Dipping once again into the well of Xanth. After reading Piers Anthony’s first Xanth novel, A Spell for Chameleon(my review), I decided to gamble on my memory of the second book being decent and read The Source of Magic as well. While it wasn’t bad (although had some sexism issues which I’ll discuss below), it wasn’t good enough for me to consider reading more in the series. Also this is the last book with the first generation of Xanth residents. Going forward, the book starts focusing on the younger generation and having progressively more puns. So, let’s see what happens.
Bink is going on a quest. King Trent wants to utilize Bink’s unique power (his magical ability is to protect him from magic) to find out the source of the magic of Xanth. He suggest Bink take the quest now because Chameleon (Bink’s wife) is in her smart phase and not happy about being pregnant. So, of course we need the hero to take a quest to escape from the wrathful tongue of his harpyish wife. Let’s set aside that sexism for now (we’ll come back to it). Along with Bink on the quest is Chester Centaur (whose wife has a foal/son) and Crombie (a soldier that King Trent turns into a griffin) who isn’t sure about his upcoming marriage to Sabrina (Bink’s ex) and has a talent for pointing in the correct direction upon being asked a direction question.
Their first stop is to Magician Humfrey’s castle to determine where to go. In a surprise movie, Humfrey decides that he needs to go along with them. In addition, he brings along a Golem named Grundy who is able to translate for Crombie (who isn’t able to talk after being transformed into a Griffin). The unlikely team run into gorgons, demons, sirens, dragons and an ogre. Bink’s maddeningly ethical thought ends up leading to Xanth losing magic. But will his magical power work even without magic to get the magic turned back on. Or is his power too much like a deus ex machina where everything is guaranteed to work out in end because his power will make it so.
Overall, I’m not a big fan and am glad that I’m not reading any further. Let’s start with the sexism. I’m not sure there is a decently portrayed female character anywhere in the book. They are all evil or only interested in getting a man. Outside of the blatant sexism, the story is fairly boring. You have a group of people wandering across a magic land and Anthony does it in one of the more boring ways I’ve ever seen. The story should have written itself, unfortunately Anthony wrote it and did a bad job. Not recommended.