Customer Reviews

The Secret of Spring

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

 

 

Spring is the daughter of Gabriel, a wizard who has discovered the secret of ultimate power, but he has an unscrupulous enemy named Zygote. To keep this secret from Zygote, he implants it in Spring and sends her away. To keep a step ahead of Zygote, Spring journeys to the home world of her pen pal Herb Moss, a part human/part plant man. However, even on Herb's world of Paradise #23, Zygote's henchmen aren't far behind.

This book is quite charming with a romantic (and at times racy) storyline. There is a good deal of humor of the punning sort for which Piers Anthony is famous, and the mixture of magic and science fiction is quite interesting. However, the story is lightweight, and is easy to pick up and put down. It's a good story, but far from a great one. I'm glad I read it, but I'll never re-read this one.

The Secret of Spring is very cleaverly written with puns peppered throughout the story. The characters are funny and imaginative. The unusual ending is quite a surprise. A fun book.

When I found this book in my local library, I didn't go for it at first because, frankly, the spine looked bad. Awfully shallow of me, I know, but I finally did pick it up and read the inside cover, and I slipped it into my pile of books, including louisa may allcott and tamora pierce. I was honest with myself, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't read it, but I ended up doing so, and I was just as cute and funny as I hoped it would be. I recommend this book, but not as a profound and heart-stirring read, but more as a late-night grooving in the bathtub thing.

I had fun reading this book. It had some clever ideas and you could tell that the authors had a good time with it. I thought the physiology of the plant people was particularly thought out; I like it when a fantasy world is that detailed. I didn't really get into any of the characters but the book kept me guessing until the end about what the villain's come-uppance was going to be. A complete surprise! All in all, this was an enjoyable book and I hope to see more collaborations between Anthony and Taeusch in the future.

To me, this reads as less of a serious novel (Incarnations of Immortality, for example) and more of a light, enjoyable read. It seems that Mr. Anthony and Ms. Treusch got together and decided to have fun. I get the feeling that they just wanted to relax and play around a bit, and it does seem like they had fun. There's a lot of plant puns here. Magazines become 'magazinnias', prostitutes are 'passionflowers' and the like. I smiled at some of the puns. If the author's objectives was to have fun and make a amusing story, they definitely accomplished that.

However, the ending felt weird to me. The 'secret' of Spring... well, it's not much of a secret. I was happy for what happened with Zygote at the end, but at the same time, it felt cliched to me. This book had a lot of potential, especially for the ending. I'm not saying that this is a bad book at all, but if you do decide to read it, just don't expect a great read.

Spring is the daughter of Gabriel, a wizard who has discovered the secret of ultimate power, but he has an unscrupulous enemy named Zygote. To keep this secret from Zygote, he implants it in Spring and sends her away. To keep a step ahead of Zygote, Spring journeys to the home world of her pen pal Herb Moss, a part human/part plant man. However, even on Herb's world of Paradise #23, Zygote's henchmen aren't far behind.

This book is quite charming with a romantic (and at times racy) storyline. There is a good deal of humor of the punning sort for which Piers Anthony is famous, and the mixture of magic and science fiction is quite interesting. However, the story is lightweight, and is easy to pick up and put down. It's a good story, but far from a great one. I'm glad I read this book, but I really can't see rereading it.

I had fun reading this book. It had some clever ideas and you could tell that the authors had a good time with it. I thought the physiology of the plant people was particularly thought out; I like it when a fantasy world is that detailed. I didn't really get into any of the characters but the book kept me guessing until the end about what the villain's come-uppance was going to be. A complete surprise! All in all, this was an enjoyable book and I hope to see more collaborations between Anthony and Taeusch in the future.

don't read this book if you're looking to get very involved with the characters! the book is humorous, but it just gets so cutesy you get a little tired of it after a while. a good read if you're on a plane or laying on a beach, but not to get involved with!

This book is mildly amusing with its odd cast of characters and plot mixtures. Among other things it contains humans, human/plant hybrids, ant people, good wizards, bad wizards, spaceships, magic castles, time warps, romance, etc. Spring (the human heroine) is a strong protagonist, but Herb is a bit wimpy as the half-human, half-plant hero. Read it just for fun, but don't expect too much. For a really intense read about green people, I recommend MISTWALKER by Denise Lopes Heald.

An interesting and sometimes humorous novel. Herb Moss and Spring go through a series of adventures as they try to elude an evil magician. The story tends to sidetrack into various fairy tales, and wanders a bit getting to the climax. A kidnapped maiden, dragons, and various ETs all add to the plot. The story becomes a bit corny at points, and gives a plant's eye view of life - those flowers you pick may be someone's children. Overall, it is good light fiction.