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fandomhigh_ooc2008-12-01 12:29 pm
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Spotlight on Fandoms: Xanth
Sorry for the late posting! I'm blaming Turkey coma. Anyhow...
Xanth is a series of novels written by Piers Anthony which is based in a fantasy world that seems to be mostly made up of puns. Originally set up to be a triology, the books became so popular that the author extended the series to nine books and then just kept on going after that to 33 novels in total and is already working on 34 and are "the only thing the publishes seem to want from him".
The geography of Xanth is, very similar to that of Florida (or at least the outline of Florida...) As is typical with the series, many geographical landmarks are puns based on real-world locations. For example some of Xanth landmarks are the With-A-Cookie River which is river with cookies growing out of it, the kiss-me river which kisses anyone who drinks from it and Lake Ogre-Chobee which used to be the home of the Ogres and the harmless chobees. The puns don't stop there as most of the creatures and plants for the most part all derived from from the author's use of puns which after reading fifteen novels will make you want to beat your head in as they are so horribly bad and yet amusing at the same time. In fact now the author doesn't even have to come up with them as he now mostly relies on his fans mailing them to him directly. For example:
Agent Orange - A orange cat-like being that kills off plant life wherever it walks
Charles Horse - A horse that causes muscle spasms.
Boot-Rear - Drink that comes from a tree that gives you a good kick in the rear when drank.
Mys-tree - a tree that is difficult to figure out.
Thyme - A plant that can speed up or slow down time. They come on many different types, Minute plant, day plant... and so on...
Water chestnut - Yes. You guessed it. A nut filled with water.
Xanth has a connection with the normal world, which is referred to as "Mundania" as it has no magic and therefore always "dreary". Although any citizen of Xanth can enter Mundania at any time through an isthmus in the northwest, Mundanes enter the isthmus in Xanth from random locations and time periods throughout history. As a result Xanth does not have a fixed location or time in the mundane world; and the timeline between the two jumps backwards and forwards.
Like most fantasy settings, the locale of Xanth is filled with magical creatures that compete with the human population for dominance in the world. In fact all these magical critters (goblins, harpies, demons, dragons, centaurs and so much more) outnumber the human population of Xanth to a high degree.
The one thing that the humans have going for them is that each human is born with a magical talent. These talents vary from a low degree/"Spot on the wall" (Where literally you can put a spot on the wall) to Magician/Sorceress class magics which is the strongest type of magic possible. (Being able to control storms, transform people into other creatures instantly and creating realistic illusions to name a few). And if you happen to have a Magician caliber talent? It just may be possible that you'll end up as the human king of Xanth. (As opposed to the kings of other creatures on the island who all seem to thing they are in charge)
Needless to say, the magic of Xanth isn't like a lot of other realms in the fantasy genre. Instead of magicians knowing lots of spells that they can utter at the tip of their tongue and wands and so on, the inhabitants of Xanth tend to find and use magical items and plants as opposed to casting magic (outside of their own magical talents of course)
For the most part, Xanth is a type of grown up/humorous fairy tale. Most of the characters focused on in the books are teenagers or young adults who are faced with a problem or obstacle that has to solved. This typically involves a trip to the all knowing Good Magician Humfrey who is the Magician of Knowledge. His advice is rarely free and charges those who approach him one year of free service (though almost every main character seems to find a way to get out of it for the sake of the plot). The advice is usually cryptic and involves a quest that the character must go on where eventually the meet someone else and fall in love and then live happily ever after. At that point they show up later in other books as minor characters and then have a kid who is a minor character in another book only to be a main character in yet another book after that.
This is part of the reason why Peirs Anthony never seems to stop writing for this series.
Since most of the characters in the novels are teenagers, most of the themes in the Xanth books revolve around a "coming of age" theme after which those characters graduate into the "Adult Conspiracy" which is used to protect kids from general harm. The age when most kids join the conspiracy is 18 when they learn the technique of "summoning the stork" which is Xanth-speak for "getting it on" which is usually signified through the use of ellipses. (...) I really wish I was kidding about this.
Other aspects of the adult conspiracy is to keep kids from having any fun whatsoever, censorship of foul language and knowing the color of girl's panties. Remarkably, knowing the color of a woman's panties is more risque than actual nudity itself. A common joke in Xanth is that men tend to get a little loony if they see a girl in their underwear but nymphs running around naked isn't that big of a deal.
Characters
Okay... To even attempt to write about every single character in Xanth would be an act of sheer lunacy. If you want the entire list you can Check Here for the entire listing but I'm just going to focus on the main characters of the first four novels or so.
Good Magician Humfrey: Humfrey is the magician of information and almost any Xanth book starts and ends with some sort of obscure answer that Humfrey gives to help aid the quest of the main character of the book. Often times perceived as a grumpy old gnome who is so old might be losing his touch with his answers, he's pretty much the most central character in the entire series. His magical talent is to be able to know the answer to every question and has a vast amount of magical items and tomes to help him out.
Bink: The main character of the first two novels, Bink is at first doomed to be exiled from Xanth as he seems to have no magic. Through the course of the book it is eventually revealed that Bink's magical talent is that he cannot be harmed by magic though he can be harmed by non-magical threats. Later on this whole "non-magical" thing seems to get pushed to the side as the author seems to forget that little tidbit for the sake of other stories but that's just part of Peirs Anthony's love of retconning which I'll get into in a bit. And in typical Xanth fashion, Bink shows up in the first two novels and then is mostly ignored until the seventh book where he's there for a chapter and then disappears for another breif cameo in novel seven and then isn't heard much again I think until novel seventeen.
Chameleon: Bink's wife who is only really in the first novel and then a bit player for the next seven. Her magical talent is that her intelligence varies from being completely dumb to extremely intelligent while her image goes from being extremely beautiful to very ugly. So in the course of the month she'll range from being smart and ugly to being beautiful and dub with her having average looks and intelligence in between. This of course makes her Bink's ideal love as she's all things to one man which... okay is a bit sexist but that's also a running theme in the series so we'll just go with that.
Trent: Once an evil magician, whose ability was to transform any living thing into another living thing, he was exiled from Xanth for trying to usurp the throne from the rightful king. He later returns from living in Mundania a much more experienced and humble man and eventually becomes Good King Trent. In many ways his character exemplifies many of the ways that Anthony plays with the concept of a "fantasy" novel as the "evil" character isn't really evil at all but just a man who was too ambitious to get what he wanted and then through character growth became someone else entirely. He was a main character in probably the first seven books then then pretty much disappeared for ten novels when he was magical rejuvinated to his younger form for another novel.
Iris: Iris is Trent's wife and pretty much a power hungry woman who has the magical talent of illusion. She's pretty cutthroat and will do anything to be in power, even if it is just marrying Trent so she can be Queen. Not very much of a sympathetic character until the third novel or so.
Dor: Well hopefully you know a little bit about him by this time. He's the son of Bink and Chameleon and since his magical talent (the ability to make inanimate objects talk) is considered magician Caliber he is slated to be the next king of Xanth.
Irene: aka "The Palace Brat" is Trent and Iris's daughter and Dor's future bride to be. She has green hair and has the ability to make plants grow and sort of control how they act. She's a major character in the third and fourth novels of the series as Dor's love interest and spends pretty much of number four showing off her legs to anyone who tries to look. She doesn't get to be a main character of a book until the eighth novel of the series where she is married to Dor and is trying to find her daughter who got lost in the jungles of Xanth.
Grundy the Golem: Once a golem created by Magician Humfrey he becomes real and has the ability to talk with any living creature or plant. Only problem is he's only about seven inches tall though you wouldn't know it by his mouth. He is widely known as being one of the most rudest people in Xanth and has the ability to tick off anyone he meets within two seconds.
Why should I read these?
Well if you don't try to think too much about the stories, it's a fun light hearted series of books which pokes fun at some of the standard type fantasy stories that are out there. And if you love puns? OMG. Such a series for you.
However if you do get into them a bit more, you start to realize just how much the author overlooks major details of the books and then has to write other books to try and do a retcon solution because of something he wrote which he'll freely admit to in his author notes. Also I have to admit that once you start getting past novel nine, his stories almost take a livejournal/fanfiction turn
Where can I get them?
Well if you are looking for the early books? I suggest you hit Amazon because I can never find them in a book store and I believe the first seven or so novels are in an anthology someplace.
Questions? Comments? Pie?
Xanth is a series of novels written by Piers Anthony which is based in a fantasy world that seems to be mostly made up of puns. Originally set up to be a triology, the books became so popular that the author extended the series to nine books and then just kept on going after that to 33 novels in total and is already working on 34 and are "the only thing the publishes seem to want from him".
The geography of Xanth is, very similar to that of Florida (or at least the outline of Florida...) As is typical with the series, many geographical landmarks are puns based on real-world locations. For example some of Xanth landmarks are the With-A-Cookie River which is river with cookies growing out of it, the kiss-me river which kisses anyone who drinks from it and Lake Ogre-Chobee which used to be the home of the Ogres and the harmless chobees. The puns don't stop there as most of the creatures and plants for the most part all derived from from the author's use of puns which after reading fifteen novels will make you want to beat your head in as they are so horribly bad and yet amusing at the same time. In fact now the author doesn't even have to come up with them as he now mostly relies on his fans mailing them to him directly. For example:
Agent Orange - A orange cat-like being that kills off plant life wherever it walks
Charles Horse - A horse that causes muscle spasms.
Boot-Rear - Drink that comes from a tree that gives you a good kick in the rear when drank.
Mys-tree - a tree that is difficult to figure out.
Thyme - A plant that can speed up or slow down time. They come on many different types, Minute plant, day plant... and so on...
Water chestnut - Yes. You guessed it. A nut filled with water.
Xanth has a connection with the normal world, which is referred to as "Mundania" as it has no magic and therefore always "dreary". Although any citizen of Xanth can enter Mundania at any time through an isthmus in the northwest, Mundanes enter the isthmus in Xanth from random locations and time periods throughout history. As a result Xanth does not have a fixed location or time in the mundane world; and the timeline between the two jumps backwards and forwards.
Like most fantasy settings, the locale of Xanth is filled with magical creatures that compete with the human population for dominance in the world. In fact all these magical critters (goblins, harpies, demons, dragons, centaurs and so much more) outnumber the human population of Xanth to a high degree.
The one thing that the humans have going for them is that each human is born with a magical talent. These talents vary from a low degree/"Spot on the wall" (Where literally you can put a spot on the wall) to Magician/Sorceress class magics which is the strongest type of magic possible. (Being able to control storms, transform people into other creatures instantly and creating realistic illusions to name a few). And if you happen to have a Magician caliber talent? It just may be possible that you'll end up as the human king of Xanth. (As opposed to the kings of other creatures on the island who all seem to thing they are in charge)
Needless to say, the magic of Xanth isn't like a lot of other realms in the fantasy genre. Instead of magicians knowing lots of spells that they can utter at the tip of their tongue and wands and so on, the inhabitants of Xanth tend to find and use magical items and plants as opposed to casting magic (outside of their own magical talents of course)
For the most part, Xanth is a type of grown up/humorous fairy tale. Most of the characters focused on in the books are teenagers or young adults who are faced with a problem or obstacle that has to solved. This typically involves a trip to the all knowing Good Magician Humfrey who is the Magician of Knowledge. His advice is rarely free and charges those who approach him one year of free service (though almost every main character seems to find a way to get out of it for the sake of the plot). The advice is usually cryptic and involves a quest that the character must go on where eventually the meet someone else and fall in love and then live happily ever after. At that point they show up later in other books as minor characters and then have a kid who is a minor character in another book only to be a main character in yet another book after that.
This is part of the reason why Peirs Anthony never seems to stop writing for this series.
Since most of the characters in the novels are teenagers, most of the themes in the Xanth books revolve around a "coming of age" theme after which those characters graduate into the "Adult Conspiracy" which is used to protect kids from general harm. The age when most kids join the conspiracy is 18 when they learn the technique of "summoning the stork" which is Xanth-speak for "getting it on" which is usually signified through the use of ellipses. (...) I really wish I was kidding about this.
Other aspects of the adult conspiracy is to keep kids from having any fun whatsoever, censorship of foul language and knowing the color of girl's panties. Remarkably, knowing the color of a woman's panties is more risque than actual nudity itself. A common joke in Xanth is that men tend to get a little loony if they see a girl in their underwear but nymphs running around naked isn't that big of a deal.
Characters
Okay... To even attempt to write about every single character in Xanth would be an act of sheer lunacy. If you want the entire list you can Check Here for the entire listing but I'm just going to focus on the main characters of the first four novels or so.
Good Magician Humfrey: Humfrey is the magician of information and almost any Xanth book starts and ends with some sort of obscure answer that Humfrey gives to help aid the quest of the main character of the book. Often times perceived as a grumpy old gnome who is so old might be losing his touch with his answers, he's pretty much the most central character in the entire series. His magical talent is to be able to know the answer to every question and has a vast amount of magical items and tomes to help him out.
Bink: The main character of the first two novels, Bink is at first doomed to be exiled from Xanth as he seems to have no magic. Through the course of the book it is eventually revealed that Bink's magical talent is that he cannot be harmed by magic though he can be harmed by non-magical threats. Later on this whole "non-magical" thing seems to get pushed to the side as the author seems to forget that little tidbit for the sake of other stories but that's just part of Peirs Anthony's love of retconning which I'll get into in a bit. And in typical Xanth fashion, Bink shows up in the first two novels and then is mostly ignored until the seventh book where he's there for a chapter and then disappears for another breif cameo in novel seven and then isn't heard much again I think until novel seventeen.
Chameleon: Bink's wife who is only really in the first novel and then a bit player for the next seven. Her magical talent is that her intelligence varies from being completely dumb to extremely intelligent while her image goes from being extremely beautiful to very ugly. So in the course of the month she'll range from being smart and ugly to being beautiful and dub with her having average looks and intelligence in between. This of course makes her Bink's ideal love as she's all things to one man which... okay is a bit sexist but that's also a running theme in the series so we'll just go with that.
Trent: Once an evil magician, whose ability was to transform any living thing into another living thing, he was exiled from Xanth for trying to usurp the throne from the rightful king. He later returns from living in Mundania a much more experienced and humble man and eventually becomes Good King Trent. In many ways his character exemplifies many of the ways that Anthony plays with the concept of a "fantasy" novel as the "evil" character isn't really evil at all but just a man who was too ambitious to get what he wanted and then through character growth became someone else entirely. He was a main character in probably the first seven books then then pretty much disappeared for ten novels when he was magical rejuvinated to his younger form for another novel.
Iris: Iris is Trent's wife and pretty much a power hungry woman who has the magical talent of illusion. She's pretty cutthroat and will do anything to be in power, even if it is just marrying Trent so she can be Queen. Not very much of a sympathetic character until the third novel or so.
Dor: Well hopefully you know a little bit about him by this time. He's the son of Bink and Chameleon and since his magical talent (the ability to make inanimate objects talk) is considered magician Caliber he is slated to be the next king of Xanth.
Irene: aka "The Palace Brat" is Trent and Iris's daughter and Dor's future bride to be. She has green hair and has the ability to make plants grow and sort of control how they act. She's a major character in the third and fourth novels of the series as Dor's love interest and spends pretty much of number four showing off her legs to anyone who tries to look. She doesn't get to be a main character of a book until the eighth novel of the series where she is married to Dor and is trying to find her daughter who got lost in the jungles of Xanth.
Grundy the Golem: Once a golem created by Magician Humfrey he becomes real and has the ability to talk with any living creature or plant. Only problem is he's only about seven inches tall though you wouldn't know it by his mouth. He is widely known as being one of the most rudest people in Xanth and has the ability to tick off anyone he meets within two seconds.
Why should I read these?
Well if you don't try to think too much about the stories, it's a fun light hearted series of books which pokes fun at some of the standard type fantasy stories that are out there. And if you love puns? OMG. Such a series for you.
However if you do get into them a bit more, you start to realize just how much the author overlooks major details of the books and then has to write other books to try and do a retcon solution because of something he wrote which he'll freely admit to in his author notes. Also I have to admit that once you start getting past novel nine, his stories almost take a livejournal/fanfiction turn
Where can I get them?
Well if you are looking for the early books? I suggest you hit Amazon because I can never find them in a book store and I believe the first seven or so novels are in an anthology someplace.
Questions? Comments? Pie?