Alien Plot is Piers Anthony's finger in the eye to professional editors. Throughout the volume, he derides the entire profession - stating that they are dishonest, full of shit, idiots, greedy, craven, and blind. To show this, he both provides histories of various short stories that editors rejected, and then provides us with the stories themselves. While there were, admittedly, some stories that I found entertaining, for the most part, the stories that got rejected were rightly rejected. His first story shares the title of the Anthology and was supposedly written in response to a request that Anthony provide an original work for a volume celebrating J. R. R. Tolkein. The story should not use the characters or places of Tolkein novels, but should be written in the style of Tolkein. What Anthony provides is a story about a modern soldier who finds a world in which magic works and that world has a gateway into our own. So far, so good. However, within about five pages, we find our hero naked, about to have sex with a woman he just met who is dancing around in a negligee in an attempt to arouse our virile hero. It took me about five seconds to realize why this story would not have been included in a Tolkein appreciation anthology. Why did Piers never figure this out?

The rest of the stories are similar. Maybe some good ideas, but mostly it's just stuff that should have been kept in the dustbin of Piers' basement. ( )

A collection of short stories tied thematically by Anthony's hatred of editors. Not at all his best, but most are short enough to read in 15 minutes. Read only if you are heavily into Piers Anthony, otherwise skip. ( )

collection of short works by Piers Anthony with commentary from him about each one.