PET PEEVE

Anthony returns for the 29th time to the perennial pot of gold known as the Xanth series.

Xanth is the fantasy land shaped like Florida where its magical inhabitants—from monstrously stupid ogres to wee elves, rampaging barbarians and rude goblins—seem inordinately fond of light adventure and puns. In this installment, we follow what happens when the strangely nice Goody Goblin (“I am cursed to be polite. It is most inconvenient”) hooks up with the curvaceous Hannah Barbarian on a quest. Their job is to find a “suitable home” for an antagonistic and foul-mouthed bird (the “Pet Peeve” of the title) that insults anyone or anything in its vicinity in the voice of the person carrying it; quite a problem in a place where one tends to run into ill-tempered dragons. Along the way, we are introduced to a veritable menagerie of magical characters and exposed to some very bad puns. This is the kind of book where, when a character’s name is Rek King, you can be quite sure that someone will be attending the Rek King Ball later that evening.

A patently silly tale: all in all, fun, humorous light fantasy.