Piers Anthony has produced a large number of titles in a variety of genres. Perhaps his best known works are from the Xanth fantasy series that started semi-seriously with A Spell for Chameleon in 1977, continued with The Source of Magic and Castle Roogna in 1979, using more and more humor. The fourth book was the first that used a pun or play on words for its title (at least as far as I could tell) - Centaur Isle. The word play titles continue through the latest, thirty-fourth (!) book, Knot Gneiss, to be released in 2010. My personal favorite title is Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn about an Unkind Untruth. (I had to look up what crewel was to get the joke.)
Anthony has several other series in both fantasy and science fiction. In fantasy, one standout is the Incarnations of Immortality series, starting with On a Pale Horse. The Phaze series is a cross-over series - literally, since there are two worlds, one of science fiction and one of fantasy, involved in the series. In science fiction, the Cluster series was pretty good, as was the Of Man and Manta series (Omnivore, Orn, OX), and the Bio of a Space Tyrant series. Anthony has many more works than this though. Word play titles figure prominently.
Please use the comments feature below to add your thoughts as to which works of Anthony's you would recommend to a newcomer to speculative fiction. Please include reasons why you find the works and/or the author's writing more generally appealing.
