There was a very good This American Life episode in which a teenaged fan visited Piers Anthony in the 1980s ("Just South of the Unicorns," https://www.thisameri

There was a very good This American Life episode in which a teenaged fan visited Piers Anthony in the 1980s ("Just South of the Unicorns," https://www.thisamericanlife.org/470/show-me-the-way https://www.thisamericanlife.org/470/show-me-the-way). Per the Gizmodo summary: It’s an interesting story about the relationship between authors and fans, and how mundane fantasies can sometimes be more powerful than magical ones. It’s also an ultimately uplifting look at how Anthony, through his books and his advice, helped a young man through a particularly challenging time in his life. As a young SFF reader in the 1980s, I enjoyed the Xanth series to a point but got much further into his earlier hard-edged science fiction, specifically Chthon and Macroscrope.