SWELL FOOP

Twenty-fifth gravitational sinkhole in Anthony’s heroically unbalanced Xanth series, with Swell Foop just as dreadfully glum as Roc and a Hard Place, Harpy Thyme, and the stoic Faun and Games (1997), graveyard items all, girding us with Hamlet’s “I do not set my life at a pun’s fee.” Unjustly accused of being an Ogre, Anthony kindly notes the ups and downs of self- publishing on the Internet for the 99 out of 100 writers who otherwise won’t see print. As for Foop’s cosmically demonic plot, the very flabber of the words leaves us poggled as pigs aghast on the roofs of barns.