Harpy Thyme (The Xanth Novels Book 17)

Good condition

better than expected delivered on time .

"Harpy Thyme" is number seventeen in the sequence of Piers Anthony's "Xanth" comic fantasy stories which began with "A Spell for Chameleon" in 1977.The series was a huge hit with fans and publishers - Piers Anthony is supposed to have said that the reason he is still writing Xanth books is to keep his publishers happy as the series is the only thing they ever pestered him for. Xanth is still going strong thirty-eight years of Earth time, a similar number of books, and millions of copies after the 1977 debut.In this seventeen novel, a unique magical creature faces a far from unique problem: Gloha is half goblin and half harpy, and there are no others of her kind in Xanth. She is much nicer than most of the other Goblins and Harpies, so she does not get much company from them. So, (dreadful sexist stereotype coming up) she fights her way through the challenges to reach Good Magician Humphrey's castle to ask how to find a mate.She soon finds herself on a quest with retired King Trent, who although old enough to be her father has been magically rejuvenated and now looks like a young and handsome man. her own age. This could be quite interesting, she thinks - except that Trent is happily married ..."Harpy Thyme" and all the other books in the series are mostly set in a magical land called Xanth, a peninsular which usually looks a bit like Florida but can sometimes appear like other peninsulars such as Italy or Korea. All the human residents of Xanth have a magic talent, which may vary from trivial to immensely powerful and from extremely useful to being a downright liability. The fauna, flora and geography of the land are based on a combination of legends and puns.The series as published and planned in July 2015 is as follows:1 "A Spell for Chameleon" (1977), link A Spell for Chameleon2 "The Source of Magic" (1979), link Source of Magic: Xanth Series, Book 23 "Castle Roogna" (1979), link Castle Roogna4 "Centaur Aisle" (1982)5 "Ogre, Ogre" (1982)6 "Night Mare" (1983)7 "Dragon on a Pedestal" (1983)8 "Crewel Lye" (1984)9 "Golem in the Gears"10 "Vale of the Vole" (1987)11 "Heaven Cent" (1988)12 "Man from Mundania" (1989)13 "Isle of View" (1990)14 "Question Quest" (1991)15 "The Color of Her Panties" (1992)16 "Demons Don't Dream" (1992)17 This book, "Harpy Thyme" (1993)18 "Geis of the Gargoyle" (1994)19 Roc and a Hard Place (1995)20 Yon Ill Wind (1996)21 Faun & Games (1997)22 Zombie Lover (1998)23 Xone of Contention (1999)24 The Dastard (2000)25 Swell Foop (2001)26 Up In A Heaval (2002)27 Cube Route (2003)28 Currant Events (2004)29 Pet Peeve (2005)30 Stork Naked (2006)31 Air Apparent (2007)32 Two to the Fifth (2008)33 Jumper Cable (2009)34 Knot Gneiss (2010)35 Well-Tempered Clavicle (2011)36 Luck of the Draw (2012)37 Esrever Doom (2013)38 Board Stiff (2014)39 Five Portals (2014)40 Isis Orb (forthcoming)41 Ghost Writer in the SkyThere is also a companion volume, "Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth" and the co-author of that book, Jody Lynn Nye, has written the adventure book "Ghost of a Chance (Crossroads Adventure : in the World of Pier Anthony's Xanth).A major part of the plot of the sixteenth book, "Demons don't dream" relates to a computer game about Xanth, and Legend Entertainment were licenced to bring out a real computer game shortly afterwards which had the same plot as the game in the book and the same name, "Companions of Xanth." This game was designed to run under DOS and is no longer available at Amazon UK although it can still be ordered from Amazon.com or downloaded as abandonware if you have a working computer old enough or flexible enough to run games designed for the specs and operating systems in place twenty years ago.If you have the right sort of sense of humour, particularly a love of dreadful puns, this book and most of its' successors can be quite amusing. These books are not meant to be taken seriously.Be warned that if you did take this book and quite a few of the other Xanth books seriously, they can come over as rather sexist even by the standards of 1988, let alone those of today, and the plotline of this story is a clear example.Some of the accusations of sexism against Piers Anthony over the Xanth books are based on taking out of context, and assuming that the author is endorsing, views which in context are clearly presented for the specific purpose of disproving them. In several Xanth stories the bad guys make bad mistakes by underestimating the female characters and the heroines often find that they can achieve far more than their initial low expectations of themselves.In context many of the antedeluvian attitudes to women attributed to characters in the Xanth books contribute to the failures suffered by those characters or are a sign that they are on the wrong side, and similar sexist perspectives initially attributed to heroes and heroines are sometimes there so that the characters concerned can grow by learning better.As you work through the Xanth series new characters and themes are gradually introduced and old ones fade away, so it it not essential to read this series in sequence, though I personally prefer to do so. And sometimes, as with Trent in this story, characters who have faded out come back.Worth a try if you enjoy fantasy and puns, are reasonably broad-minded, and able to avoid taking things too seriously or literally.

This book follows Gloha a harpy/goblin cross as she struggles to find herself a man. She is the only harpy/goblin cross in Xanth so does what any girl would do, go to good Magician Humphrey to ask the question. The quest starts from there. She teams up with Magician Trent, a giant, Marrow bones and a demon and they travel the length of Xanth to full fill a whole range of questions.I feel like I have grown out of Xanth novels. I used to love them, all the puns, the funny characters, the mad story lines and the whole world itself. I used to have so much fun reading them and imagining how the world would be if we had pillow trees, pie trees, walking sticks and all the imaginary creatures. But the older I have got the more I find the characters very one dimensional, The jokes just are not as funny. I also find myself getting annoyed at various plot ideas.I think that Xanth books are great in your teenage years but less and less as you get older. I now find the characters very stereotypical and superficial and the story lines in places very sexist. I'm not sure how many more times I will return to the land of Xanth any more.