A fantasy that will mainly satisfy dedicated Xanth aficionados.
Anthony (Well-Tempered Clavicle, 2011, etc.) serves up the 36th entry in his pun-packed Xanth fantasy series.
The series, set in the fictional realm of Xanth, a place full of magic, crude humor and wordplay, has had an admirable longevity; its first installment, A Spell for Chameleon, was published some 35 years ago. This time around, Bryce, a sickly 80-year-old widower, is magically transported to Xanth, where he is given the body of a 21-year-old and the power to see briefly into the future. He is told by Princess Dawn that Demons have made a bet involving him, and as a result, Bryce must compete with other suitors for the hand of Princess Harmony, a teenage girl whom he is compelled by magic to desire. Among those that assist him in his dangerous quest are a talking German short-haired pointer dog named Rachel and a 19-year-old young woman named Mindy. He comes to discover that in Xanth, all is not what it seems. The novel stands alone quite well and doesn’t require readers to be experts in the Xanth mythos to understand the basic story. However, newcomers should be warned that Anthony’s work is not for everyone. A very high tolerance for puns and bad jokes is required; at one point, for example, the characters encounter the Pie Rats of the Carry Bean. Some readers may also find the overall plotline—an old man in a young man’s body forced to pursue a 16-year-old girl—rather questionable, as well as the constant mentions of women’s panties. On top of it all, Anthony’s prose, and especially his dialogue, can be clunky and artless at times. That said, he does have his devoted fans, and he thanks a few of them personally, in the closing Author’s Note, for puns and ideas that they submitted.
A fantasy that will mainly satisfy dedicated Xanth aficionados.Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3135-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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