The marmite of fantasy (A Spell for a Chameleon - Piers Anthony)

Member Name: gargleblaster

Product:	A Spell for a Chameleon - Piers Anthony
Date:	01/08/05 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Terrible puns throughout and some well-written, amusing characters.

Disadvantages: Terrible puns throughout!

I imagine that the world of Xanth is an acquired taste. Piers Anthony's world could well be the Marmite of fantasy fiction - you either love it or you hate it. Personally, I love it.

Piers Anthony has a reputation for his creativity and verbosity - he's written more books than a large number of people have ever seen, let alone read. His more serious fantasy and science fiction novels are all good reads in their own right, especially his Tarot series, but I feel that it is in his Xanth books that Anthony really shines. Most of his novels tend towards slightly two-dimensional characters, and even in his more serious works he can never resist a good (or horrendously bad, depending on your point of view) pun. Xanth allowed him to truly let his imagination loose.

A Spell For Chameleon is the first in the ever-growing series of Xanth books, which totalled 29 books at the time of my writing this review. It tells the story of Bink, a 25 year-old man with no apparent magical talent. This may not seem important, until the premise of the first three books is explained in the first chapter; in Xanth, everybody has a magical talent, and failure to demonstrate it by their twentyfifth birthday is exiled to Mundania (read: Earth). And therein lies the plot of the novel - Bink must find his magical talent, or be exiled.

I won't give a blow-by-blow account of the events of the book, because if I did there would be no need for you to read it after reading this review (if, indeed, I convince you it is worth reading). A Spell For Chameleon acts mainly as an introduction to the world of Xanth and to the tone of the series. In it we are introduced to key characters of the later books, such as the Good Magician Humfrey, the Evil Magician Trent, and the Gap Dragon who lives in a huge gorge that nobody ever seems to remember. The book (as with the whole series) is laced with groan-inducing puns throughout, and this is part of its charm. Anthony's tongue is firmly in his cheek.

My first exposure to Xanth was seeing ten or eleven similar-looking books lined up along my Dad's immense bookshelves. The bright colours of the covers appealed to me, me being around eight years old at the time. I spotted the books at around the same time as I first read The Hobbit, and my Dad taught me to play Dungeons and Dragons. The Xanth books were part of the reason I grew to love fantasy fiction; they were zany, they were easy to read, and they didn't take themselves seriously at all.

The first Xanth book I picked up (which was, incidentally, A Spell For Chameleon - the very book this review is about, and the first in the series!) was published before I was born, and it still sits in a prominent place on my bookshelves. The British Fantasy Soceity awarded A Spell For Chameleon "Best Novel Of The Year" in 1984, seven years after it was first published. The fact that it is still being read and reviewed some twenty-one years later just goes to show that these books have an enduring quality that much modern fantasy lacks. Do yourself a favour and read A Spell For Chameleon; you'll either go on to read some (if not all) of the numerous other Xanth books, or you won't, but either way you're in for a good laugh, a groan or two at a stomach-churningly-bad pun, and - ultimately - a damn good read.

Summary: Comic fantasy - should be enjoyed by fans of Discworld and comedy in general (especially puns).