I loved A Spell For Chameleon, The Source of Magic and Castle Roogna. I read them as a freshman in high school. I also really enjoyed Night Mare. I always chalked up my diminishing enjoyment of this particular series to the fact it seems to be geared towards young adults.
The sexual innuendos (and that is what it is, just innuendo) in the Xanth series are the same kind that can be found in the Sweet Valley High series. Except Anthony is so much more chauvinistic.
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Although it’s bimonthy, it doesn’t change the fact that Anthony let the bad information, possibly damaging to Donaldson’s career, sit on his site for two months untouched. Whether Anthony does his own coding or hires someone else, it would be a matter of minutes to insert a line before or after the bad info saying “I made a huge mistake! This is an entirely different Stephen Donaldson. The guy who wrote the Thomas Covenant books is alive and fine! I’ll fill everyone in in the next newsletter.” Leaving the situation uncorrected for two months, (given the ease of correcting it) is IMO shameful.
People were writing into rec.arts.sf.written for months after the October newsletter still asking “How did Donaldson die?!”, so the news spread beyond Anthony’s site and it took quite a while before the corrected information got out. How much quicker would the things have died down if Anthony had corrected the misinformation at once?
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Fair enough, Spiritus and obviously our mileage varies on how we percieve the tone of the original letter. To me, it came across as an urgent attempt to get Anthony’s attention. I didn’t see it as insulting (although it certainly wasn’t particularly tactful either), given the magnitude of Anthony’s screw-up and the potential for damage to Donaldson’s career.
In any event, I do give Anthony serious “kudos” for having the guts to keep the entire exchange up and untouched, where a lesser person would have edited or excised it. That takes courage.
Well, other than potentially losing marketshare among homophobes I am not sure how damaging it is for a writer to be thought dead for a few weeks. Still, I agree that it would have been better for a retraction to go up immediately upon recognition and verification of the mistake. What we don’t know, from just the links posted, is when Piers received the corrections and verified that the author was indeed still alive, but there was obviously some delay between discovering the truth and publishing the correction.
Well, since you have just said that these folks were ignorant of the correction several months after it came out, I would have to say not at all quicker. However they received the news, they clearly were not checking Piers’ site for updates.
YMMV indeed. It seemed to me that the Mr. carter was characterizing a factual mistake as an offense against ethics and good character. You made some factual errors in summarizing the exchange. If I had insinuated that that shed doubts upon your character or ethical consistency I think you would have found my tone insulting.
As you say, though, tone and insinuation are most definitely in the eye of the beholder.
Ok this is basically exactly what I was going to post. When he started giving CREDIT AT THE BACK OF THE BOOK to the shmoes who sent in the retarded puns he used… well I figured I’d just stop reading the series before I got so disgusted I actually threw up on the books. I haven’t read one since somewhere in the middle of high school.
Anyone read his book “Shade of the Tree”? Older-man-has-sex-with-pretty-young-thing plot. Cheesy haunted tree thrown in for bonus excitement. yawn
Anthony’s sexual politics in the Xanth books were screwed up from the first book. Chameleon being “all women” by changing (or should I say “cycling”) monthly from beautiful-and-stupid to smart-and-ugly? The scheming Iris? Female rulers being called “Kings”? That being said, some of the early books were very well written, and the final pages of “Dragon on a Pedestal” choked me up every time I read them. I quit buying/readin the Xanth books with, I think, “Vale of the Vole” or maybe “Golem on the Gears” because the writing was obviously skewing younger than I and I lost interest in reading science fiction and fantasy in general. I’m sorry to hear that this series, which I did enjoy 20 years ago, degenerated so horribly.
I loved the concept in the beginning. But it did get overwhelming after awhile. But by then I had discovered his 70s stuff. My favorite of that period of his was the series Ox, Orn and Omnivore. As for the Xanth I tried reading them all the way through a few years ago when I was in my mid to early 20s and I think I only got about 4 in.
It’s history wasn’t quite interesting enough for me. It seemed like each book was in a vacuum. Every few books all the characters would retire and disappear. That bothered me. Especially because I really liked Bink.
Anthony doesn’t seem to have much respect for the Xanth books any more, either.
I’m currently reading the 4th Geoddysey book (Muse of Art), and in the forward, he makes a rather disparaging remark about his ‘funny fantasy’.
Of course, the Geoddysey books are the only ones of his I’ve bothered with in 6 or 7 years, so I don’t know if he really does have such an attitude towards his ‘funny fantasy’ that I read into that line, but…
And Xanth did go downhill, or at least it seemed that way to me (who read them out of order…).
Man, I thought I was the only one reading these books. I got hooked on Xanth in middle school, when by chance I stumbled upon The Source of Magic. By the time I got to the part where Bink leaves his “cottage cheese” to go havest a fresh pair of shoes from a “shoe tree” I knew this book was a keeper.
Yeah, I’ve read them all–from A Spell for Chameleon to the latest one, The Dastard. I wholeheartedly agree that the series has steadily degraded from elegance to drek. A shame, really, as the man can write well when he chooses to, instead of just reprinting the horrid ideas of his readers (in my defense, I NEVER sent one in).
Still, it’s possible to find that spark in the later novels. To help you seperate the wheat from the chaff, here’s my take on the series:
Good: Spell for Chameleon; The Source of Magic; Castle Roogna; Ogre, Ogre; Crewel Lye; Question Quest; Geis of the Gargoyle; Yon Ill Wind (mostly for the parts concerning the demon Xan[sup]th[/sup])
So-So: Night Mare; Dragon on a Pedestal; Golem in the Gears; Isle of View; Harpy Thyme; Roc and a Hard Place; The Dastard
Avoid: Centaur Isle; Vale of the Vole; Heaven Cent; Man from Mundania; The Color of her Panties; Demons don’t Dream; Faun & Games; Zombie Lover; Xone of Contention (especially horrid computer puns here: Mundane Mega Mesh, Macrohard Doors–ugh)
You’re quite right that almost all of these follow the same formula:
Protagonist has seemingly intractible problem.
Protagonist lacks wit to solve problem, goes to Humphrey’s castle, obtains cryptic answer.
Protagonist doesn’t comprehend answer, prompted to perform some task in payment anyway.
Protagonist goes off on wild adventure, meets interesting characters (primarily nude and/or buxom females), encounters inordinate amount of groaners.
Meaning of answer revealed in the end; protagonist lives happily ever after engaged/married to member of opposite sex.
So why do I keep reading? I dunno. It’s like crack: addictive, and you keep using in the hopes of reliving that first good high.
Great list, Seraphim, although, of the ones I’ve read, I’d swap Nightmare and Ogre, Ogre and drop Dragon on a Pedastal into the “Avoid” catagory.
And you left one bit out, when you were providing your “generic Xanth plot” you missed the bit that the protagonists will need to either go through the Hypno-Gourd’s land to get to Humphrey’s castle or going through the Hypno-Gourd will be part of Humphrey’s answer. Either way, in a bunch of the middle Xanth books, that’s a (boring) key factor.
While we’re talking about Xanthian sexual politics, how 'bout that idiot judge in A Spell for Chameleon? During the “Date Rape” trial scene, he decides that whichever guy raped the woman (WAS Chameleon the one who was raped?) should be freed, since if the victim knew and went out with the rapist, it couldn’t be rape, right? She would’ve run away if she didn’t like him. And she might have tempted him, in any case. :rolleyes:
No one (unless I’ve accidentally missed it) has mentioned the Bio of a Space Tyrant series, which contains an awful lot of increasingly strange sex scenes. And as the main character gets older, the women he sleeps with get younger and younger (down to 14 or 15, IIRC). Not to mention the whole incest thing.
The BoaST (nice acronym, BTW) series inspired a new creed by which I live to this day:
Hmmm…I liked Centaur Aisle okay. Like Fiver I found the youthful romance kind of charming. In fact it was the last one in the series I liked. Xanth lost me from the fifth book on out ( though I struggled through Ogre, Ogre and Nightmare ). Admittedly Centaur Aisle seems to have been the start of the “panty fixation”, but at least Irene was in her teens and it was treated in a light-hearted fashion .
Seems Anthony has always been fascinated by sex. His Cluster series and their related spin-offs were always saturated with weird alien sex. When I was younger I didn’t find this all that odd, but looking back there is a pattern of sorts, including a sometimes slightly misogynistic tone. But when he was younger it was better camouflaged and was buried under some imaginative imagery and, well, decent storytelling, anyway.
Far be it for me to agree with Fenris , but I have to agree there does seem to be a precipitous decline in talent over the years. At some point he ran out of ideas and began to repeat himself. Badly.
But far worse, at some point he became convinced he had talent and his ego just went out of control. Anyone read that exercise in narcissism he had published which was basically a long rant aimed at some editors that had dared to hack up one of his pieces early in his career? I forget the title, but it was a cheesy novel with their corrections, followed by his comments about what morons they were. What a tool :rolleyes: .
Frankly I find even the stuff I used to like, like the Cluster books, a little tedious to wade through now ( and no offense Jinxie, each to their own and all, but god did I hate the Orn-Ox-Omnivore books ). The very first Xanth books accepted, perhaps. Their light-hearted charm still holds up okay. But in retrospect, I’m not entirely sure he was deserving of even those earlier plaudits he received. He wasn’t as bad, but I dunno about great. Though perhaps I’m being unkind by taking them out of context from the period they were written in. And perhaps too, my taste has just changed.
But What of Earth? Looking back at that turd, I can’t help but be reminded of a 13-year-old plotting in his diary about how when he’s rich and famous he’s gonna get all those meanies who didn’t recognize his genius.
Never read Xanth. Loved On a Pale Horse and the first Apprentice Adept book, but grew more disillusioned with each sequel.
I remember liking Night Mare except for dumb parts in the hypno-gourd. Though I remember little more than that.
I really enjoyed On a Pale Horse but found Bearing an Hourglass relentlessly dull. Especially the huge stretches explaining how the hourglass worked. It’s Magic, Piers, I don’t CARE how it works. Do you explain the workings of the internal-combustion engine when a character drives a car? No, because it doesn’t matter. Just tell the damn story. I never finished it or looked at any of the others.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned The Firefly yet- in which a recounting is told- graphically- of the statutory rape of an extremely young child. She was younger than eight or so, I think, while he was at least 18- but it’s okay, 'cause she really wanted it. :rolleyes: Creepy, disturbing stuff. A damn shame, 'cause the primary focus of the story is a pretty cool monster.
I used to like Anthony- I count A Spell for Chameleon as one of the best books I’ve read. A pity it went WAY downhill from there.
Well…when I read Centaur Isle, I was about the same age as the two main characters (15 and 16). Being of that age, I was primarily interested in the steamy interaction between Dor & Irene, and grew impatient when the text veered to something else. On reflection, I suppose it does deserve better. Bump it up to So-So.
Man, how could I have forgotten the hypnogourd angle? Every book from Ogre, Ogre on uses that stupid fruit somewhere in the narrative.
Has any interviewer ever called Piers to the carpet for the disturbing (as opposed to merely bad) elements of his books? I’d be very interested to hear him defend a scene like the one Lightnin’ just described.
Icky, icky, icky. I’ve stopped reading at “Fawn and Games”, and have to my (complete lack of) suprise realized that I don’t seem to miss the series at all.
I remember rereading “A Spell for Cameleon” and “The Source of Magic” and realizing how much BETTER they were then the later attempts (the next few books were good too, Castle Roogna rocked). He tended to play it as a “believable people in fantastic setting” far more then what came later. In my opinion, as soon as the term “Summoning the Stork” came into play, things kind of started going downhill at an incredible pace.
I loved the first six books (with Night Mare, the sixth, being my favorite), but then the books started spiraling downward. With the exception of Question Quest, the later ones were all inferior. The “stork” business started as a cute joke related to how parents hide things from children and grew into an all-consuming obsession.
I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a book called “The Color of her Panties.” Not so much that I’m something of a prude (though I’ll admit I am), but moreover, that told me the joke went too far. He not only beat the horse to death, but he pounded the corpse into a bloody pulp and, as far as I can tell, will continue flogging even those meager remains until each horse molecule has been separated from the next.
In addition, though I loved the first three books of Incarnations of Immortality (the third being my favorite), it too got disappointing.
you missed the bit that the protagonists will need to either go through the Hypno-Gourd’s land to get to Humphrey’s castle or going through the Hypno-Gourd will be part of Humphrey’s answer. Either way, in a bunch of the middle Xanth books, that’s a (boring) key factor.
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, but I have to agree there does seem to be a precipitous decline in talent over the years. At some point he ran out of ideas and began to repeat himself. Badly.
). The very first Xanth books accepted, perhaps. Their light-hearted charm still holds up okay. But in retrospect, I’m not entirely sure he was deserving of even those earlier plaudits he received. He wasn’t as bad, but I dunno about great. Though perhaps I’m being unkind by taking them out of context from the period they were written in. And perhaps too, my taste has just changed.