With a Tangled Skein

When the man Niobe loved was shot, she learned that she had been the target, in a devious plot of the Devil's. Hoping for revenge, she discovered, too late, how intricate his scheming was, and that he had managed to trap her son and her granddaughter, Luna. Niobe's only chance to save them was to accept a challenge by the Prince of Deceit--a challenge to be decided in Hell and in a maze of Satan's devising!

Piers Anthony, sometimes called Pier Xanthony, is the pseudonym of a Mundane character who was born in England in 1934, came to America in 1940, was naturalized in 1958, and moved to Xanth in 1977. His first story was published in 1963, and his first novel, Chthon, in 1967. His first Xanth novel, A Spell for Chameleon, won the August Derleth Fantasy Award as the best novel for 1977, and his fantasy novels began placing on the New York Times bestseller list with Ogre, Ogre. He shifted from writing in pencil to writing on the computer, and Golem in the Gears was his first novel created on the machine; naturally, the computer found its way into Xanth.