But What of Earth?

by Piers Anthony

Science-fiction, autobiography, and a candid, witty send-up of the publishing industry combine in a wild adventure of a novel that winds up in the wrong hands

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Ebooks, Writing, Science Fiction Fantasy, Humor

282 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1976

About the author

Though he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.

Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

But What of Earth? is a typical and competent old science fiction novel, a story of an overpopulated and polluted Earth that's been abandoned by the mass of humanity left behind when interstellar colonization becomes possible; the novel is set in the remnants of the civilization left behind, and follows their story of redevelopment. The unique thing about the book is outside the story itself: Roger Elwood bought Anthony's novel for his new Laser line and it was published in October of 1976 as a collaboration with Robert Coulson. Elwood had told Anthony he was going to have a copy-editor make some minor changes that Anthony didn't have time to perform, and had told Coulson he was to be a full collaborator. Anthony was outraged at the extensive changes and a legal battle ensued that ended with Anthony securing rights to the novel, which Tor published in a revised version of its original form in July of 1989. Anthony added ninety pages of commentary and complaint concerning the changes Coulson made, with extensive notes and comparisons of the two versions; his editorial commentary is a third as long as the story itself. I enjoyed reading both versions and comparing them myself, and enjoyed Anthony's overly-serious and somewhat over-the-top analysis. It's a fascinating look at the publishing process, and how it sometimes can go wrong Some of Anthony's scenes wouldn't work for Elwood's very conservative and religious beliefs, but much seems to have been changed for little reason. I read the Laser version in 1977, then the Tor version in 1989, and then had fun setting the two side-by-side.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

But What of Earth? is a typical and competent old science fiction novel, a story of an overpopulated and polluted Earth that's been abandoned by the mass of humanity left behind when interstellar colonization becomes possible; the novel is set in the remnants of the civilization left behind, and follows their story of redevelopment. The unique thing about the book is outside the story itself: Roger Elwood bought Anthony's novel for his new Laser line and it was published in October of 1976 as a collaboration with Robert Coulson. Elwood had told Anthony he was going to have a copy-editor make some minor changes that Anthony didn't have time to perform, and had told Coulson he was to be a full collaborator. Anthony was outraged at the extensive changes and a legal battle ensued that ended with Anthony securing rights to the novel, which Tor published in a revised version of its original form in July of 1989. Anthony added ninety pages of commentary and complaint concerning the changes Coulson made, with extensive notes and comparisons of the two versions; his editorial commentary is a third as long as the story itself. I enjoyed reading both versions and comparing them myself, and enjoyed Anthony's overly-serious and somewhat over-the-top analysis. It's a fascinating look at the publishing process, and how it sometimes can go wrong Some of Anthony's scenes wouldn't work for Elwood's very conservative and religious beliefs, but much seems to have been changed for little reason. I read the Laser version in 1977, then the Tor version in 1989, and then had fun setting the two side-by-side.

[Hal Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Piers Anthony's But What of Earth? is an astonishing book, a novel he had originally written in the '70s and which was subsequently rewritten at the publisher's insistence but apparently without Anthony's permission. This got Anthony's dander up, and now, 13 years later, he has his revenge. In this book he lashes out at not only his publisher and his unwitting co-writer, but also, and most especially, at the bevy of copy editors who scrawled on his manuscript. Somehow he got his hands on their marks, and he quotes them at length, in order to hold them up to for ridicule, in the lengthy endnotes that make up a good third of the book. I am not making this up. Here he calls them "conniving bitches" (p230); suggests that one missed a nuance because "she was in the Ladie's Room at the moment" (p235); hypothesizes that one of them is "surely unmarried" (p257); exclaims to one, "May God preserve the man who tries to hold your hand" (p268); and objects when they call his text sexist (passim). His comments on their notes set a new high water mark for creepy and bitter. Addressing one of the copyeditors, who had wondered how a character missed the obvious, he says, "The obvious can be the hardest thing to recognize—which is why women disrobe in lighted apartments with uncurtained windows, providing the men of the neighborhood with nightly entertainment. Ever do that yourself?" (p237). Is...is that a threat?

In any event, it's vintage Piers Anthony. At one point, after a character calls another one a bastard, he appends a helpful note patiently explaining: "Actually, 'bastard' is not the ideal word; technically it means a person born when his parents weren't married..." etc. (p249). At another, again addressing a copy editor, he whines straightfaced, "Don't you have better uses for your time than this?" (p235).

The whole endeavor is similarly unintentionally hilarious. "Forgive me if I'm getting paranoid, but somehow I perceive something other than helpful literary criticism operating here," Anthony writes about the copyediting (p237). And he is correct; if these were copy editors who had marked up his text, they would be overstepping their bounds. But it is pretty clear that the publisher deemed Anthony's submitted manuscript unpublishable, and handed it around in a desperate attempt to get some advice from several hands, before having the whole thing rewritten. Perhaps to preserve what was left of Anthony's dignity, he passed the substantive editing off as copyediting, and Anthony bought it. But how many copy editors does he think his work merits? Why would a science fiction novel have five copy editors, all poring over the same copy? Bear in mind that Anthony regards all copyediting "as make-work so there won't be too many unemployed girls tramping the streets of Parnassus" (p209).

Is it even necessary to mention that Anthony sought to prove objectively that his version of this book (published here for the first time!) is superior to the co-written/rewritten version by having a neutral third party judge them both? No. No, of course he would do that.

The novel itself is an interesting idea executed in a pedestrian fashion but with splashes of typical Anthony ridiculousness. The notes, however, are a laugh riot, and I cannot recommend them highly enough to anyone interested in seeing the depths to which we can sink.

You'll note that whoever copyedited the current text was too cowed to change Ladie's Room to ladies' room.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"But What Of Earth?" A great title. I was hooked on that alone.

However, I had to go about reading this one a different way than any other. There are, as any Anthony fan knows, two different versions of this novel. The first one was the hacked up, chewed-up-and-spat-out "Laser Book # 44" published in 1976 with --apparent co-author- Robert Coulson, and Anthony's original manuscript published by Tor Books in 1989, with a 100 plus specific gripes pertaining to the '76 version of the published novel (of which I would rate 2 stars mostly for the lame and goofy ending that was substituted for the original which was not perfect but rather brilliant).

I had first read that original manuscript, then the Laser version and then again the first original version for clarification.

The only other book I've read,other than those by Piers Anthony was his "Anthology" short story collection. In that book he spent much of it griping about the trouble he had with editors and agents such as Frederick Pohl (of all people). When I first read the intro of the 1989 version of "What about Earth?" I thought: Here we go again. Does Piers Anthony ever publish anything without whining about what he went through getting it out to his adoring and loyal followers?" I know, being one of a sort, all artists must deal with this shit. Movie script writers dumbfounded as to what their vision actually turned out to be at the end of shooting, song writers having to put up with a singer's interpretation and such. It's art and the more "others" are involved in it, as specially those who have a financial stake, as frustrating as it is, will warp your oeuvre into what they believe will serve their own interests...

But with "But What of Earth?", Anthony makes a open and shut case. His novel was definitely brutalized. They practically used his manuscript as a mere outline for a book they wanted to publish, rather than simply bouncing it and moving on to another one.

While making his case, I found that Anthony was, for the most part - he was, on occasion, a trite bit (or downright) mean to the editors "femininity" - gracious and rather calm in tone when discussing the treatment of his original manuscript. He was especially, and rightly so, gracious to Robert Coulson, who was given the task of rewriting the novel. As for Coulson, I felt for him. He seemed to be wedged between a rock and a hard place. Probably felt fortunate, and was thus pleased to have the opportunity of being involved with working on a Piers Anthony manuscript, yet learning along the way, that he was but a pawn under the control of the Laser Book editors. Why did they involve him at all? They seemed at least able to retype a manuscript they themselves reinvented. If anything (and Anthony did mention it when it was so) was to salvage as much as he could manage of any of Piers's original ideas - though I feel he wasn't strong enough to resist much of the requested changes the meddling editors demanded. Besides the major edits of plot and characterization.

The strangest thing was that there were a torrent of changes that were made for no reason at all. It was as if Coulson was directed to rewrite every sentence that he could, meaning: -even if you are not changing anything, just say it a different way. It was change for the sake of change, as if they thought they were avoiding plagiary? I simply don't get it.

I hope this whole debacle did not discourage Coulson from developing his own talent - I have not yet read anything of his besides his contribution to this work - but it breaks my heart that he had to even be roped into this...

Were all the Laser Books treated this way? I read the Dean Koontz's Laser Book #9 (written with the pseudonym Aaron Wolfe) entitled "Invaders" which he later reworked into "Winter's Moon". Was that one really mostly rewritten by this board of six bickering nit-picking overlord editors?

I actually really liked the novel. It is my kind of story, and possibly one I would like best from this author, as much of what he has written seems to me, more fantasy than SF - but that is only by judging the covers and titles - I could be wrong. I will consider more works by this author, such as his "Macroscope" for starters.

[Voss Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book itself is actually decent--it's clearly a first draft and shouldn't have been put out that way, but for a first draft it's pretty incredible, and definitely draws you in.

But that's not why most pople pick up this particular edition of 'But What of Earth?' I would imagine. It's the compendium of 'footnotes' at the end. However, those footnotes have succeeded in one thing--turning me off of Piers Anthony. The misogyny in those comments, combined with the pretnetious thought that he, being Piers Anthony, must know better than any editor, makes it quite nasty. Do I think those editors screwed him over? Of course they did; many of the things he references in those notes should be grounds for firing these editors. but not all. Every now and again, you see a nugget of egotism and rage aimed at anyone (especially a woman) who would dare try to mark up his prose.

As two stories, the boks serve their purpose--tey entertain. They have good plot. But it's that all-ecompassing ego in those notes that kept him from anything but a three. If you see it in a second-hand store or a library, give it a read, but don't spend any real money on it. Not wirth it.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of Anthony's older, crappier stories, which he took out of his trunk and republished along with pages of author's notes ranting about the editors who once dared to edit his timeless, divine prose. Extra bonus misogyny as he makes sure to note every single time the female editor made a correction that it was because of her "female hangups."

[Denis · Rating 2 out of 5]

"But What Of Earth?" A great title. I was hooked.

I had to go about reading this one a different way that any other novel. Their are, as any Anthony fan knows, two different versions of this novel. The first was the hacked up, chewed up and spat out "Laser Book # 44" version published in 1976 with --apparent co-author- Robert Coulson, and Anthony's original manuscript published by Baen Books in 1989, with an extended tediously numerated 100 plus specific gripes pertaining to the '76 Laser version of the novel.

I had first read that original manuscript, then the Laser version, and then reread the first version for clarification.

The only other works I've read by Piers Anthony was his "Anthology" short story collection. In that, he spent much of it griping in forewords to each of the stories about the troubles he had with editors and agents such as Frederick Pohl (of all people). When I first read the intro of the 1989 version of "What about Earth?" I thought: Here we go again. Does Piers Anthony ever publish anything without whining about what he went through getting it out to his adoring and loyal followers?

I know, being a sort of artistic type myself that one must deal with the troubles of realizing one's vision. Movie script writers are often dumbfounded as to how their movie actually turned out by the end of shooting, song writers having to put up with an oddball singer's interpretation and so on. It's art and the more "others" are involved with it, the more it will affect its outcome. Most often those who have financial interests in the project will certainly warp your oeuvre into what they believe will best serve their interests, not to mention attempt at putting their signature touch to it if not hijacking the entire project all together...

But with "But What of Earth?", Anthony makes a pretty convincing open and shut case. His original manuscript was definitely brutalized by the folks at Laser. They really ought to have simply bouncing it and moving on to something else rather than pretty much steal his premise, plot, characters... they practically used his manuscript as an outline for a book they wanted to publish. Utterly frightening.

While making his case, I found that Anthony was, for the most part, trying to be gracious and calm in tone when discussing the treatment of his original manuscript, though he was, on occasion, a trite bit (downright) mean to the editors taking poor taste shots towards their "femininity". However, he was especially, and rightly so, gracious to Robert Coulson, who was assigned the task of rewriting the novel. As for Coulson, I felt for him. He seemed to be wedged between a rock and a hard place. Probably felt fortunate and pleased to have been given the opportunity of being involved with working on a Piers Anthony manuscript, yet learning along the way, that he was but a pawn under the control of the Laser Book editors. That he was not collaborating at all. Based on correspondence, if anything, it seemed he often tried to salvage as much as he could manage of any of Piers's original ideas, but it seemed he simply wasn't strong enough to resist much of the requested changes the meddling editors demanded him to make.

It is unfortunate that the torrent of changes that were made were for no reason at all. It was as if Coulson was directed to rewrite every sentence he could, meaning: -even if you are not changing anything, just say it a different way. It was change for the sake of change. I simply don't get it.

I hope this whole debacle did not discourage Coulson from developing his own talent - I have not yet read anything of his besides his contribution to this work.

Were all the Laser Books treated this way? I read Dean Koontz's "Invaders" Laser Book #9 which he later reworked into "Winter's Moon" (written with the pseudonym Aaron Wolfe). Was that one mostly rewritten by this board of six bickering nit-picking overlord editors? I actually really liked the novel.

I rated 3 stars for the original manuscript and 1 only for the Laser version.

[Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has problems. It's too loose to be considered a good book. But I like the premise of it quite a lot. Imagine space travel becomes relatively cheap. You don't need to be a billionaire, but you need a decent bank account. Now imagine there are colonies on other planets designed for those rich people to live. Pretty soon everyone who can afford it will leave this dirty, polluted earth behind. Why subject yourself to the poor, huddled masses? When the rich people leave, things get uglier and uglier. Pretty soon, society is starting to crumble. All the great leaders have left. Governments become ineffective and unstable. Earth begins to regress, and we return to a time of roaming hordes and warlords. Technology grows because population grows. Innovation is fueled by money. If the population dwindles, and the money dries up, then people are too busy trying to keep their family safe from lunatics to come up with a new iPhone app.

It's an interesting idea, and really, it's not that far from the concept of earth seen in the movie 'Elysium'.
Piers Anthony had a good idea for a story, a strong foundation. But he rushed it, he it ended up being half-baked. So.... three stars. Mostly because I loved the idea, but didn't particularly like the book.

[Ed · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story itself is blah. The writer's opinions and thoughts about the copy-editing involved however, are where this piece's true value lies.

Take the notes as a cautionary tale for would-be ego-heavy writers.

[Victor Alzirr · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, albeit slightly flawed story, it is also more than that, as the author comments on why his book was "butchered" by a squad of copy editors and a writer who was unaware of wht he was doing.

[Valah Steffen-Wittwer · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a rant against evil editors than a novel.

[W.J. Manares · Rating 5 out of 5]

This includes a one-of-a-kind commentary by the author. This book has changed my life. Read and be surprised!

[Shawn Gonzales · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most original premises that I have read a truly and grossing thought-provoking science fiction

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was all right, and was entertaining enough, but wasn't quite as good as I'd expected or hoped.

I found the style a little stilted (especially some of the dialogue), at times, and the development of the major relationships had a suddenness that made them hard to believe. Again, Anthony's female characters seemed under-developed; It was more like observing a narrated story than actually experiencing it, and this feeling took away from the enjoyment of what could otherwise have been quite a good book.

The central theme and Anthony's driving hypothesis (that a society's level of civilization is directly proportional to its numbers) are both compelling and, I think, very true, but it seemed like he only skimmed the surface. This may be more because it was meant for a mainstream audience, though, and the fact he'd had to shorten it by half, than anything else. It does make me more interested in the other books he's written in this vein, though, and I'll be looking for Tarot (to which he refers several times) sometime in the near future.

The BEST part of this book, though, was the lengthy commentary on the huge mess that was this novel's first publishing. I laughed out loud at some parts, grimaced at others, and shook my head over the whole thing. In some ways, I sometimes found Anthony's (justified) ranting more interesting and relateable than the story it surrounds.

[Mont'ster · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is fascinating not for its plot or characters but for the "subplot" of what the original publisher and people hired by the publisher as editors and re-writers did to Piers Anthony's book. The book is written in the classic humorous Anthony style, familiar to any of his fans. I did not read the original published edition but I read the edition (with Piers Anthony's face on the cover) that was later published by Anthony with copious endnotes detailing the atrocities visited on his work. One thing that just jumped out at me is that the original publisher (Del Rey if memory serves) hired people with no sense of humor as re-writers. This really makes me wonder if the people in the hiring positions were familiar at all with Piers Anthony's work and his writing style. This book (the edition with the endnotes) is entertaining and educational; it was fun for me – not a professional writer – to see some of the pains that an established and well respected writer had to endure.

Review originally published 2007 with later corrections to html

[Gordon Simmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book as a teen in the 1970's--in the era of the first Star Wars and before there were a thousand Star Trek derivatives. I read several books from this series. I loved Sci-Fi and this book was one of my favorite reads. Only later did I understand the controversy about the book, but when I read it initially I was unaware and unconcerned. The book has an intriguing story, and even though it does end on a grandiose note, it still filled the bill for my Sci-Fi desires. I know its just nostalgia, but I read this book and another in the series--Crash Landing on Iduna--every few years now. To me it is smack dab in the world of Star Trek TOS and the first Star Wars movie. Both had their issues and seem kitschy now, but in the 1970's I was eating it up, and still am. Love it for what it is.

[Jason Jeffery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science fiction books are touch and go at times. Sometimes they get so wrapped up in the science portion of the story they forget the fiction. But What of Earth doesn't do this. It is an amazing tale of what happens to the planet Earth once new inhabitable planets are discovered. I quite enjoyed the way Piers Anthony takes us through the de-evolution of society. Even though at times you are forced to use the 'dictionary' in the back of the book, it was a quick read and extremely imaginative.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

As others have said, the major draw here is not the story itself, which is a pretty readable draft, but the meta-story, including the arguments with the editors. It's been so long since I read it that I don't remember specifics, but I do remember how drastically some of them wanted to change it, to the point where it would have been a completely different book. Now, in the case of many Anthony books, you could argue that might be an improvement, but the point is that it wasn't his book after that point.

[John Parvin]

Anthony has done a surprisingly good job on this, especially considering the incredibly tight deadline and word limit imposed by the editor he had to deal with.
He usually takes three months to write a book, to ensure it is as good as possible, he was given a deadline of two months, plus he likes to go 100k plus words to fully flesh his novels out, but was limited to 55k and had to seriously edit.
Add into this the rewrite by another author, and you got this book.
Fortunately I found an ebook where Anthony is using his unaltered manuscript so can enjoy the book as he had submitted it.

[Blake Kanewischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if the book is snark with a side of sci-fi or sci-fi with a side of snark. Piers Anthony rescued this book from the clutches of dastardly copyeditors and "collaborators," and does so with snarky notes and commentary. The book itself is an imaginative tale about de-evolution as Earth is de-populated by matter transmission to other planets; it's definitely one of Anthony's earlier works, but the imaginative mind is remarkably present.

[Vania Bushman · Rating 4 out of 5]

the reworked story in it's original form but gradually it draws you into the story of mass exodus earth while you slowly block out the extra chatter about editing. I love the basic thought of this story and it touched me.

[David McNamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would say that you must read the first fourth of the book while flipping between the story and the annotations. It's a hilarious insight into the world of writers and editors.
After that, the annotations get repetitive and the story never gets much better.

[Nibrock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the idea of this book. I don't know if I would be one who left, or who stayed behind!

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see why he was not thrilled with what he wrote, but I love Pier's blunt honesty. Bravo. =)