Xanthus Saves
Well, I've now finished all of the Xanth books, and I guess I should review the last four, even though I'm not sure anyone will be interested.
Pet Peeve - This one was actually pretty good. The title character is a parrot-like bird who specializes in insults, and he's pretty amusing. Also in starring roles are a well-behaved goblin and a barbarian woman, who inadvertently cause an invasion of robots. This leads to a battle involving most of the tribes of Xanth, led by King Emeritus Trent. This is the first epic battle that's appeared in the series for some time, and I thought it worked well. I did, however, think Piers Anthony might have gone overboard in his strange pairings in that Hannah Barbarian ends up dating a robot. Hasn't she seen the propaganda video?
Stork Naked - Honestly, I felt this one was kind of phoned-in. The idea of alternate universes could have been neat, but Piers falls into the trap of spending more time describing the differences between universes than actually developing the plot. Besides, Xanth already has Princess Ida's worlds of ideas, so it kind of seems like overkill anyway. Also, I didn't find the characters too interesting. Surprise doesn't have much in the way of defining personality traits, and the half-demon kids are mostly just mischievous. And really, ANOTHER plot based around reproduction? It's like Piers has trouble thinking of anything other than babies in these more recent books.
Air Apparent - This one is a bit of an improvement. The story wasn't all that memorable, but it was nice to see starring roles for Hugo, Wira, and the Random Factor. Also, we find out that the moons of Ida make up an endless loop, and we get to see several more of them.
Two to the Fifth - Piers seems to have the same tendency in his books that I do in The Sims 2, which is to get characters to grow up and have children of their own as soon as possible. In order to hurry the next generation along more quickly, he does some stuff with a cyborg who was created as an adult, and an aging spell, resulting in a child from the future. Really, it gets kind of ridiculous, but the book wasn't bad overall. I thought the villain Ragna Roc, a bird with the power of deletion who considers himself a god, was pretty interesting. And the fact that it centers around an acting troupe allows for a different sort of plot (albeit with familiar elements). My favorite new character was Don, the wood-burning robotic donkey, whom I hope to see again in later books.
Pet Peeve - This one was actually pretty good. The title character is a parrot-like bird who specializes in insults, and he's pretty amusing. Also in starring roles are a well-behaved goblin and a barbarian woman, who inadvertently cause an invasion of robots. This leads to a battle involving most of the tribes of Xanth, led by King Emeritus Trent. This is the first epic battle that's appeared in the series for some time, and I thought it worked well. I did, however, think Piers Anthony might have gone overboard in his strange pairings in that Hannah Barbarian ends up dating a robot. Hasn't she seen the propaganda video?
Stork Naked - Honestly, I felt this one was kind of phoned-in. The idea of alternate universes could have been neat, but Piers falls into the trap of spending more time describing the differences between universes than actually developing the plot. Besides, Xanth already has Princess Ida's worlds of ideas, so it kind of seems like overkill anyway. Also, I didn't find the characters too interesting. Surprise doesn't have much in the way of defining personality traits, and the half-demon kids are mostly just mischievous. And really, ANOTHER plot based around reproduction? It's like Piers has trouble thinking of anything other than babies in these more recent books.
Air Apparent - This one is a bit of an improvement. The story wasn't all that memorable, but it was nice to see starring roles for Hugo, Wira, and the Random Factor. Also, we find out that the moons of Ida make up an endless loop, and we get to see several more of them.
Two to the Fifth - Piers seems to have the same tendency in his books that I do in The Sims 2, which is to get characters to grow up and have children of their own as soon as possible. In order to hurry the next generation along more quickly, he does some stuff with a cyborg who was created as an adult, and an aging spell, resulting in a child from the future. Really, it gets kind of ridiculous, but the book wasn't bad overall. I thought the villain Ragna Roc, a bird with the power of deletion who considers himself a god, was pretty interesting. And the fact that it centers around an acting troupe allows for a different sort of plot (albeit with familiar elements). My favorite new character was Don, the wood-burning robotic donkey, whom I hope to see again in later books.