first wife Lilith, and her battle with Satan to find the formative principles

of life which are the foundation of each of the Incarnations of Immortality.  What makes the

incarnations so special, she asks the devil, who replies to her, God probably has a sense of humor.

Lilith travels through heaven and visits various ancient organisations and associates, before meeting

the 'Architects of Fantasy', who were commissioned by God to mock mankind.

And 'A Second Spell for Chameleon' would be a great novel in the Xanth series to consider.

All the best Mr Anthony

Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly

Canberra, Australia

http://noahidebooks.angelfire.com

 

Dear Mr Anthony

(Sent Online August 13th 2017)

I watched your interview with E.A.A. Wilson on youtube.

I like what you said.  Life can have harsh and difficult bits in it.

In my writing on the Chronicles of the Children of Destiny I

keep it in mind to be entertaining.  As a monotheistic believer

I also try and teach religious concepts, but I work hard to try and

teach original and interesting religious concepts which are palatable

and entertain deep cogitation if possible.  You probably know as

well as I do that religion can be offputting to a lot of people, as

religious people can often judge harshly.  If my Chronicles of the

Children of Destiny didn't entertain, provoke, and make people happy

I wouldn't be doing my job as an aspiring author properly.

I am currently collecting the rest of the Xanth novels.  When I was

younger I read Spell for Chameleon through to Golem in the Gears.

Soon enough Vale of the Vole will be, with effort, worked through, as

I find it challenging to complete new novels these days, lacking much

of the patience I had in the 1980s and early 1990s growing up in

Cooma town in New South Wales Australia.  I won't say if I will commit

to collecting your entire catalogue of works yet, but I have read

Incarnations of Immortality 1 through 7 and have book 8 in my room,

read all Battle Circle, and the Xanth books.  I'm keen on Julian May writings,

Robert Silveberg, Ben Bova, David Eddings, Raymond E Feist, Hugh Cook's

Chronicles of an Age of Darkness a great deal, Jack Vance, Isaac Asimov,

Tad Williams, Clifford D Simak (reading Time is the Simplest Thing, which

I am loving), Michael Moorcock, Christopher Carpenter, Stephen Donaldson,

C J Cherryh, and a whole host of DC Comics, including Lucifer from the Vertigo

line.  Thank you again for your contribution to the field of creative fiction.

Daniel Daly

Canberra, Australia

EMAIL DISCUSSION BETWEEN MYSELF AND PIERS ANTHONY

Dear Piers

When I was on a brief interlude in Goulburn (New South Wales, Australia) in the early 2000s, God spoke to me in dream just before I woke up.  His voice was the same texture of voice talked about in the Bible.  The voice of a multitude, not a variety voices, but one tone and one voice but with the strength of a multitude.  It was a very thick voice.  It also sounded like a computer voice in a sense, like Majel Barrets computer voice in Star Trek the Next Generation, like it was absolutist - not human, but a living being regardless, so much more superior to a human.  I was able to understand the nature of his infinite within the voice, it was like golden lightning, and it was absolute truth.  It also had the nature of centrality - that God existed at the centre of things.  He said to me the words, either 'Build on My Rock' or 'Build on the Rock' - I didn't write it down at the time and can't remember exactly, but it is definitely one or the other - and he made it clear in my thinking that his rock was the biblical people of the Hebrew Bible.  Whether I liked this or not, that is the way it was and still is.  He spoke to me two more times since then in that voice.  God exists, and if we query him whether he exists, and are prepared to repent according to the requirements he will place down for us, he will let us know of his existence.  Atheism is wrong, so is agnosticism.

Thanks

Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly
Canberra, Australia
http://noahidebooks.angelfire.com

RESPONSE FROM PIERS

From: Piers Anthony <piersanthony@hipiers.com>
Sent: Sunday, 24 June 2018 4:46:42 AM
To: Daniel Daly
Subject: Re: Yahweh exists


Thank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
Just as the Apostle Paul had his vision on the road to Damascus, you had your vision. But I'm pretty sure God did not tell you to disrespect those whose visions are other than yours. If God exists, he surely has reason to accept atheists and agnostics. They are not wrong, just different from your belief.

Piers Anthony
 
PiersAnthony@hipiers.com
 
www.HiPiers.com



MY RESPONSES TO PIERS

Daniel Daly
Reply
Sun 24/06/2018 6:35 AM
To:
Piers Anthony (PiersAnthony@hipiers.com)
I would counter by arguing that out of Theism, Agnosticism & Atheism there is a position which is factually correct.  Thanks for the reply Mr Anthony.  Appreciated.


Dear Piers
(Sent Wednesday 4th of July 2018)

If possible, may I have permission to publish online in my letters sections your reply to this email discussion?
I will publish the letter I wrote to you and my response, but won't publish your reply without your permission.

Yours sincerely

Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly
Canberra, Australia

P.S.  If you don't mind, and if there is anything you would like to add, feel free.  If you would rather I forego
publishing your reply I understand and accept that.  Take care.



RESPONSE FROM PIERS

Piers Anthony <PiersAnthony@hipiers.com>

Thu 5/07, 3:58 AMThank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
I stand by what I said, being a militant agnostic, and you are welcome to publish it in your online letter section.

Piers Anthony

PiersAnthony@hipiers.com

www.HiPiers.com





MY RESPONSE TO PIERS

Daniel Daly
Thu 5/07, 7:11 AMIf someone really believes God probably does not exist, they are an atheist.  It's a bit of a joke to call yourself an agnostic on the idea that theoretically there might be a creator or that it's a small possibility but I really don't think so.  Agnosticism is ambivalence.  You are undecided in a more genuine way, and while you think there might not be a God, you also think there might be one.  Usually the position is that you admit you don't really know.  Piers claim that he's a militant agnostic falls on death ears unless he's prepared to admit that the possibility of God genuniely existing is a consideration.  If he is happy enough with the idea that, yeh, guess there's a small chance, but probably not sweetie, then he's an atheist.  Militant agnostic?  I don't think so.



RESPONSE FROM PIERS

Piers Anthony <PiersAnthony@hipiers.com>

Reply
Fri 6/07/2018 1:06 AM
To:
Daniel Daly (danielthomasandrewdaly@live.com.au)Thank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
To the recent commentator:
Interesting that you think that my lifelong agnosticism is really atheism, and that you are free to redefine my belief. With similar license I could choose to think that your belief in God is a delusion. The one is a valid as the other, no?

Piers Anthony

PiersAnthony@hipiers.com

www.HiPiers.com



MY RESPONSE TO PIERS

Daniel Daly

Fri 6/07, 8:28 AMBelief in God can be a delusion for some people, unless their faith experiences are solid enough that the spiritual encounter is more than just a feeling.  Would Mr Anthony like to share his understanding of life, the universe and everything with dear old Daniel Daly?  I was an agnostic after leaving the catholic church at 16.  For about 6 years I viewed that belief in God was not really provable.  Eventually, after reading an argument from a book on philosophy, which I will confess I stole from the local Tuggeranong library, the argument being that what we see around us in this world has complexity and order to it, leading to the conclusion that there is probably a designer behind our world, I became a believer in God.  This was deistic faith - deism.  I had no religious beliefs yet about God.  Later, when encountering a discussion with a Pentecostal Christian girl, I bought a bible afterwards, and read the entire book of Job at a local catholic church.  I concluded that this was witnessing to God, and the he was good.  I felt I could sense that the nature of God, as it says in a psalm, was goodness.  To me God can be found by man, if man has a desire to know if God is really there or not.  I would be curious, if PIers has the time, to know why he feels that there is probably not a God, or that this world can really just come from a big bang, and there be not much other answer to this grand design apart from mere chance?



RESPONSE FROM PIERS

Piers Anthony <PiersAnthony@hipiers.com>

Yesterday, 7:09 AM
Thank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
    Herewith my thoughts on God, per your request, which I will run in my next, August, HiPiers column. Details may change when I edit it, but this is the essense.

I have made no secret of my religious agnosticism, but not everyone chooses to accept that. Some seem to think that I must have not read the Bible, or heard of Jesus, or simply not have thought about it enough, and that it is their mission to persuade me to come to Jesus and save my soul from everlasting torment in Hell. I do not suffer fools or rascals gladly, but do take seriously those who are serious. I have an ongoing dialogue with Daniel Daly of Noahide Books, http://noahidebooks.angelfire.com/, who says that atheism is wrong, and so is agnosticism. Oh, really? I responded “Just as the Apostle Paul had his vision on the road to Damascus, you had your vision. But I'm pretty sure God did not tell you to disrespect those whose visions are other than yours. If God exists, he surely has reason to accept atheists and agnostics. They are not wrong, just different from your belief.” He replied that he would argue that out of Theism, Agnosticism, and Atheism there is a position which is factually correct, and asked to publish my letter in his letters section. I replied “I stand by what I said, being a militant agnostic, and you are welcome to publish it in your online letter section.” He responded with a discussion concluding that I was probably really an atheist. “Militant agnostic? I don't think so.” Oh? I replied “Interesting that you think that my lifelong agnosticism is really atheism, and that you are free to redefine my belief. With similar license I could choose to think that your belief in God is a delusion. The one is as valid as the other, no?” As may be becoming clear, while there is an element of humor in my “militant agnostic” description, there is also an element of warning. I don't just smile and let arrogant ignorance pass unchallenged. He replied with an invitation for me to share my understanding of life, the universe and everything with him. Okay, since I think my readers may also be interested, here is a more extended discussion.

When I was a child, circa 1940, I was told that the night before Christmas Santa Claus traveled the world on his sleigh, delivering presents simultaneously to every child in the world. I thought that was bovine feces, and never believed. Subsequently they told me about God: he was an old white man with a long white beard sitting on the edge of a cloud, looking down and deciding which mortals on the ground below would be admitted to Heaven and which would be relegated to Hell. The decision seemed to hinge mainly on whether a person subscribed to Jesus as his Savior. I smelled more bovine feces, and never believed in that. But since it may not be fair to let a child's definition govern the existence of God, I clarify that it may be a matter of definition. If you define God as Truth, Beauty, Compassion, Honor, Rationality and the like, then you can say I believe. But the moment you get into the supernatural, my acceptance fades, and God as commonly defined by the Bible is supernatural. One fan of mine did have a good take on that: she said she regarded God as natural. But I don't regard burning bushes that talk, or folk rising from the dead, or the conversion of water to wine and wine to blood as natural. For most folk God is almost by definition supernatural. Indeed, only magic classified as miracles can make a Catholic saint. So by accepted standard definitions, I am an unbeliever. But, say the Theists, the universe is far too complicated to have been formed by mere chance, so God must have created it. Oh? Then who created God? If he had no creation, being eternal, well, why not the same for the universe? It is not a persuasive argument.

What then of agnosticism, which is uncertainty? Here we have three broad classifications. The Theist says that there is a God, and probably adds that He is My God, while all others are false. For thousands of years folk have killed each other and made wars because they have different gods. But I want to know where is the proof? What actual objective evidence is there that any god has ever existed? Don't quote the Bible for this; that is a compendium of the writings of believers. Anyone can believe what he chooses, but that has no objective validity. Some may believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, others in Zeus. None have made a sufficient case for me. The Atheist says there is no God. Okay, where is his objective evidence? He can't prove his case any more objectively than can the Theist. So as I see it, Agnosticism is the only sensible position. It is not a vague uncertainty, but a demand for rigorous mathematical or scientific proof. Until persuasive evidence is presented, my private impression is that there is no God. Don't confuses that with atheism. I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow morning—that is, that the sun will continue shining and the world will continue spinning—but I can't prove it, so I am agnostic on that score also, but I do look forward to another day.

I am not anti-religion, merely rational. I married a minister's daughter, and we have been together 62 years. I have written about belief and religion, notably my quarter million word novel Tarot, unfortunately broken by a publisher into three parts. Therein Brother Paul, of the Holy Order of Vision, is sent to the planet named Tarot to ascertain whether the supernatural manifestations there are or are not God. It's quite a challenge. I like to say that if you can read it and not be offended at some point, you don't properly understand it.

But let's assume, for the sake of debate, that there may be a God. His ways are devious indeed. I remember a famous story by Arthur Clarke, “The Star.” I read it scores of years ago, so may misremember details, but have the essence. They discover an ancient alien civilization far from Earth that was a miracle of technology and deportment, an ideal we well could emulate. But it was destroyed when its star went nova. We learned of its existence only when the light of the nova reached us, two thousand years ago, but we noticed. The concluding question is “What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the light of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?” What a question, and it echoes in my mind as I remember my own personal history. When I was sixteen my cousin Teddy was fifteen, a grade behind me, at the same boarding school. He never finished; he got cancer and died. It was a shock I never entirely got over. If there is a God, it seemed that he faced a choice in the ongoing story that human history is; as a novelist I am a kind of god of my fiction, and I do encounter difficult choices. It seemed it was necessary for one of two boys to die, Teddy or me. He had everything going for him, being a good student with many friends and a likely future in his father's successful business, while I was a disturbed character with little prospect for success; few would ever miss me. But God made His choice, and he was the one taken, while I was left. What was the need to give this fine young man to the fire, that I might survive? It seemed to make no sense. I visited Teddy's family, sleeping in his bedroom, getting to know and love his sibling, who seemed like the perfect little sister. I saw the awful impact his death had on his grieving family. Well, the ensuring half century suggests that I, with my erratic creativity, did things that conventional Teddy would not have done, such as becoming a writer who has received hundreds of letters from fans telling how my books helped them through dark times and may have even saved their lives. Did God, cognizant of the future, choose to save those lives instead of the one life of Teddy, though there was no way he deserved to die? Was it simply a numbers choice, like steering a train onto the track that kills only one person instead of several? That was not a choice I could have made. Teddy's untimely death continued to disturb me, and finally I concluded that death out of turn was wrong, for people or animals, and I would try not to contribute to it. I became a vegetarian in college, so as not to kill animals on my behalf, and have remained so for 65 years so far. That is about as close as I come to religion; my vegetarianism has religious force. It was the one requirement I made of my wife, and she became a vegetarian for me. I am not against religion, but neither do I have any brief for it. I think of the way that God was a woman in the old days, circa 3,000 and more years ago, and the Israelite religion had to compete with neighbors who offered sex with seductive priestesses as a kind of worship. It was hard to compete. So Israel, and later Christianity, tried to make sex itself, together with attractive young women, sinful, ushering in the ugly misogynistic millennia that have suppressed the rights of women ever since. It's a shame.

We married, and soon my wife was pregnant. But it went wrong, and she had a miscarriage at about four months. That catapulted me into the US Army, because in the 1950s the draft took all fit young men who were not fathers. She rejoined me in Oklahoma—and suffered another miscarriage in 1958, at about five months. Then, out of the army and in civilian life, I had the worst day of my life. I lost my job, my wife lost her third baby at about six months, and my doctor told me that my concerns were all in my head. It turned out years later that my depression and fatigue derived from low thyroid hormone; levothyroxin pills ameliorated both. So it wasn't in my head, it was in my neck. It left me with an abiding dislike of abortion, because that was technically what happened to those babies. They died because they were forced out early. But the loss of our third baby, who lived only for an hour, freed us to gamble. My wife went to work so I could stay home a year and write full time, and in that year I made the breakthrough, selling my first two stories. It was a small beginning, but it was to lead in due course to a phenomenal career that made me wealthy. I think it would not have happened had any of those three babies survived; as parents we could not have have afforded the gamble. So here is the question I ask of that theoretical God: what was the need to give those three innocent babies to the fire, that I might have my career?

But my wife's doctor thought he had managed to fix the problem that cost us our babies. My wife had a septum in her uterus, that divided it so that there was not room for a baby to grow to term. Once that was fixed, we carried two babies to term, finally having our family. But my career was in difficulty. When I protested getting cheated by a publisher, I did nor get a settlement; I got blacklisted for six years. One publisher did not honer the blacklist, so I got through, but not in the way I would have otherwise. Then came the miracle: the publisher may have cheated one too many writers, and got sued, and the errant proprietors fled, and the company was taken over by another. The new administration sent me a brochure inviting me to do business with them. I wrote back “Don't you know you're blacklisting me?” They said things had changed. Then I had to wrestle with my conscience: should I resume selling to the publisher that had blackened my name with lies and crippled my career for six years? True, it was under new ownership, but it was the same publisher. It was the hardest decision of my career, but I concluded that forgiveness was better than grudge, and I wrote and submitted a fantasy novel. It was A Spell for Chameleon, the first Xanth novel, an if ever there was a turning point in my career, it was there. Here was the key: the new editor, Lester del Rey, had written for this publisher before, and when he got there he looked up the records of his own book, and discovered that they had been cheating him by crediting him with 69,000 sales when the true figure was 169,000. That's why he understood my situation. What were the chances of such a coincidence happening? Or was it divine intervention? The series continued, and the fifth Xanth novel, Ogre, Ogre, may have been the first original paperback fantasy novel—that is, no hardcover edition—to make the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list. I had achieved the stratosphere, thanks to a popular series and the publisher's effective promotion. So in effect I forgave them, and they made me wealthy. But my experience with the unfair blacklisting left me extremely cynical about the ethics of publishers and of the writers who knowingly support them, and today I actively expose publishers I catch treating writers unfairly. I can do it because I am now independent of writing sales and have the will and the means to take it to them, and they dare not mess with me; I will take them to court and win, because I have the resources to do so, as I did not before. I have also supported self publishing, and helped make it feasible in a way it was not in the past, in part by my support of and significant investment in Xlibris when it was a fledgling enterprise. Was that the service God wanted of me? Was I deviously guided to help other writers gain their fair chance to achieve their dreams? The average bestselling writer seems to have the attitude “I got mine; too bad for you.” I am not average, really, in any respect, because of my bitter experience. I don't know, but a case can be made. God did what was necessary to save lives and improve publishing, using a disenchanted agnostic as an instrument in a manner that a believer might not have had the stomach for.

If there is a God, he must be a cynical brute.



Piers Anthony
 
PiersAnthony@hipiers.com
 
www.HiPiers.com



MY RESPONSE TO PIERS


Daniel Daly

Yesterday, 9:01 AMThank you very much for the detailed life response.  I'll treasure this letter, and print it off one day for a personal copy for my physical records.  Dealing with the Christian God as the popular thing, its often taught that into hell go all the unbelievers.  Dealing with the God of Torah, this is not the case.  From what God teaches me about half of mankind usually makes it to the next life - the heavenly afterworld.  It is the faithful and the decent who make it.  He has no plans for hell, and does not get off or delight in fitting some vessels to destruction as Apostle Paul informs his devoted Ecclesia buddies.  God is decent and caring - and he provides a home of life for all who call upon his name.  His name is Yahweh/Jehovah.  He is not giving to the fire souls which don't make it to the heavenly eternity.  They are souls which he has judged do not have the characteristics for eternal perpetuity in their conduct, actions, atitudes and behaviours.  In time such souls cause society too much chaos and problems, the very hard core part of this humanity doing more than just being rough and sarcastic, but citizens who end up in jail and can go around destroying other peoples lives at the drop of a hat.  But it's more than that.  The next life is the same as this one.  Each year of our calendar builds a new level upwards in heaven, where the Earth's infrastructure of all types is built again for the citizens of mankind from that yearly generation.  What you earn from life on planet earth in that earthly year - your abode, should you fulfill the minimum of half the year plus a day in owning it - becomes your property for that year in that level in heaven.  And as the years pass by, your property and ownership increases.  Whatever goods and services and memberships and geographies visited and institutions connected to and people met - this forms the basis of your rights in life.  With God your 'Rights' is the fundamental factor.  These rights are the basis of your eternity ahead of you.  A saying I use is 'What you acquire in life you acquire in life for eternity.'  And the ability to have children in the heavenlies is where the sub-levels of each year are born, and your heavenly offspring fill such sub levels.  If you have the strength of eternal heavenly seed in you, your offspring will be propogated eternally in the sub-levels of each years level.  Many don't have the strenght of eternal offspring through their heavenly seed - some do.  In heaven there IS a reward, as life on earth is valued by God because of its challenges and difficulties.  Humans living on earth go through a struggle - this is the making of them.  The reward for your struggle if you serve correctly in your human function is eternal life in heaven.  Now, in this sense, God is not interested in about half of mankind usually, as they do not display the codes of behavioiur fit for eternal endurance. They have not tempered themselves in their choices to achieve this result.  This is what the Lord teaches me.  I share it with you freely.  Thank you.  P.S.  I enjoyed your life story.



RESPONSE FROM PIERS

Piers Anthony <PiersAnthony@hipiers.com>

Today, 12:43 AMThank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
Thank you. I'm glad that your belief offers a fairer system than the standard model. It reminds me of reincarnation, where each life contributes, positively or negatively, to the next one.

Piers Anthony

PiersAnthony@hipiers.com

www.HiPiers.com



MY RESPONSE TO PIERS

Dear Piers

God speaks to me through my mouth.  I am a schizophrenic, and I hear voices in the distance.  But the spirit takes over my mouth and speaks to me in a logical and coherent manner, with thinking behind it.  I'm pretty sure it's not another aspect of my own mind hidden from me, like you see in those TV shows of people with split personalities. I've spent the last 22 years reading the bible, and have tens of thousands of chapters of the bible in my system of knowledge, and am happy that the voice is representative of the divine, and not a part of my imagination.  God does have a sense of humor with me.  He does take me for a walk up the garden path from time to time, but this is the punishment he dishes out for my excessive prayers, as he has to do spiritual work in sanctifying various things from my prayers, and he pays me back in his frustrations in this work.  I pray psalms, mostly, the full psalm, for the sanctification, salvation and prosperity of various people and institutions in society.  Mostly from the English speaking world societies, but also other cultures a bit.  I am comfortable personally that God speaks with me, but I understand if people think it is my schizophrenic mentality within me.  I dont' think it is personally.  I hear voices at a distance from time to time, but have a feeling that there are spiritual realities going on with some mental health people, and that demonic oppression often an answer to the voices which speak inside peoples head, but also angelic visitations also.  They tend to prey on naive souls, and pick on their paranoias, as many people have not yet worked out a belief system on various issues of life, and are prone to attacks from darkness on these issues until they have firm convictions and are able to resist evil on these issues.  The devil can (Fuck) with your head until you know what you believe and why you believe it and have convictions and standards which the devil and the darkness can not defeat.  Yet while the darkness speaks, so does the light.  This is part of my life.  As you would know, Piers, I am a regular human in this living experience of life on earth as you yourself are.  My conclusions have been reached through my own cogitations of thought and thinking.  I have not concluded an agnostic argument - I had been through that from about 16 to 23 years of age.  I have a conviction and a belief that God the Creator does exist, and after a while it became apparent to my living experience that he was the God behind the biblical system.  A neutral deistic God was a consideration, but God expresses to me that he does care about his creation, and have an interest in it, and does reveal himself to people who are willing to abide by decent living principles.  I would just like to conclude saying this - I am thinking human being just like yourself.  I also have logic and reason and rationale thought behind my beliefs in life.  Thanks.

Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly
Canberra, Australia

P.S.  I have read the first seven volumes in the Incarnations of Immortality, the first 9 Xanths, and Battle Circle.  More will come one day.  Reading Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak at the moment, which I am really enjoying.  Many of your contemporaries in Sci Fi and Fantasy I have read works of, especially in former years.