A Spell for Chameleon (Magic of Xanth)

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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. The land of Xanth is a land of magic. Everyone has a magical talent, even some of the animals of the forest. Everyone, that is, except for Bink. And now that he's approaching adulthood, he has to find his magic...or face exile.

Mister Ewing comes close to resorting to “funny voices” to differentiate the characters, but since some of them are non-human (harpies and other monsters are common in Xanth) that is not entirely out of character for them. The only voice I did not like was that of Fanchon who sounded like an old woman and not one of Bink’s age (Twenty-five, I think). Even there he had to make her voice unpleasant for reasons that become apparent while reading the book. The first half of the book is dedicated to Bink's quest to discover his talent. Bink journeys through the dangerous wilderness to seek the Good Magician Humphrey, whose magical talent lies in ascertaining the truth. Bink is willing to pay the Good Magician's exorbitant fee, one year of indentured service, to learn the answer to his question, but even the talented Humphrey is unable to indentify what Bink's talent is, other than to affirm that he does have one. When the time comes to prove to Xanth's King that he has what it takes to be a citizen, the senile King, who can barely summon a dust devil, much less the awesome storms of his youth, refuses to accommodate Bink's inability to perform out of jealousy of the Good Magician Humphrey's power, leading to Bink's exile. This is when the real story starts. So she's perfect for the protag because due to ... women burning him? ... he's come to the idea that he can't trust women who are both beautiful and smart. A lot of people have put it this way: in this book, women can be beautiful, smart, or good. Choose two.Blah, blah, blah, Bink is about to go see the wizard because his hot girlfriend really hopes he has magic so he won't get exiled but it's hard because epic quests have to be, and he meets a centaur. We hear a lot from Bink about how hot this centaur would be if she weren't a centaur. She then explains to him about how pretty much every human in Xanth descends from a series of awful rapes as one group took over the next. Except it is very clearly stated that Bink loves her not just because he appreciates all her forms, but because HE WOULD GET BORED WITH JUST ONE TYPE OF WOMAN. He wants a beautiful woman sometimes, but he doesn't want a beautiful, smart woman because he distrusts beautiful, smart women (WHAT?). And he wants a smart woman, but again, she can't be beautiful, so he likes her smart but ugly phase. And of course, her average phase is just average, and he's fine with it coming around sometimes. Just...what? Really? I’ve been somewhat unfair to Wynne above because the beautiful dolt is only one aspect of an unfortunate woman named Chameleon (this is the spoiler referenced above, by the way). Chameleon does not have atalent so much as she is atalent: she cycles from beautiful to hideous over the span of amonth, and from phenomenally stupid to extremely bright at thesametime. He said he'd push her off the brink if she made a sound," the bailiff replied. "She was frozen in terror. Right girls?"

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.There are afew corn kernels in this steaming pile: it turns out Xanth has such athing as redemptive arcs, and the hints about Bink’s talent (which is as much aworld-breaker as the Teela Brown gene, which as we all know made it nearly impossible to write more Known Space stories) are handled well enough. Those few details are inextricably entangled in some pretty dirematerial.