The Xanth Series by Peirs Anthony

[OnionPickle]

I love the Xanth books, by Piers Anthony, when I want an easy, quick, and lighthearted read. However, I have heard some people don't like them because of repetitive puns, a same structured plot every time, (the visit to the Good Magician, the Gap Chasm, etc) and basic characters. What do you think?

[Becky_V]

I love the Xanth series as well! I like the fact that he uses the same characters, that you can follow them and their family line throughout the series. Visits to the Good Magician may be a common occurrence but the challenges to get in are never the same and each character performing them learns something different on their following personal journey. I don't mind the same theme at all, although I do feel like he is trying to fit in an awful lot of puns in each book as the series goes on.

[Lisalovecraft]

I used to love this series as a preteen. I loved the puns. Not sure how I would feel about his work if I reread it today.

[RStone]

I loved these books. 'Harpy Thyme' was actually the first "grown up" book I ever read. I then went back and started at the first book in the series. While I enjoyed that some of the story stayed the same (I enjoyed the visits to Humphrey and all) I do think they got increasingly churned out to make a buck. Picked up the most recent one when my dad checked it out and paged through it. The writing was trite and lack luster, the storyline uninspired, and all of it seemed designed to fit in as many puns as possible, and not all clever like in the earlier books. The list of pun credits at the end of the books just kept getting longer…. Still probably enjoyable for light reading, I feel like the idea got played out and now is just being used to bring in income with minimal effort. After all, the series has built in fans by now.