As I worked on Skein, a woman was gang-raped on a barroom pool table; when the rapists were tried and convicted, women of that community demonstrated in favor of the rapists. Loveless sex pervades the media. Preschool children are sexually molested by the staff of the nursery—and this is said to be only a hint of the abuse and incest that is not rare but is typical today. Satan's mischief, surely.
Yet there is also joy in the world. Some find their solace in religion, in the belief that God loves them. Some find it in close family ties. I myself have gained some share of the Heaven of a close family life, after emerging from the Hell of the denial of it, but I remain scarred. I don't like to travel, for as a child I found that my travels had no returning. I don't like to leave my family, because I remember how fragile family existence can be. Some regard me as overprotective as a father, but I resolved at the outset that my children would never be exposed to what I was and, after losing three, I know that no life is guaranteed.
I turn down most invitations to be Guest of Honor at conventions, not from any dislike of people or any fear of public appearances—stage fright, like writer's block, I conquered long ago, and I am quite at ease among fans— but simply because there is nowhere I'd rather be than home. I trust that after reading this Note, those who have been disappointed by my relative isolation from the public will understand that there is nothing frivolous in this. It is one of the ways I have come to terms with the problem of my own existence. I hope that what I write helps others come to terms with theirs.
Piers Anthony, With a Tangled Skien
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