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800slim's review against another edition
3.0
Bink goes on another quest...
short plot description: set one year after the events of the first book we meet Bink again. His wife Chameleon is expectiong their first child and giving him a hard time and unknown enemy tries to harm him. So he gladly accepts the order from King Trent to go find the source of Magic of the land Xanth, accompanied by the centaur Chester and the soldier-turned-Griffin Crombie.....
my thoughts: again quite funny and a good read but I found some tongue-in-cheek jokes getting a bit repetitive and the more serious themes of the book didn't fit imho with the more comical parts.
short plot description: set one year after the events of the first book we meet Bink again. His wife Chameleon is expectiong their first child and giving him a hard time and unknown enemy tries to harm him. So he gladly accepts the order from King Trent to go find the source of Magic of the land Xanth, accompanied by the centaur Chester and the soldier-turned-Griffin Crombie.....
my thoughts: again quite funny and a good read but I found some tongue-in-cheek jokes getting a bit repetitive and the more serious themes of the book didn't fit imho with the more comical parts.
twstdtink's review against another edition
3.0
I loved the witty, pun-filled writing of this book. I wanted to dive right into the magical world of Xanth. Trees that grow shoes and bread? Awesome. The story itself was a bit scatterbrained. The characters leapt from one challenge to the next, often looping back and undoing accomplishments they just made. I never fully connected with any of the people. I wouldn't have been sad had any of them met their untimely demise. A lot of reviewers complained about the many sexist comments made throughout the story. They didn't bother me. I thought they were kind of funny, actually. This story was written in the 70's - it was a product if it's time and probably a bit facetious. In all, this was an entertaining book.
shane_tiernan's review against another edition
1.0
My 12 year-old really liked -A Spell for Chameleon- so now we're on to the next book (can't say I'm all that excited).
So my reaction to this book is the same as my reaction to the re-read of [b:A Spell for Chameleon|76664|A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth, #1)|Piers Anthony|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179543785s/76664.jpg|2501416]. Too much sexual innuendo for kids. Too much "theory" for kids. Not serious enough for adults. Not funny enough for adults. Every woman is defined by her looks and made to be either a sexual object or basically "not a woman".
So again I ask who are these books written for? If I at age 41 (1000's of books later) was having trouble interpreting the the ethical debate about whether to set the demon free then it can't be for kids right? Then add in the comments about sex, temptation, the descriptions of the women and you think this must be for adults. But the story itself is "lite" and filled with silly puns, the kind of stuff you find in kids books.
Anyway my boy's 13 now and he liked it (I'm assuming because of the sex references). He says he wants to read more and I remember [b:Castle Roogna|96977|Castle Roogna (Xanth, #3)|Piers Anthony|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179544866s/96977.jpg|1387490] being my favorite of the first 3 books so I guess we'll move on to that one and hopefully like it more.
So my reaction to this book is the same as my reaction to the re-read of [b:A Spell for Chameleon|76664|A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth, #1)|Piers Anthony|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179543785s/76664.jpg|2501416]. Too much sexual innuendo for kids. Too much "theory" for kids. Not serious enough for adults. Not funny enough for adults. Every woman is defined by her looks and made to be either a sexual object or basically "not a woman".
So again I ask who are these books written for? If I at age 41 (1000's of books later) was having trouble interpreting the the ethical debate about whether to set the demon free then it can't be for kids right? Then add in the comments about sex, temptation, the descriptions of the women and you think this must be for adults. But the story itself is "lite" and filled with silly puns, the kind of stuff you find in kids books.
Anyway my boy's 13 now and he liked it (I'm assuming because of the sex references). He says he wants to read more and I remember [b:Castle Roogna|96977|Castle Roogna (Xanth, #3)|Piers Anthony|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179544866s/96977.jpg|1387490] being my favorite of the first 3 books so I guess we'll move on to that one and hopefully like it more.
jscarpa14's review against another edition
3.0
I'm so hard-pressed to even give this one three stars because the sexism and female characters are so frustrating. This gets three stars because I loved this world as a kid and I imagine back then all the insulting derogatory, condescending attitudes toward women were commonplace enough that they didn't sicken me as much.
Underneath everything, Xanth is an interesting, well-developed, and fully entertaining world. Underneath all of the garbage, there's an entertaining story. But this story would be a million times better if it had no female characters whatsoever. Instead, if they're not derogatorily sexualizing everything female regardless of species, in sight, they're thinking condescending and rude thoughts about women or discussing them in a mostly negative manner. The terms bitch, whore, and slut are regularly used to describe female characters. At one point Bink outright says that Chameleon's smart phase appearance isn't the only thing about that phase that turns him off but her intelligence that far exceeds his is also a turn-off. He borderline cheats on his pregnant wife with two different women, and completely misses the birth of his child to go on a quest mostly timed that way to avoid that very thing. There's a centaur character, Chester who spends an enormous amount of time whining that his mare is paying more attention to his foal than him. If women weren't such a constant obsession in the story it might be easier to ignore or to remind myself that it's a product of its time but holy cow Bink barely goes a few minutes without staring at or obsessing over women. As a female reader, for much of the book, ninety percent of the time women are mentioned, Bink is entirely unlikeable.
If you can get rid of anything to do with women, all female characters, and all thoughts on females there's a good story underneath all of that. Bink's journey is interesting and if he wasn't such a sexist, condescending, woman-obsessed pig, he'd be a likable character, but it's hard sometimes to get past the way every single female is portrayed as weak, stupid, lesser, bitchy, and only existing for men's sexual needs.
While the journey was more interesting to a degree, the negative obsession with females is ten times worse in this book than the prior one so it doesn't even come close to measuring up with its predecessor. That said I loved this series a lot as a kid therefore I intend to continue on. It must get less derogatory with time, I hope.
Underneath everything, Xanth is an interesting, well-developed, and fully entertaining world. Underneath all of the garbage, there's an entertaining story. But this story would be a million times better if it had no female characters whatsoever. Instead, if they're not derogatorily sexualizing everything female regardless of species, in sight, they're thinking condescending and rude thoughts about women or discussing them in a mostly negative manner. The terms bitch, whore, and slut are regularly used to describe female characters. At one point Bink outright says that Chameleon's smart phase appearance isn't the only thing about that phase that turns him off but her intelligence that far exceeds his is also a turn-off. He borderline cheats on his pregnant wife with two different women, and completely misses the birth of his child to go on a quest mostly timed that way to avoid that very thing. There's a centaur character, Chester who spends an enormous amount of time whining that his mare is paying more attention to his foal than him. If women weren't such a constant obsession in the story it might be easier to ignore or to remind myself that it's a product of its time but holy cow Bink barely goes a few minutes without staring at or obsessing over women. As a female reader, for much of the book, ninety percent of the time women are mentioned, Bink is entirely unlikeable.
If you can get rid of anything to do with women, all female characters, and all thoughts on females there's a good story underneath all of that. Bink's journey is interesting and if he wasn't such a sexist, condescending, woman-obsessed pig, he'd be a likable character, but it's hard sometimes to get past the way every single female is portrayed as weak, stupid, lesser, bitchy, and only existing for men's sexual needs.
While the journey was more interesting to a degree, the negative obsession with females is ten times worse in this book than the prior one so it doesn't even come close to measuring up with its predecessor. That said I loved this series a lot as a kid therefore I intend to continue on. It must get less derogatory with time, I hope.
kindlereads's review against another edition
4.0
This is a great second addition to this series. It was a great adventure story that just about anyone could get into.
leannaaker's review against another edition
3.0
This is a great sequel to "Spell for Chameleon". Great fantasy to get lost in for a couple of hours. This book is all about Bink's quest to find the source of magic in Xanth, since he was chosen as the region's historian in the last book. Fun stuff!