A Spell for Chameleon (Magic of Xanth)

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Poor Bink! Each human Xanth has their own unique magical gift. Bink appears to be one of the few exceptions, with no discernible magical talent. Not only does this place him at aconsiderable disadvantage to his fellow humans, but it will cost him his place in Xanth. Human law mandates exile for those withoutmagic. the Sorceress Iris seemed beautiful, but I met others who weren't. Once they get old or married, they--" [...:]"'Women don't have to get ugly when they marry,' Fanchon said. [...:] 'Some start out that way.'" Got that? Married = ugly (applies to women only, of course). Wow. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-02-15 13:00:59 Boxid IA40060603 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

I'm not sure when I read this -- the 1995 date I've entered is just a guess. It was the first Piers Anthony novel I read. It was imaginative and somewhat fun, but I was put off by the casual sexism. I went on to read other Anthony works, and that never goes away. Whenever a female character walks on stage, Anthony dissects her physical attractiveness, in anatomical detail. He cannot apparently imagine a female character without discussing how sexually attractive she is.Because his talent cannot be discovered, Bink is exiled to Mundania, the land of no magic. While there, he is captured by the Evil Magician Trent, who was exiled 20 years ago for attempting to overthrow the current king. Trent is trying to invade Xanth with his Mundane army to usurp the throne but has been consistently prevented from entering by the magic barrier which surrounds Xanth. He believes that Bink can help him get into Xanth by providing information on the location of the source of the magical barrier, and attempts to coerce Bink into giving him this information. Trent has prepared a special elixir that can temporarily nullify magic and has a special catapult that can hurl this elixir into the land of Xanth. All that Trent needs now are the exact coordinates of the shield-stone. Bink refuses to cooperate and is thrown into a pit with a woman from Xanth that has followed him there named Fanchon. Bink and Fanchon escape to sea but are pursued by Trent's forces. Eventually, Bink, Trent, and Fanchon are all swept into Xanth via a whirlpool but Trent's forces are left behind. Bink smiled. These conversions weren’t real. It had assumed the forms of obnoxious little monsters, but not their essence. It could not sting, stink, or burn. It was a chameleon, using its magic to mimic creatures of genuine threat. The story is not a bad one and certainly better than most of the later stories in the rather long Xanth series which after a few volumes degenerate into mere excuses to drag out as many lame puns as Mister Anthony and his fans (yes, he does requests, I guess) can dream up. Unfortunately, Like so many characters by Piers Anthony the ones in this book are flat and, by and large, uninteresting. They are there to move the plot, but by themselves each is a flat stereotype. Well, I think this was aimed at young adults, so maybe that’s good enough. Certainly the series has been wildly successful to the point that it seems to be all Mister Anthony writes these days. That is sort of a shame because he has shown his ability to tell a decent story.

So, dear reader, if you enjoyed this book quite a bit, please do not read on, this is going to get nasty. Oh. “But he charges a year’s service for a single spell,” Bink protested. “I have only a month.” But that was not quite accurate; if the Magician identified a talent for Bink, then he would not be exiled, and he would have a year available. He was deeply touched by Sabrina’s faith in him. She did not say what others said: that he had no magic. She did him the immense courtesy of choosing to believe that his magic merely remained undiscovered.

Production: What we know about A Spell for Chameleon?

and keeps up at afair pace throughout the book. Bink assesses the attractiveness of pretty much every female person (human or not) that he encounters in the book, and he is not aloneinthis. Humfrey knows a hundred spells. Maybe one of them—I’m sure he could find out what your talent is. Then everything would be all right.”