Customer Reviews

Question Quest (Xanth Novels)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book showed the the history of Xanth in a very cool way, through the eyes of Magician Humphry. I loved how it slowly got into a predicament and how it was cleverly solved in the end. It showed what happened to Castle Roogna over the years and how Humphry was taught by demons and how he wrote the book of answers. It is, in my view, one of the best Xanth books ever written, and it gives you a lot of information on the history of Xanth and how Humphry lived it. Although it is a great book, if you are just starting to read the series, you should begin with the first book, A Spell for Chamelion.

I love the Xanth Series, though to begin with I read several of them out of order. While each one is a fine stand alone novel, the more you know the better, and this book helped until I got all caught up. Again, lots of puns and fun stuff, but the best part of this book for regular Xanth readers is the Answer of who the Good Magician is and where he came from. Appearing in every book (i think) he is the director of quests, the all-knowing Oz to whom everyone turns for Answers, and this book give you the when, who and how of his life. Why does he charge a years' service, what's with the challenges, where did the Big Book come from - these are all answered in this fun book, as Humfrey recounts where he's been in order to get where he is going. A great Xanth novel!

This is the first Xanth book I ever read (I was eight) and seven years later, is still my favorite. I love the history, I love the characters, I love the ridiculous Xanthly humor that got a little out of hand in later books. I hate to sound like a cover blurb, but the truth is that it's one of the finest books I've ever read. So what if it's not Great Literature. It's a helluva lotta fun and I'll defend its innocent beauty to anybody.

Never read a Xanth book before? This might be a good place to start. This book give a good history for all the major characters leading up to this book. Although it does give away the ends of previous books, it doesn't reveal the plots (and puns) in the other books. And, let's be honest, the puns themselves are the great reason for reading about Xanth.

At last, "Question Quest" is the long-untold life story of Good Magician Humfrey- and his five-and-a-half wives. "What?" say Xanth fans. "I thought he only had one wife." You'll have to read the book to find out...

Intriguing as this might sound, "Question Quest" is not among my top-rated Xanth novels. The Good Magician's story is of some interest, and (since he is ancient in the extreme) provides an alternate perspective on several aspects of Xanth history. The Xanth timeline included in the book will also be an invaluable resource for die-hard Xanth scholars. However, the story meanders along from one point to another with a disappointing lack of drive. One gets the feeling that this was a story that merely needed to be written for the sake of biographical detail (as so many biographies are).

Piers Anthony's writing makes for easy reading as usual, but this book didn't inspire me to the same level as others in the series. One for the Xanth enthusiasts only.

5.5 stars out of 10

The book is good. Of course I love reading history as well. And that is what is covered here. A detailed history of the never-before revealed story of Magician Humphrey. His recounting of his life will remind you about all the books before this one. A timeline of the history of Xanth is also provided. A good read.

I read this book because I'm a die-hard fan of Piers Anthony's, and he's right when he says not to write to him. In the author's note he said he had an especially hard time writing this book because of all the letters he recieved...And it shows. This book reviews the life of the Magician Humphrey and moves over the entire history of Xanth adding tidbits of information to the past stories. The reason it had problems was it's inconsistancy... The chapters were tedious and drawn out at times.

Question Quest is a book that has very little original content, but instead focuses on putting the previous volumes of the Xanth series in perspective while filling in background details on the life of Magician Humfrey. This book was annoying to read because it was clear that Piers Anthony has not lost any of his facilities with puns and making fun of figures of speech. As an example, something must be done before the statue of limitation runs out - is literally a statue that tries to run out of an enclosed space, however he runs real slow so it gives the heroine of the moment time to accomplish her task, etc.

The storyline starts like a typical Xanth novel. This time the heroine is Lacona - one of the Zombie Master's twins. Her problem is that she is in her mid-30's and her life is completely dull. So, she goes to Grey Murphy for an Answer and is sent to find Humfrey. All of this takes place in the first two chapters and after that the bulk of the rest of the book is a retread of the previous 13 books as Humfrey tells Lacuna his history and story and puts all the other adventures in a timeline. This part of the book also fills in some other details like family relationships that were not previously obvious (did you realize that Crombie was Humfrey's son?) and how of the people got to be the way they did (e.g. Crombie as a woman hater and how Humfrey got to be the Magician of Information).

My problem with this book was that I read all the previous books. So it was fustrating to read about the same adventures and storylines in summary form with a few extra nuggets of infomation. The few extra nuggets were simply not enough for me. This is why I downgraded the rating of this book to three stars. It was interesting to read some of the adventurs from a different viewpoint, and also to see how some of the relationships developed over time that lead to various scenes in the books, but overall this book was a disappointment to a long time fan. I will keep the book in my library for the sake of completeness, but would not necessarily recommend it to all.

Xanth #14: Question Quest, by Piers Anthony

The Good Magician makes an appearance in every Xanth book. That's how most books start - a character has a problem in their lives that they need to see him about. So they make a journey to his castle, battle through the three Challenges, get their Answer from the Book of Answers, and end up on a journey through Xanth to figure out their cryptic Answer.

But *how* did the Good Magician get his Book of Answers? How does he know what every person ultimately wants? And just how does he have five and a half wives?

While "Question Quest" starts out with Lacuna, a woman who has passed into middle age and thus has a very boring life, it is actually the story of Good Magician Humfrey. Because his son-in-law is manning the Book of Answers and doesn't quite understand everything written the book, Lacuna goes to Hell in a handbasket to get a more complete Answer. There she finds Humfrey, who has been sitting in the Demon X (A/N)th's waiting room for 10 years, trying to rescue one of his wives from Hell.

I found "Question Quest" to be an excellent history book of Xanth. This is the first time Humfrey's story is told in full detail, from his youth with MareAnn, to marrying a demoness, to attending Demon University to get a degree in magic, to finding Castle Roogna, and quite a few other adventures. Humfrey's over 100 years old, and he's sure packed a lot of living into his century plus of life. This Xanth installment really fleshes out the old gnome, and adds a lot of information to any reader's knowledge of Xanth.

This is probably one of my favorite Xanth books, as I tend to like histories, especially histories of created worlds. "Question Quest" gives life to one of the more interesting characters in Xanth, a character included in every novel but one previously hadn't much back story. Read it if you want to learn about Humfrey, or if you're curious about the history of Xanth.

4/5.

I got this book in an extremely timely manner (possibly the quickest i've ever gotten anything ordered online) and it was in a condition exactly as described (if not better.)