Westeros, Shannara, Fillory, Temerant… and now Xanth. According to Variety, Piers Anthony’s long-running fantasy saga set in the eponymous land of Xanth, filled with magicians and mythological creatures, may be joining the ranks of other fantasy series adapted for the big and/or small screens. Producer Steven Paul’s (Ghost in the Shell, Ghost Rider) SP Entertainment Group is launching development of the Xanth novels into both a feature film and a television series.
The Xanth series began in 1977 with A Spell for Chameleon, which established what to expect from the dozens of books that followed: A fantastical land where every inhabitant possesses some measure of “talent,” or magic… except for poor Bink, whose magic has not manifested. Exiled to Mundania, he must discover how to harness his magic; his journeys bring him into contact with a strange woman named Chameleon (who possesses beauty and intelligence in inversely shifting ways depending on the time of the month) and the evil magician Trent, who seeks to invade Xanth.
So—magic (or the consequences for lack thereof), spells, snarky humor, and, judging from the cover, a wicked-looking manticore. Anthony had originally planned the series as a trilogy, but fan demand spurred him on to write for the last forty years. The 41st novel, Ghost Writer in the Sky, will be published in April 2017.
Paul has not yet announced which book(s) would make up the film and which the TV series, nor if the structure will match the multimedia adaptations of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicle or Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, with the main action happening in the film and supplementary stories branching off through the TV series. Variety reports that “plans are under way to announce creative talent as well as distribution and financing plans in connection with the project.”
via Blastr
Are they going to have a letter-writing campaign where child watchers get to submit puns for the next episode?
I have to say that this is one franchise that to me did not age well. Kid me was far more willing to ride along with the author’s nod-and-a-wink dismissal of otherwise sexist defenses, for example. A shame, since I remember enjoying them immensely at the time.
So are we going to have a movie/season arc where a character obsesses about someone’s underwear then?
Sorry but Piers Anthony is an author that long ago earned a permanent “Nope” place in my fiction consumption.
I once tried to come up with lyrics for the song Ghost Writers in the Sky… but got stuck thinking about post-docs endlessly writing grants
As if that stew of tasty puns, interspecies kink, and randomness chunks in a toxic broth of misogyny and rape culture hadn’t been consumed by enough people already, to the detriment of our self-esteem and beliefs about how to conduct romance and sex.
*headdesk*
Do we honestly think that the misogyny and other issues with this series will make it into the movie and/or TV series? Really? Why are we assuming that all of that will be the stuff picked to be in the shows? Seems like people are beginning to condemn the effort before the effort is even off the ground. I don’t recall the original trilogy having much of that anyway. It was the later books where that began to be an issue. I’m going to employ a wait and see attitude. If we find that those elements are trickling in, then I’ll complain. It’s too early yet for me to fret over all this.
Yeah, I am not sure this is a good idea. The first book REALLY has not aged well, and it is hard to pick the misogyny out of the books. Chameleon’s powers themselves would be considered alt-right ideology today (you have to be ugly to be smart, and dumb to be pretty), and are central to the first book.
So, the challenge is: is it possible to radically rewrite A Spell for Chameleon so that it’s subversive rather than offensive?
I don’t want to swear that it isn’t, but I can’t think how to do it. Plot outlines from anyone up to the challenge?
I’d be interested to know how they intend to remove all the parts that hinge on sexism, ephebophilia, rape culture, and women’s and girls’ underwear and still leave anything recognisable. If it’s recognisable, I want nothing to do with it. Sorry.
To use a different food metaphor, Xanth books are like sweet fruits riddled with spots of rot. I eventually found them not worth trying to eat around the rot. How much can adapters cut away and still have somerhing left?
Ah, wonderful, misogynistic Xanth.
A few quotes from A Spell for Chameleon, taken from this useful article:
Ana Mardoll’s Xanth deconstruction series, now partway through the third book, discusses the books’ Problems in detail: http://www.anamardoll.com/2011/01/index-xanth.html?m=0
I gave up on Xanth, and Piers Anthony, in general, a very long time ago. Some of the Xanth books were funny, but they’re a joke well past its use-by date, and they’ve not aged well.
I’ll give the series a pass.
Ugh. Even if you ignore the rampant misogyny and major consent issues, there is still Anthony’s extremely disturbing focus on children’s sexuality throughout all of his books. I honestly thought it would eventually come out that he was a pedophile way back in the 90’s when I was reading his various series.
My own “Ghost Writers” lyrics:
A fat old washed-up movie star was drinking hard one day,
A-sipping as he rested and he thought of yesterday,
When all at once the phone rang, his agent placed the call,
Said “I have an idea that may just help us all.
Yippie-yi-Yay! Yippie-yi-Yo! Ghost writers on the Sly!
You’ll tell about the parties, the drugs and all the booze,
How Spielberg and George Lucas never listened to your views,
You’ll bring a tear into their eyes when you tell how you were born …
Dropped onto the cold, hard ground, while your mom was picking corn.
Yippie-yi-Yay! –Etc.
Read them in my late teens and they were funny for the first few, but then I figured out that they basically revolve around the main character visiting the same 5 places in some random order and then solving whatever silly problem was put in at the start. It was like if the later Oz stories were rewritten by a formulaic hack writer (with weird ideas) and then sort of allowed to meander on for 40 odd books.
And I think it’s the same problem that they’d have if they tried to retell the original Oz books as a TV show: you would need someone more talented than the original writer to make the ideas and tone work for, and that kind of writer would be better served just telling their own stories.
I thought A Spell for Chameleon was magnificent. I eventually tired of the series, but there’s probably an audience out there for them, if well-done. I’d definitely go see the movie, for the world-building alone. Everything else would be a plus.
It will be interesting to see how the puns translate to the screen.
It wouldn’t be the first time that the only thing a tv show had in common with the series it was based on was the proper names. *cough*LegendOfTheSeeker*cough*. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a positive outcome…
I read the first Xanth book when I was 15 or 16 and would read just about any fantasy novel I could find, back when there weren’t that many. It creeped me out. I didn’t bother reading any more.
Well if people object to Xanth, then how about some shows based on the stories taking place in Proton/Phaze?
As I am fond of puns and don’t insist that all my fantasy be high and/or grimdark, I quite liked some of the earlier books (despite the many flaws) when I read them (not sure if I’d feel the same now, *mumble* years later). But after the first ten or so they got so repetitive that I lost interest. Dragon on a Pedestal was probably the last one where the positive definitely outweighed the negative for me. But I don’t really see these translating well into film, or even TV. I doubt I would work up the enthusiasm to watch them.
~lakesidey
I, for one, would love to see adaptions of PA’s very early works, such as Macroscope (which is close to the hardest of hard sci-fi books and I think was nominated for Huge) or the three Omnivore universe books (also referred to as Of Man and Manta). Xanth – could work but lots to surmount.
Yep let me add my voice to the “nope” column as well. I enjoyed these books when I was 13, but look back on them with dismay and chagrin now. Can’t believe he is still churning them out.
Wait, he’s still putting them out?!? WHY?
And @13 AeronaGreenjoy seems to have found someone to answer the (intentionally hard) challenge. Will look forward to following the Mardoll link when I’m not at work. :)
Add my vote to the “Hell, no!!” pile.
Proton/Phase seconded! The Adept series was smart and interesting. I also think Incantations of Immortality’s Death would be a fantastic film! So much thought went in to what it takes to be Death. Zanth? I’ll wait and see. Shannara Chronicles went well for me, I just won’t reread the books again before I watch, and it has been since the 70s. :)
12 year old me loved Piers Anthony. 20 year old me was kind of creeped out by him. By my 30, I’d tossed my collection (and I still have books I bought when I was 10).
I seem to recall a time travel book with a giant spider that wasn’t too bad, but generally, his books have not held up. “Old guy bangs teenage girl” isn’t even a good porn plot, must less something that needs to show up in multiple series from a nominal “young adult” author. There are many different places you could go for better stuff.
Concurrent series of Raymond Feist’s Magician books with his Daughter of the Empire series lined up for some crossover episodes would be a FAR better use of an adaptation.
@29 Ridiculon: money, dear boy…
There is genuinely not one positive comment on this article for the work, or the author. So I have to wonder why 31 people, all individuals who think the books are trash and the author is a pedophile, get to troll an announcement intended for fans. I honestly don’t get why anyone commenting would even bother to do so given the disdane on parade.
As a fan, this entire comment thread is dismaying. It seems, given that there are moderators and community guidelines, this should be a space where I can find and share enthusiasm for what I love about the series, and what I’d be excited to see come out of it.
I also don’t understand how many layers of meta presentation an author has to provide in order for people to comprehend what’s at play.
Chameleon’s powers are obviously problematic: especially given that she can’t control them voluntarily, it’s part of what drives the conflict of the story, and if people can’t see that Mundania has a psychotic set of standards for women, then I think you’re probably missing the point and you might also be someone who thinks Jonathan Swift actually advocated for cannibalism…I mean, Marylin Monroe played the personae she did for a reason.
Is no one watching Feud?
Everyone is welcome to their opinion on the books and the possibility of an adaptation–as always, we ask that you express those opinions in a civil manner, be respectful of others and their dissenting opinions, and refrain from personal attacks. You can read the full Moderation Policy here.
I appreciate having my comment published, it did take a few drafts to exorcise my nerd rage to the point where my statements were deemed acceptable and I apologize for putting the moderators through that.
I genuinely would love to see this happen and given the central premise of Xanth (zany magic land where everyone has a magic talent) and the over abundance of story there are many many ways this could go that avoid or lessen the issues of problematic “fan-service” and misplaced charges of author misogyny.
The humor, word play, potential for 4th wall breaking conventions, mise-en-scene settings and concepts, not to mention the ponopoly of sight gags that would be required for almost every shot could really make this a clever and highly entertaining visual story telling event, which hopefully has a continual Jacques Tati quality through out.
Films like Big Fish, and Monkey Bone/Who Framed Roger Rabbit are hoped for influences for a visual realization of Xanth.
Id also love to see Joel McHale or someone like that cast as Bink.
the only truly problematic thing I see is that this could easily go the way of John Carter of Mars, and because so much of what used to make Xanth “different” seeming, is already or has already been done.
The Princess Bride, You’re Highness, Galavant, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Buffy etc
Anthony’s writing poked fun at all the tropes he could, including sexism and relationships. Even at age 12 I realized that. If you don’t see that the women in Xanth are the real powers and running things, and that he’s doing anything but insult them while generally portraying males as not too bright or content to be managed, you’ve missed a connection somewhere.
I loved the Xanth series as a kid, the Zombie Master made me fall in love with zombies forever. However, when I read his horror novel, Firefly, I stopped reading any of his other books. It features a character who is the survivor of extreme child molestation who, as an adult, doesn’t think that it was wrong. You are supposed to sympathize with the rapist. The child supposedly “wanted it.” So messed up. Never read another P.A. book after that.
I agree that Xanth tends to negatively stereotype men as fools ruled by raging sex drives. But I don’t consider this a point in its favor.
*WARNING – THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR THE XANTH BOOKS BELOW!!!*
@brandon: I honestly don’t think anyone on this thread is “trolling.” (One of the reasons I keep coming back to the Tor website is that the discussions are refreshingly free of trolls.)
Like many, I loved Xanth when I was a kid. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, when there was not as much diversity in SF as there is now. And what diversity existed was harder to find in the pre-internet days. I read what was featured at the library, the bookstores, and what my friends read. That included the Xanth novels.
To be prefectly fair, I found them imaginative, readable, and overall well-written. (I’m referring to the first dozen or so books here; I feel like the later books got way too formulaic. Also – the PUNS! :( It’s cool that Anthony gives credit to his readers who suggest puns in his “Author’s Note,” but I feel like he has subsituted puns for description and atmosphere.)
I am a woman. I noticed there are a lot of people with seemingly “female” usernames on this thread. (I don’t mean to presume about anyone’s identity.) When I was growing up, I had trouble finding books, especially in the SF genre, that had female characters to whom I could relate. There is no dearth of female characters in the Xanth series. However, as others have pointed out, the books present a certain type of female appearance and behaviour as desireable and praiseworthy. Think of Chameleon in her “lovely” phase, Millie the Ghost/Maid, the Siren (after her dulcimer is destroyed), the Gorgon (after her face is nullified), Jewel the nymph, etc. Attractive smart women (like Irene and Sabrina) are still portrayed as deceptive and flirtatious – to the extent of deliberately “trapping” men into marriage. And, of course, the smartest woman in all Xanth – Chameleon in her “ugly” phase – is so ugly that people can barely stand to look at her.
Even as a pre-adolescent, I was pretty sure that I’d never have the kind of body and attitude as the women in Anthony’s Xanth. (Twenty-something years later, that premonition has proved true.) Anthony created an imaginative world in which I would have liked to live – except for the fact that there was no room for a female like me in that world. I saw myself as Chameleon, without the chance of a “beautiful” phase (and I certainly did NOT want the associated stupidity!).
I’d like to think that the Xanth novels are satire, but to me they don’t read that way. I recently download a whole bunch of them to re-read; decades later, they are still readable (I sometimes turn to them when I’m home sick or in the mood for very “light reading”). However, the gender politics have not improved with time. Okay – maybe the first books were satirizing SF novels like the “Gor” series by John Norman. Yet the depictions of women don’t read as “tongue in cheek.” The closest we have in the early books to a liberatory female figure is the Sorceress Iris. Yet she tries to trap Bink into marriage so she can rule Xanth through him. She basically prostitutes herself to Trent for power. And one of the main uses of her illusion talent is to change her physical appearance. When she drops the illusion in front of Bink, she is described as “sloppy,” “middle-aged,” and “dumpy” – plus, she has committed the lethal sin of “letting” herself turn forty! (This is a reference to a later book.)
In “Night Mare,” Iris finally gets her dearest wish and becomes King of Xanth – but only after all the other male candidates are out of commission AND only after the Elders of Xanth and Arnolde Centaur (all men), decree that women can rule. Later in the book she confesses that, like all women, she doesn’t really want power; she just wants to “love and be loved.” (This may not be an exact quote because I am working from memory.) Later, her granddaughter Ivy is in line for the throne, but after falling in love with Magician Grey Ivy gives up the right in favour of her younger brother Dolph.
It’s not that I want to bash the books – I don’t – but they are problematic, especially for female readers. I know Anthony keeps insisting his Xanth books are for adults, not children, but a LOT of young people read them. He has frequently employed young male protagonists (like Dor in “Castle Roogna” and Dolph in “Heaven Cent”). One character, Jenny Elf, was directly modelled on a pre-teenage girl who was a fan of the Xanth books and who suffered an almost-fatal car accident. When I read the Xanth books, I felt as if I would never “measure up” to the ideal of womanhood Anthony described. That’s not a good feeling.
In regards to Anthony’s portrayal of men – it’s not the best either. The idea that men are uncontrollably subject to their sexual impulses is not exactly flattering. (Think of the way that, in some of the later books, men can be “freaked out” and paralyzed by the sight of women’s panties.) This sexist depiction of men carries over into a lot of his other work – for example, “And Eternity” in the Incarnations series.
As regards “Firefly” – UGH. I have NO idea what Anthony was trying to do there, except perhaps be as shocking as possible (as in “Pornucopia”). IIRC (and I’ve only read it once and have no intention of doing so again), in the foreword or afterword to “Firefly” he said something about the constructed nature of the age of consent and how sex with children can be consensual. UGH. Yes, there is a graphically-described sexual encounter between a pre-pubescent child and an adult male, and the girl says that she liked the molestation and would initiate it. Again, UGH. Also IIRC, one of the “stories” in the novel (there are a series of linked sexual stories within a larger framing narrative) was actually written by or at least inspired by a man in jail for child molestation, whom Anthony had befriended and whose crime he defended.
Sorry for the text wall – I obviously have THOUGHTS about this!
PS: I meant to put this in my last post, but one of the reasons hat Anthony’s work doesn’t parse as satire for me is that his depictions of women haven’t changed a whole lot since “A Spell for Chameleon.” While, as I said, I’m not so interested in the new Xanth pun-filled books, I *have* read some of them (such as “Five Portraits”). He is still basically working off the same stereotype regarding women.
SF is no longer what it was in the late 1970s and the 1980s. There are certainly MANY things to satirize about the SF genre, they are but not necessarily the same things as when Anthony wrote his first books. This suggests to me that either the books aren’t really satire, or that he has fallen into a “writing formula” that may sell books but doesn’t necessarily advance Xanthian world-building and/or engage with current ideologies. Either way, I’m not thrilled.
@46: Yes to everything!
thank you Jaimew for all of that!!
First off I just want to clarify that I don’t at all disagree with people citing that there are problematic elements to the Xanth novels, and in Anthony’s depictions of his characters. I only leveled the accusation of trolling because before my comment this thread was completely discounting the author and the literatures’ potential due to some of the persistent pitfalls.
As you correctly identified I am male, and a gay one at that, so regarding full identification from me for characters in these books, well I have never really found a queer voice in Anthony’s work, which is overwhelmingly hetero focused but I don’t hold that against the work.
I read Xanth through high school and college, and still pick him up on occasion. Outside of the Xanth series I’ve read the incarnations of immortality, proton &phase, geodyssy, tarot, chthon, and some others. I’ve yet to get around to reading Pornicopia and I never read Firefly, but it reminds me by description of the plays Blackbird, or Doubt, which are both brilliant but difficult pieces of drama.
I’ll try not to justify his body type tropes especially regarding women, but for me it helped make me aware at a young age of how our culture uses sex and youth to sell literally everything. Also Chameleon’s curse really made me very aware of how our culture persecutes women in the biggest catch 22 of all time. His work also reads pairs and plays really well when you’re also reading Shakespeare and things like the Canterbury Tales.
For Xanth my introduction was through Vale of the Vole. Chex was and still is one of my favorite Xanth characters though I ended up liking her mother even better. I think the last book I picked up was about Brianna and Justin Tree, it may have also had Queen Iris youthened and brought out of Brain Coral Storage…they might have been different stories though as Xanth can kind of runs on in a tedious absurdity (which to me is part of the charm of the place, I mean…everyone who actually lives there has to be so over it, considering how difficult it is for readers.)
i will point out that Iris the sourceress of illusion was actually, at least in the first book, in reality much different from the idealized female form she presented, and while she was introduced as a mildly villainous self serving person, her stance was made understandable when the context of how unfairly she was treated by a pseudo-midevil fairytale society that was bent on thwarting her ambition despite her potential.
However I felt that from Vale of the Vole on, Xanth got a bit more self aware, and while it might not stand as a complete or astute piece of pure satire, it satirizes its own predilections continually through settings like the Dreamworld and the Curse Fiends theatrics.
now regarding the construct of age and child sexuality and whether these books are for ‘children’ or not, which like the original Looney Tunes they aren’t but I do think they are perfectly suitable for adolescents and if you’re reading Romeo & Juliet who were 13 & 18 during their famous romance, or Edgar Allen Poe who’s wife was 13, then you are of an age where you can cope with the sexuality present in these books. Even throughout the western world the age of consent varies by country so while it may be uncomfortable for people, facts are actual things and when you cast your eye to history, as Anthony does consistently in his writing, especially about a quasi midevil, fairytale setting floating in time and geographical location that exists at the offhandedly behest of an infernal cosmic demon playing cards….I feel like it’s okay to allow that world to operate under different cultural norms. Meanwhile in our world we try to ignore adolescent sexuality while at the same time sensationalizing it with reality tv depictions of teen moms who didn’t know they were pregnant, and advertising jeans with topless adult women wearing pigtails and legs tangled in playground swing sets while lays sprawled akimbo with a seductive expression (literally a billboard I just drove by in LA as I’m typing this)
on this globe child marriage, and human trafficking are are still things that happen, even here in the American corner of Mundania and people get bent out of shape or disgusted by sometimes clever and sometimes clumsy characterizations of sexual attitudes as if they are at the heart of perpetuating these things, when really ignoring issues and pretending that young people aren’t interested or confused and therefore interested in sexuality as a subject or that reading about it is unhealthy or wrong seems…odd to me as well as counter productive.
To my way of thinking characters in literature aren’t required to be role models in order to teach a lesson, as often the best lessons come through mistakes. Which is why Xanth makes sense to me as almost a fantasy sitcom.
You know Hollywood is getting desperate when they start stripmining remaining fantasy series. Xanth is a 1970s/1980s thing and does not perform well in modern context. Plus, you either include the puns and alienate half the audience, or exclude them and ruin the whole point of it. John deChancie’s Castle Perilous series, or Robert Aspirin’s Myth Adventures series would work better, but it would still smack of desperation.
@brandon: I completely agree that the U.S., at least (I’m from the U.S. so that is the culture I know best), is a very sexualized culture and often that often includes the sexualization of children. (Has anyone ever seen the young Brooke Shields in the 1980 film “The Blue Lagoon?” I AM SQUICKED OUT.)
It is great when a book draws a readers’ attention to a larger problem. However, I remain unconvinced that Anthony was writing Xanth (and other books) to deconstruct sexism and female objectification. I remember that in one of his Notes (I forget to which Xanth book), he comments that he enjoys watching television with his family and his daughters have “learned” to call his attention to the TV when there is a young, attractive, not-fully-clothed woman on the screen. Again, SQUICK. This is objectifying women.
I agree with you about the “sit-com” nature of the books, and certainly not all literature has to be a “morality play.” (That would be. SO. Boring!) ;) But it seems like Anthony IS trying to address “serious” issues. You mentioned “The Vale of the Vole;” IIRC, the transformation of the Kiss-Me river and the whining sound the goblins couldn’t stand was a direct reference to the decimation of the mosquito population around the Kissimmee River in Florida due to urban development. Anthony brings up ecological issues in his Xanth books and notes frequently. I personally think it was very nice that he created Jenny Elf to help a fan who almost died, but in his notes he spends a *lot* of time talking about his friendship with her and how he has “helped” her recovery. (There is apparently a lot of controversy about his publishing their correspondence as “Letters to Jenny.”) In his note to “Virtual Mode,” the first of the “Mode” series, he says that he created the main character Colene in response letters and phone calls he had received from suicidal teenage girls who read his work. (He also talks about some informal “therapy” he did with one of them which, as someone whose mother is a clinical psychologist, I find kind of troubling.) As I noted, he has talked about how “Firefly” addresses what he apparently sees as restrictive age of consent laws. IMHO, any author who is consciously choosing to engage with “big” issues and who knows that their works have a profound effect on their fans should be a little more mindful of the representations they present in that work – especially when they KNOW young people read their work!
Take Stephen King as an example. King is NOT the best with non-white, non-heterosexual, non-male characters. He has fallen into the “magical Negro” stereotype a LOT (Mother Abigail, John Coffee). He doesn’t do the best job of portraying women (Fran, Jessie Burlingame, Rose). He has a serious dearth of Queer characters in his work. He is also guilty of ableism – he also falls into the “magical disabled person” stereotype. But King is *aware* of that and has said (in “On Writing” and other places) that he is working to address it. His work has gotten better in these regards; he’s grown as a writer. For example, I quite liked “Lisey’s Story” (reportedly inspired by and based on his wife). By the end of the Dark Tower epic, wheelchair-user Susannah exercises more agency than the other characters in the narrative. In King’s most recent short story collexion, he has a story in which one of the main characters is a gay man who, in the narrative, talks about how the AIDS epidemic affected the gay community. (And in his note on this story, he talks about whether or not he had the “right” to write it.) This is an author, who knows their books are read by many and influential to many, being mindful about representation. I don’t see that mindfulness in Anthony.
[Edited to add note: This is NOT to say that King’s writing doesn’t still sometimes come off as racist, sexist, homophobic, and ableist. But I give him credit for *knowing* this and trying to improve.]
Final note: I didn’t mention the lack of Queer representation in Xanth but yeah, that’s another big problem. As I said, I am not really up on the most recent books; I THINK there may have been a minor character in one of the recent books who wasn’t fully heterosexual, but I could *definitely* be wrong on that. Heternormativity is the order of the day in Xanth. That is yet another reason I find the books so troublin. I am a Queer woman and, while I didn’t really come to grips with my bi/pansexuality until my early 20s, by the time I was reading the Xanth books I had a sense that I kind of “liked girls” as well as boys. That made the Xanth books especially problematic for me: “So…this is the kind of woman I’m supposed to BE? As well as the kind of woman I’m supposed to WANT? I AM CONFUZZED!” :P
I’m also a bisexual-biromantic woman, so I can relate to those feelings and noticing the absence of representation in Xanth.
A comment on an online article about pedophilia in Piers Anthony’s books claimed he had said non-heterosexuality didn’t exist in Xanth because rhe books were “family-friendly” (but apparently bestiality and ephebophilia are just fine). Two scenes in Zombie Lover are the only instances of same-sex ‘attraction’ in the series up until then (it was the last Xanth book I read) and they were treated as aberrations. In one, Jenny and Breanna test whether the newly discovered “lip bomb” — which causes temporary uncontrollable infatuation in anyone the wearer kisses — works between two girls. It very briefly does; they’re shaken by the experience and one tells the other “Please never do that again.” Fair enough, they’re nominally straight and right to be freaked out by such a date-rape drug, though they have no objection to its use between different-sex people. Later, a miasma of mixed “love spring” and “hate spring” mists drifts onto the Isle of Women, making the crowd of women waiting for good men to find them there start fighting or getting amorous with each other. The mist is driven away somehow, and they stop “doing anything obscene.” Sex may sometimes be treated as naughty or dirty in Xanth, something to hide from children and other outsiders, but I inferred an implication that this kind of sex shouldn’t be done at all.
That’s how I remember it, anyway. It was many years ago.
Not many young folk have read these now, so any re-write is possible. One solution to the misogyny problem is make Bink a woman and Trent a Sorceress, now some of the themes become inside jokes, young teen girls champion their heroin etc…. Just sayin…
@Aerona Greenjoy:
Biological essentialism makes me STABBY. *rage face* I remember that episode with Jordan and Threnody now; the upshoot of it seemed to be that Jordan essentially deserved a medal and a cookie for NOT raping the beautiful Threnody when he had a chance.
I’ve been home sick in bed this weekend and been reading through the literary deconstructions on Ana Mardoll’s blog, mentioned in a comment above (http://www.anamardoll.com/) Her writings and the comments got me thinking, once again, how I believe biological essentialism is pehaps THE ultimate source of sexism, kyriarchy, and rape culture.
As I understand it (and as Anthony seems to write about it), biological essentialism not only reifies a gender and sexual duality, but also claims that your physical body = your essential identity and controls how you behave. Therefore, any attractive woman can’t help but seduce men and be in constant danger of being raped because BOOBS! And LADYPARTS! And, without a superhuman effort, no man can resist being sexually attracted to and potentially forcing himself on a woman because TESTOSTERONE! And PENIS!
(Ana Mardoll unpacks this a LOT better in her blog than I can in one comment. Of course there are also terrible implications for LGBT*Q people, Intersex people, Asexual/Ace people, differently-abled people, and SO many more.)
So we’re back to that same old chestnut that any attractive women is “asking” to be raped because no man can possibly control himself around her. *SIGH* It would be nice if we could talk about this as an historical attitude that isn’t around anymore, but it IS – both within Anthony’s work, SF as a whole, and society at large. :(
I teach SF at the college level and one thing I always bring up with my classes is why SF, an INFINITELY creative genre, seems to so often fall back into conservative and retrogressive stereotypes. (Please note I REALLY don’t want to get into a back-and-forth of “Not all SF! Here is an example that proves you wrong!” I’m aware there are tons of examples of liberatory SF, but I can quite literally come up with counterexamples until the buggalo come home.)
Some ideas my students and I have come up with:
– SF can serve as wish-fulfillment for the writer as well as the reader. Writers like John Norman and Piers Anthony create worlds where they wish they could live.
– World-building in SF “normalizes” and “foregrounds” existing bigotry and prejudices. If the land of Xanth is full of sexism, sexism can’t really be so bad, because Xanth is a magical wonderland!
– SF may be a better barometer of social attitudes than “canonical” literature. There is of course a LOT of incredible, “literary,” complex, liberatory SF out there that is reviewed in journals, written about, and taught in the classroom (China Mieville, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, etc.). However, the average reader isn’t going to pick up the latest Mieville. They are going to go for a quick, “escapist” read – someone like Anthony. So the continued perponderance of all these harmful -isms in SF may represent their continue perponderance in our society as a whole.
It seems like Anthony’s heyday (and perhaps his “most objectionable” work – although I wouldn’t bet any money on this) was decades ago. Again, it would be nice to say that his works represented that time and SF is “all better now.” Yet the fact that Hollywood is now mining his works for production suggest that at least SOME people find his conservative narratives still compelling.
Sorry for the continued walls o’text; like I said, I’m sick in bed this weekend AND my partner is gone to visit his family, who celebrate the Easter holiday. Ergo, ALL THE INTERNET FOR ME! ;)
Yeah, Jordan was the one who got called a saint for refraining from rape. Similar if less extreme sentiments were voiced in at least three other books.
When Dor returned to his body after his Castle Roogna adventure, Grundy said the Brain Coral had used the body to kiss Irene because it was “asexual or bisexual or whatever” and curious about the experience. Those are totally different things, barnaclehead!
I stopped reading Xanth long before discovering Ana Mardoll’s deconstructions (via another Tor commenter), but mostly because I had come to categorically dislike romance-centric stories. She helped me understand just how twisted its morality is.
I’m honestly torn about this. The Xanth series was one of the first ‘adult’ fantasy books that I read, a big book pulled from my parents’ shelves containing the first three books in the series. I eventually stopped reading around, wow… 20ish books ago (that’s scary to think about!) as I started to crave more… complicated… and less… punny… books. Looking back on it now, I see all the criticisms that others have leveled at the series, and I agree with them, but sprinkled in between a *lot* of problematic ideas, books and even multi-book arcs, there are still some books, like Dragon on a Pedestal, which I remember very fondly and reread every couple of years.
So yeah, I think it’d take work… less of a direct books-to-show and more of a world-to-show approach… but I’d be curious to see what came out of it in the end.
@Topheh:
I remember the Xanth series fondly as well. I read “A Spell for Chameleon” because my father, who was a huge SF fan, had a copy. (I actually accidentally destroyed it because I was reading it at the picnic table in our backyard, and left it there, and it rained that night, and…yeah.) :(
I don’t think my mom was thrilled about the gender/sexual politics of the Xanth books but she basically had a policy that nothing was ever forbidden for me to read. I remember exactly two times when she recommended I not read something: one was Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” because she thought the level of non-sense and random body changing would upset me. (She was right; it did.) The other time was a “Gor” novel I bought at a yard sale because she said it was sexist propaganda, which it was. (To be fair, I have been an insatiable reader since about the age of 5, so it would have been quite a chore to STOP me from reading something I wanted to read!)
The Xanth books certainly piqued my interest to read more SF. However, I think they did present me with a very problematic worldview to which, at the time, I had nothing to compare it. They also reinforced a bunch of very oppressive ideas about women and sexuality that I’d, sadly, already encountered elsewhere and started to internaliz. That doesn’t mean that I don’t re-visit these books fondly, but rather that I now see their flaws.
A woman in Anthony’s non-Xanth novel Omnivore said “The desire of a man is for a woman; the desire of a woman is for the desire of a man.” I think that sums up Xanth’s gender philosophy pretty well.
Like plenty of people here, I read the first books of the the Xanth series in my youth. I definitely noticed the sexism, and lost interest 9 or 10 books in. They are still on one of my book shelves, for nostalgia (just like JohnCarter of Mars, with its flaws).
Could they be improved? Absolutely. So here are my takes. First, I completely agree that every cringe-worthy bit of sexism everyone has already pointed out is quite bad. But if we’re going to adapt it/update it, first we have to find the worthwhile portions. So, totally IMO, here are the things that I found interesting/ redeeming about the first book:
1) The whole character arc of “evil” Magician Trent. Here is some one who is the perfect fit for the throne, except that he DQ’s himself by going about seeking power in all the wrong ways. I found it quite satisfying that he finally gained the throne when he realized that there were lines that he wasn’t willing to cross.
2) The nature of Bink’s talent, the exquisite subtlety in how it operated, and how Trent figured it out.
3) The underlying theme that closed societies stagnate.
4) I find the Good Magician Humphrey’s prove-you-really-want-to-talk-to-me setup both amusing and practical. Dude is a savvy business-gnome.
5) I like the portrayal of the centuars, their scholarly bent, and how they have cultural prejudices that are the reciprocal of the human society-having a magic talent gets you kicked out. The subplot of Herman the Hermit was good.
6) As a biologist, I’m amused at the concept of creating all new species with a love potion spring. Mother Nature in Mundania often perpetuates species at the expenses of unwilling females, so at least in Xanth Magic Nature is conscripting all sexes.
7) Bink actually does have a core of decency and honor.
How to fix the bad parts in the next post.
I’m excited to finally see Anthony’s Xanth work on the big or little screen after decades of being a fan. His early work may have some flaws but I believe they are being exaggerated here. If you ever read his personal comments at the back of each book or his autobiographies, you would know that Anthony himself is far from being sexist. People seem to misunderstand his work as often as they understand it.
But I believe a far better work by him is his Incarnations of Immortality series, which is more adult in theme and limited enough to build a multi-movie franchise around. In a way this story arc would be compelling to Harry Potter fans but I find it far more complex and compelling than the Potter series.
I really hope this is still happening! Can’t find any recent news, but I guess no news is good news? :D (and yeah, I realise I’m posting to a year old topic, but oh well, I was excited). Love Piers Anthony, love Xanth. Looking forward to seeing how they’ll adapt the story; hope they do a decent job. :)
I’ve been stoked about this for years! Looking forward to this!
@12, Iris is the very definition of unreliable narrator. She is judging all women by herself and she’s the way she is because Xanthian sexism won’t let her fulfill her ambitions.
Humfrey is talking about Iris specifically not generalizing about all women and he is in fact right about her. To be fair however she not only wants a strong man she can respect but one who will respect her, a fact even she is slow to realize.
Bink’s opinion is not without merit but he’s generalizing too much.
I absolutely love this book series. Believe it or not but I have always hated reading, however I have read this entire series to date at least 4 times. I am obsessed! I am almost 40 and still laugh so hard when I read these books. I so want badly a tv series made for these books. It would be great if the tv series was based off each story in each book in chronological order as to keep the history of Xanth in check with those watching who are not familiar with the books/characters/storylines. I have submitted emails to Piers Anthony and received replies and autographs from him directly. I would love to meet him someday and tell him how much I admire his imagination! I love all the characters; crossbreeds; etc he has come up with and how he incorporates some greek mythology into his books, I love greek mythology.
Why pull apart what’s just fun reading? I’ve seen worse in movies, TV, news, and life. Should be entertaining! Nothing else. Looking forward to seeing how it’s put together.