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Xanth #16
Demons Don't Dream
“Series fans will find themselves right at home” as a computer game draws two players into the illusion-, pun-, and dragon-filled land of Xanth (Kirkus Reviews).
Sixteen-year-old Dug has yet to be impressed by a computer game, but that’s before he gets hooked by Companions of Xanth—and the beguilingly beautiful princess-serpent he’s chosen to guide him. Nada Naga has her work cut out for her keeping Dug’s eyes on the magical prize . . . and off of her human form.
Kim is no stranger to Xanth, which is why she chooses her favorite companion, Jenny Elf, to accompany her through its marvels—and dangers. Though Kim’s hyper-enthusiasm is infectious, she doesn’t really believe that Xanth is real, and it’s up to Jenny to prove it.
What the two players don’t know is that there’s more at stake than winning; the very existence of Xanth hangs in the balance. Demons may run the game, but there are voids to avoid, loan sharks to outswim, and Com Pewter—the most evil machine of all—to outwit. Not to mention that a companion may be just as willing to sabotage Dug and Kim as help them succeed . . .
“The legions of Xanth readers can rest assured that [Demons Don’t Dream] contains plenty of the punningly named animals, vegetables, people and things (such as the Ice Queen Clone and the Censor-Ship) that have become the series’ raison d’etre.” —Publishers Weekly
Sixteen-year-old Dug has yet to be impressed by a computer game, but that’s before he gets hooked by Companions of Xanth—and the beguilingly beautiful princess-serpent he’s chosen to guide him. Nada Naga has her work cut out for her keeping Dug’s eyes on the magical prize . . . and off of her human form.
Kim is no stranger to Xanth, which is why she chooses her favorite companion, Jenny Elf, to accompany her through its marvels—and dangers. Though Kim’s hyper-enthusiasm is infectious, she doesn’t really believe that Xanth is real, and it’s up to Jenny to prove it.
What the two players don’t know is that there’s more at stake than winning; the very existence of Xanth hangs in the balance. Demons may run the game, but there are voids to avoid, loan sharks to outswim, and Com Pewter—the most evil machine of all—to outwit. Not to mention that a companion may be just as willing to sabotage Dug and Kim as help them succeed . . .
“The legions of Xanth readers can rest assured that [Demons Don’t Dream] contains plenty of the punningly named animals, vegetables, people and things (such as the Ice Queen Clone and the Censor-Ship) that have become the series’ raison d’etre.” —Publishers Weekly
292 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 1993
100 people are currently reading
2498 people want to read
About the author
Piers Anthony
441 books4,215 followersThough he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.
Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.
Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
March 6, 2012
My first Piers Anthony novel. I read this in the eighth grade when my mother got it for me while I waited for a new animorphs book to come out. I remember she told me it was about a videogame and kids that get pulled into it.
So, I gave it a shot and, as it turns out, really really liked it. The puns that I eventually learned are an everyday aspect of Piers Anthony's writing were hilarious, and I even paused to decipher the riddles when Dug did.
The story was also wrapped up nicely in the end, and I found myself wanting to read more, so I went back and started with book 1 going forward.
A great read all in all, and I can really thank the author for writing it, in addition to my mother picking it out during a lull.
So, I gave it a shot and, as it turns out, really really liked it. The puns that I eventually learned are an everyday aspect of Piers Anthony's writing were hilarious, and I even paused to decipher the riddles when Dug did.
The story was also wrapped up nicely in the end, and I found myself wanting to read more, so I went back and started with book 1 going forward.
A great read all in all, and I can really thank the author for writing it, in addition to my mother picking it out during a lull.
September 24, 2019
Talk about a squandered piece of potential. This book has a really fun premise of people from our world interacting with characters from Xanth through an enchanted computer game in order to unwittingly win a game orchestrated by demons (and the computer screen is even an object in the Xanth world that can be interacted with by monsters and the like), but since it's a Xanth novel, you have to suffer through every female character having to talk about their boobs and their butts every five sentences while the men are scratching their balls and going "hurr durr want women".
We have two main characters playing the computer game. One of the characters is Kim, a character who actually knows about Xanth and actually runs into some problems because her knowledge of the previous books hinders the magic's ability to make her believe what's happening is real. When she runs into an obstacle, she reacts to it like "oh hey, I know what these things are!" and it's a really fun idea for a character being from planet Earth and actually knowing about some of the rules of Xanth, reacting like a video game player who has read the strategy guide prior to playing.
This would be a cool thing in on itself, but then a couple chapters later, the story has to be like "by the way, Kim is UGLY and she HATES BEING UGLY and she's a bit of a loud-mouth BECAUSE SHE'S UGLY AND IT'S A DEFENSE MECHANISM FROM UGLINESS" and then you realize, oh of course, she's a female character and Piers Anthony has to make sure that you know how attractive all of his female characters are, including the schoolchildren.
The other main character is Dug, aged 16, who has two personality modes. Usually, he's set to "unga bunga girls" mode, where every action he takes involves taking a peek down Nada Naga's shirt or trying to sneak a peek at her while she's changing. (But don't worry! After he sneaks a peek on her changing, he apologies and she accepts his apology and hugs him, squeezing her ample womanly body and her shapely shapes against him! Yay?) His other personality mode is opening his mouth and the author himself talks through him, usually when he has to show how amazingly clever he is.
Forty pages into this book, the story suddenly has to stop dead so that Piers Anthony, speaking through Dug, has to go on a weird anti-censorship diatribe about how censorship seems innocent at first but soon it stifles all creativity. Considering this book was published two years after Firefly, a book where Piers Anthony writes about a five year old begging for sex from an adult, I can see why he would be salty enough about the concept of someone censoring his work that he'd write a subplot in a book about his characters conquering censorship.
And then, after Dug and Nada Naga stop the dreaded censorship, they run into a male fairy, and we get this weird section where the fairy - named Fairy Nuff - is mad that people keep assuming that he's gay.
But they don't learn about this before the main characters - our heroes - mistake his gender and see him as a woman at first and then proceed to start calling him a freak because he happens to look more feminine than other men.
O...okay?
To be frank, this was terrible, and I would not recommend it. If you truly want to read a Xanth novel (in my repeated rereadings of this series I don't see why you would, but hey) I'd start with one of the earlier ones because this one is rather deep into the troubled times when this series started to slide into "we're just publishing these because Piers Anthony's name is on the cover" territory.
We have two main characters playing the computer game. One of the characters is Kim, a character who actually knows about Xanth and actually runs into some problems because her knowledge of the previous books hinders the magic's ability to make her believe what's happening is real. When she runs into an obstacle, she reacts to it like "oh hey, I know what these things are!" and it's a really fun idea for a character being from planet Earth and actually knowing about some of the rules of Xanth, reacting like a video game player who has read the strategy guide prior to playing.
This would be a cool thing in on itself, but then a couple chapters later, the story has to be like "by the way, Kim is UGLY and she HATES BEING UGLY and she's a bit of a loud-mouth BECAUSE SHE'S UGLY AND IT'S A DEFENSE MECHANISM FROM UGLINESS" and then you realize, oh of course, she's a female character and Piers Anthony has to make sure that you know how attractive all of his female characters are, including the schoolchildren.
The other main character is Dug, aged 16, who has two personality modes. Usually, he's set to "unga bunga girls" mode, where every action he takes involves taking a peek down Nada Naga's shirt or trying to sneak a peek at her while she's changing. (But don't worry! After he sneaks a peek on her changing, he apologies and she accepts his apology and hugs him, squeezing her ample womanly body and her shapely shapes against him! Yay?) His other personality mode is opening his mouth and the author himself talks through him, usually when he has to show how amazingly clever he is.
Forty pages into this book, the story suddenly has to stop dead so that Piers Anthony, speaking through Dug, has to go on a weird anti-censorship diatribe about how censorship seems innocent at first but soon it stifles all creativity. Considering this book was published two years after Firefly, a book where Piers Anthony writes about a five year old begging for sex from an adult, I can see why he would be salty enough about the concept of someone censoring his work that he'd write a subplot in a book about his characters conquering censorship.
And then, after Dug and Nada Naga stop the dreaded censorship, they run into a male fairy, and we get this weird section where the fairy - named Fairy Nuff - is mad that people keep assuming that he's gay.
"Exactly what kind of misrepresentation are you the object of?"
"Folk insist on calling me gay, when as you can plainly see, I am nothing of the kind. I want recognition as the sour individual I am."
"Let me see if I have this straight. You are a fairy, therefore folk call you gay?"
"Exactly. I have no idea why they think all fairies are gay."
But they don't learn about this before the main characters - our heroes - mistake his gender and see him as a woman at first and then proceed to start calling him a freak because he happens to look more feminine than other men.
As they approached, Nada discovered that the Fairy was not female, but male. He was so delicate that he seemed feminine from a distance. His booth was set out with decanters of all shapes and sizes, containing fluids of many colors.
"Are you the Fairy Nuff?" Nada inquired hesitantly.
"What's it to you, snaketail?" he snapped. "Can't you read it on the ledger?" He pointed to the words FAIRY NUFF.
"Listen, you winged freak, don't talk to her like that!" Dug said.
"Why not, Screenbrain?" the Fairy demanded.
"Because she's a lovely and good person, and she's trying to do her job, that's why, you androgynous creep."
Nada couldn't help it; she was getting to like aspects of Dug Mundane. She kept her mouth shut.
O...okay?
To be frank, this was terrible, and I would not recommend it. If you truly want to read a Xanth novel (in my repeated rereadings of this series I don't see why you would, but hey) I'd start with one of the earlier ones because this one is rather deep into the troubled times when this series started to slide into "we're just publishing these because Piers Anthony's name is on the cover" territory.
August 14, 2016
Demons Don't Dream was a pretty good installment in the Xanth series; not quite up to the par of the original 6 or 7 books but better than some of the duller ones that have popped up during this 100 Books thing; this one at least didn't feel like a recap, but it did again feature people from Mundania, which is alway sort of hard to get into.
There's a definite genre out there of regular folks like you and me fall into a fantasy story. It's called "Portal Fantasy" and is apparently something fantasy writers are supposed to avoid. (Nearly a year ago, Charlie Jane Anders posted on IO9 a list of 10 "rules" they wish SF/F writers would break more often, and the rule "No Portal Fantasy" is one of them.) "Portal" fantasies include Narnia, The Magicians series, the So You Want To Be A Magician, and in part the His Dark Materials trilogy, which was where I first realized that portalling into our world can be a drudge.
In His Dark Materials the first book focuses on Lyra in her world as she travels from Cambridge to the North Pole (-ish) to find out why children are being stolen by a group called the "Gobblers," and it's a phenomenal book. The second one, The Subtle Knife opens in our world with a kid who ends up traveling into a different world, and that alone was almost enough to make me stop reading; only the strength of the first book kept me going long enough to enjoy the second book once I got past that. And it helped that the story picked up pretty quickly.
I think the problem is that often, in setting up how 'real' the world is, writers get bogged down in describing regular stuff, trying to I don't know I guess explain to readers just how awful/boring/drudgeish our world is? We get that, though. We live in our world and even if our world is a lot of fun and has exciting times like mine does from time to time, it still involves dishes and cleaning out garbage cans (one of my chores today, and I can't tell you how much I resent having to clean a garbage can. I need to make a container clean enough to hold the things I throw away. *sigh*.) So spending dozens of pages on how terrible the world is only drags things down.
Anthony doesn't do much of that here, although there's a lot of "I don't want to go back to Mundania!" stuff. Then again, there's a bit of a twist at the end in that regard, so I shouldn't fault him too much because where I thought he was going with this was not where he was actually going with this.
The basic storyline is: Dug and Kim are Mundanes who get to play a computer game that literally has the power to put them in Xanth. They're playing to settle a bet between two Demons, these being the cosmic sort of demons that exist in the far background of Xanth -- some worldbuilding from (primarily) The Source Of Magic that I don't think Anthony gets enough credit for, as I've said before. The demons, Earth and Xanth (denoted with more mathematical writing) have made a bet in their own cosmic game, and it must be played out by Dug and Kim; if Earth's avatar wins, Xanth has to leave the planet and there will be no magic in Xanth.
It's a great concept that is almost entirely wasted here, in that it sets up the story (a story that's actually been building over several books, in the background) and then is ignored until literally the last chapter, where it crops up again -- at which point I'd almost completely forgotten the premise of the story. The reader has no idea who is the player for which demon, so there's no real suspense there as players get distracted from or focus on the game, and the Xanth world beyond has no idea what's going on: they're aware of the game but don't seem to know that it is so important, or if they do they do a really good job of hiding it.
I think it could have been a more epic story, with all of Xanth trying to figure out who was playing for which demon and trying to help or hinder them; but maybe that's not the story Anthony wanted to write. As it is, the lack of connection to the overall purpose doesn't hurt the story, which is pretty solid and got exciting at the end. It's not the greatest Xanth story but it's not the worst, either.
In the author's note, uncharacteristically short this time, Anthony says that he wrote this story because he can't write computer code but wanted a Xanth computer game. (I can attest how hard coding is; I've twice tried to learn how to write code, because I have some ideas for computer games, but after weeks of trying I found it frustrating enough to not continue. I expect if I went back to school for it I might learn, but since I just wanted to do it as a hobby, going to school for it doesn't make much sense.)(Anyway, someday I'll just hire a programmer to make the game.)
I tried to remember if I'd ever heard of a Xanth computer game, and then began to wonder, again, why Xanth hasn't made a bigger hit in pop culture. Lev Grossman's The Magicians has a TV show (and it's really good!), they're making another Narnia movie soon, Ghostbusters got remade, Star Wars has a jillion things going on, every comic book character ever is getting his or her own series and movie, Game Of Thrones somehow still holds people's interests. Why not Xanth?
The book actually got made into a game, in 1993, called "Companions Of Xanth." You can find videos of a guy playing it on Youtube. For 1993 it looks okay: a text-based adventure with still pictures. But that appears to be the only Xanth product ever produced. There's no t-shirts, stuffed animals, cartoons, nothing. There's a Xanth boardgame that you can't buy new anymore and is out of stock on Amazon. And two graphic novels adapting the Isle Of View storyline.
Just like I wondered why Soon I Will Be Invincible hasn't been made into something -- at least an ongoing comic series -- now I'm wondering it about Xanth.
The problem is not an easy one. It's the difference between what makes a cool kid in high school and what makes a nerd or loser or however your school described the people who were not cool. (This isn't about whether that's right or wrong and largely I take the stance that people who had a great time in high school probably peaked there as the skills required to maximize high school fun are skills that do not translate easily to the adult world). A review in Salon in 2000 described reading Piers Anthony as fun but 'not cool.' That same writer said she "like everyone" read Harry Potter, but asserted that critics look down on series authors and poorly review or don't review such books. That will come as a surprise to JK Rowling, George R R Martin, and the guy who wrote His Dark Materials as well as the Narnia books. She also said that Anthony's skill in consistently delivering a book in his brand made critics dislike him. Tell that to John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, JRR Tolkien, etc etc.
It's not just that the Xanth books aren't all that serious on the surface. Invincible was a "serious" superhero book, ripe for pop-culture taking. And Armada wasn't "serious" at all but is already being made into a movie.
It's possible Anthony just didn't want to develop Xanth into a larger phenomenon. Bill Watterston wouldn't let Calvin & Hobbes be merchandised, and Doonesbury didn't get into merchandising until 1991. (Even then, Gary Trudeau held out and tried for street cred: he donated all profits from that early merchandise to charity. It's hard to say if he licenses anything now; I couldn't find anything on Amazon, though.) But Anthony seems to have wanted wider distribution.
In 2004, they announced a Xanth movie would be made. They had a director and everything, and that seems to be as far as it went. In 2013 the blog Signature ruminated on why Hollywood didn't discover Xanth yet, although apparently Hollywood had, and decided that Xanth wasn't cool enough to sit at its table. That same blog said that On A Pale Horse, the first book of Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality (where regular folks become Death and Time and the like) had been optioned for a TV series -- another one that never happened.
Some people carp on Anthony's attitudes; apparently a lot of critics or readers find him sexist or antifeminist, which I don't really get (but I'm a white male, so I don't get lots of stuff. White males don't get how it feels to be someone who is not a white male. Every movement you see for equal rights or equal pay or anything is essentially that group of people saying please treat us like you treat white males. White males don't work for 70 cents on the dollar, don't get shot by cops just for existing, have bathrooms set aside for them, and make up 99% of the presidency, 3/4 of the Supreme Court, and most of the Senate and House of Representatives. We don't get discriminated against, because we run things. So it's harder for guys like me to understand how a woman or minority might feel reading Xanth. [Which, I should point out, got its first African-American character in this book, Sherlock, a member of the "black wave," a group of African-Americans who moved to Xanth to settle.]. Other people find the books to be creepy, like this Reddit thread where they discuss the obsession with 'panties' and similar problematic (in their opinion) things. I think some of that is in the eye of the beholder, like when authorities arrest parents for pictures of breastfeeding or bathtime.
Other people (my mom when she was alive) think the books are too silly, and aren't worth reading, to which I reply: Harry Potter had a character eat a candy that was booger-flavored. Besides, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is getting a TV series this year, and Adams' Hitchhiker books got made into a movie that apparently only I thought was okay.
There is a built-in audience for Xanth. They're at 39 books and counting, the last one having been published in 2014. Anthony placed 135th on this list of all-time best selling SF/F authors, at 2,000,000+. (Although that's 2,000,000+ over nearly 40 years; Hugh Howey's Wool is over 1,000,000 even though it was originally self-published not all that long ago.) So it's possible that Xanth is just a niche book series.
When I was a runner at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel back in the early 90s -- when Demons Don't Dream was published -- I was a fan of Arena Football, which never got reported on in that paper. My area (runners don't get desks they get areas) was right next to sports, and one time I got into a debate with a sports writer about why they didn't write about Arena Football.
"Nobody cares about it," he said.
"But if you wrote about it people would start to like it," I said. He laughed and said that's not how it works.
I sometimes wonder if I were to put a million bucks into advertising one of my books, would it matter? Would I make $1,000,001, at least? People say advertising can't make you buy something, but there is an almost-direct relationship between advertising money and sales, so people are, in a word, wrong. But that's direct advertising: selling this thing to the public. Indirect sales are a bit harder. To get a movie, a product, a cartoon, a comic book, made, you've got to sell your idea to a very limited audience, which requires you to get their attention first, and then show them how they can make money off of you. Anyone can put a book on Amazon, but not anyone can get a book on Stephen Colbert's desk, or into the hands of a head of Sony or Disney.
It seems likely that anyone with 2,000,000+ sales could get a meeting with someone somewhere to sell this product; they've got to want to take it and re-sell it to someone else. If they look down on the product, it'll never get re-sold, unless they can perceive a market for it despite how uncool it is. (Fifty Shades Of Grey might not have been picked up by a major publisher had it not been perceived as a book popular among 30-something housewives, the same people to whom romances are marketed, and romances are a big deal.)
Anthony's problem (if it is one for him) may be what the critics say: He's just not cool. Just like in high school, what that means is mysterious. Why Harry Potter and Fifty Shades are okay for adults ot love, but Xanth is not, is as open to guesswork as why some kids in high school spend all their time on the fringes of the lunchroom.
There's a definite genre out there of regular folks like you and me fall into a fantasy story. It's called "Portal Fantasy" and is apparently something fantasy writers are supposed to avoid. (Nearly a year ago, Charlie Jane Anders posted on IO9 a list of 10 "rules" they wish SF/F writers would break more often, and the rule "No Portal Fantasy" is one of them.) "Portal" fantasies include Narnia, The Magicians series, the So You Want To Be A Magician, and in part the His Dark Materials trilogy, which was where I first realized that portalling into our world can be a drudge.
In His Dark Materials the first book focuses on Lyra in her world as she travels from Cambridge to the North Pole (-ish) to find out why children are being stolen by a group called the "Gobblers," and it's a phenomenal book. The second one, The Subtle Knife opens in our world with a kid who ends up traveling into a different world, and that alone was almost enough to make me stop reading; only the strength of the first book kept me going long enough to enjoy the second book once I got past that. And it helped that the story picked up pretty quickly.
I think the problem is that often, in setting up how 'real' the world is, writers get bogged down in describing regular stuff, trying to I don't know I guess explain to readers just how awful/boring/drudgeish our world is? We get that, though. We live in our world and even if our world is a lot of fun and has exciting times like mine does from time to time, it still involves dishes and cleaning out garbage cans (one of my chores today, and I can't tell you how much I resent having to clean a garbage can. I need to make a container clean enough to hold the things I throw away. *sigh*.) So spending dozens of pages on how terrible the world is only drags things down.
Anthony doesn't do much of that here, although there's a lot of "I don't want to go back to Mundania!" stuff. Then again, there's a bit of a twist at the end in that regard, so I shouldn't fault him too much because where I thought he was going with this was not where he was actually going with this.
The basic storyline is: Dug and Kim are Mundanes who get to play a computer game that literally has the power to put them in Xanth. They're playing to settle a bet between two Demons, these being the cosmic sort of demons that exist in the far background of Xanth -- some worldbuilding from (primarily) The Source Of Magic that I don't think Anthony gets enough credit for, as I've said before. The demons, Earth and Xanth (denoted with more mathematical writing) have made a bet in their own cosmic game, and it must be played out by Dug and Kim; if Earth's avatar wins, Xanth has to leave the planet and there will be no magic in Xanth.
It's a great concept that is almost entirely wasted here, in that it sets up the story (a story that's actually been building over several books, in the background) and then is ignored until literally the last chapter, where it crops up again -- at which point I'd almost completely forgotten the premise of the story. The reader has no idea who is the player for which demon, so there's no real suspense there as players get distracted from or focus on the game, and the Xanth world beyond has no idea what's going on: they're aware of the game but don't seem to know that it is so important, or if they do they do a really good job of hiding it.
I think it could have been a more epic story, with all of Xanth trying to figure out who was playing for which demon and trying to help or hinder them; but maybe that's not the story Anthony wanted to write. As it is, the lack of connection to the overall purpose doesn't hurt the story, which is pretty solid and got exciting at the end. It's not the greatest Xanth story but it's not the worst, either.
In the author's note, uncharacteristically short this time, Anthony says that he wrote this story because he can't write computer code but wanted a Xanth computer game. (I can attest how hard coding is; I've twice tried to learn how to write code, because I have some ideas for computer games, but after weeks of trying I found it frustrating enough to not continue. I expect if I went back to school for it I might learn, but since I just wanted to do it as a hobby, going to school for it doesn't make much sense.)(Anyway, someday I'll just hire a programmer to make the game.)
I tried to remember if I'd ever heard of a Xanth computer game, and then began to wonder, again, why Xanth hasn't made a bigger hit in pop culture. Lev Grossman's The Magicians has a TV show (and it's really good!), they're making another Narnia movie soon, Ghostbusters got remade, Star Wars has a jillion things going on, every comic book character ever is getting his or her own series and movie, Game Of Thrones somehow still holds people's interests. Why not Xanth?
The book actually got made into a game, in 1993, called "Companions Of Xanth." You can find videos of a guy playing it on Youtube. For 1993 it looks okay: a text-based adventure with still pictures. But that appears to be the only Xanth product ever produced. There's no t-shirts, stuffed animals, cartoons, nothing. There's a Xanth boardgame that you can't buy new anymore and is out of stock on Amazon. And two graphic novels adapting the Isle Of View storyline.
Just like I wondered why Soon I Will Be Invincible hasn't been made into something -- at least an ongoing comic series -- now I'm wondering it about Xanth.
The problem is not an easy one. It's the difference between what makes a cool kid in high school and what makes a nerd or loser or however your school described the people who were not cool. (This isn't about whether that's right or wrong and largely I take the stance that people who had a great time in high school probably peaked there as the skills required to maximize high school fun are skills that do not translate easily to the adult world). A review in Salon in 2000 described reading Piers Anthony as fun but 'not cool.' That same writer said she "like everyone" read Harry Potter, but asserted that critics look down on series authors and poorly review or don't review such books. That will come as a surprise to JK Rowling, George R R Martin, and the guy who wrote His Dark Materials as well as the Narnia books. She also said that Anthony's skill in consistently delivering a book in his brand made critics dislike him. Tell that to John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, JRR Tolkien, etc etc.
It's not just that the Xanth books aren't all that serious on the surface. Invincible was a "serious" superhero book, ripe for pop-culture taking. And Armada wasn't "serious" at all but is already being made into a movie.
It's possible Anthony just didn't want to develop Xanth into a larger phenomenon. Bill Watterston wouldn't let Calvin & Hobbes be merchandised, and Doonesbury didn't get into merchandising until 1991. (Even then, Gary Trudeau held out and tried for street cred: he donated all profits from that early merchandise to charity. It's hard to say if he licenses anything now; I couldn't find anything on Amazon, though.) But Anthony seems to have wanted wider distribution.
In 2004, they announced a Xanth movie would be made. They had a director and everything, and that seems to be as far as it went. In 2013 the blog Signature ruminated on why Hollywood didn't discover Xanth yet, although apparently Hollywood had, and decided that Xanth wasn't cool enough to sit at its table. That same blog said that On A Pale Horse, the first book of Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality (where regular folks become Death and Time and the like) had been optioned for a TV series -- another one that never happened.
Some people carp on Anthony's attitudes; apparently a lot of critics or readers find him sexist or antifeminist, which I don't really get (but I'm a white male, so I don't get lots of stuff. White males don't get how it feels to be someone who is not a white male. Every movement you see for equal rights or equal pay or anything is essentially that group of people saying please treat us like you treat white males. White males don't work for 70 cents on the dollar, don't get shot by cops just for existing, have bathrooms set aside for them, and make up 99% of the presidency, 3/4 of the Supreme Court, and most of the Senate and House of Representatives. We don't get discriminated against, because we run things. So it's harder for guys like me to understand how a woman or minority might feel reading Xanth. [Which, I should point out, got its first African-American character in this book, Sherlock, a member of the "black wave," a group of African-Americans who moved to Xanth to settle.]. Other people find the books to be creepy, like this Reddit thread where they discuss the obsession with 'panties' and similar problematic (in their opinion) things. I think some of that is in the eye of the beholder, like when authorities arrest parents for pictures of breastfeeding or bathtime.
Other people (my mom when she was alive) think the books are too silly, and aren't worth reading, to which I reply: Harry Potter had a character eat a candy that was booger-flavored. Besides, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is getting a TV series this year, and Adams' Hitchhiker books got made into a movie that apparently only I thought was okay.
There is a built-in audience for Xanth. They're at 39 books and counting, the last one having been published in 2014. Anthony placed 135th on this list of all-time best selling SF/F authors, at 2,000,000+. (Although that's 2,000,000+ over nearly 40 years; Hugh Howey's Wool is over 1,000,000 even though it was originally self-published not all that long ago.) So it's possible that Xanth is just a niche book series.
When I was a runner at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel back in the early 90s -- when Demons Don't Dream was published -- I was a fan of Arena Football, which never got reported on in that paper. My area (runners don't get desks they get areas) was right next to sports, and one time I got into a debate with a sports writer about why they didn't write about Arena Football.
"Nobody cares about it," he said.
"But if you wrote about it people would start to like it," I said. He laughed and said that's not how it works.
I sometimes wonder if I were to put a million bucks into advertising one of my books, would it matter? Would I make $1,000,001, at least? People say advertising can't make you buy something, but there is an almost-direct relationship between advertising money and sales, so people are, in a word, wrong. But that's direct advertising: selling this thing to the public. Indirect sales are a bit harder. To get a movie, a product, a cartoon, a comic book, made, you've got to sell your idea to a very limited audience, which requires you to get their attention first, and then show them how they can make money off of you. Anyone can put a book on Amazon, but not anyone can get a book on Stephen Colbert's desk, or into the hands of a head of Sony or Disney.
It seems likely that anyone with 2,000,000+ sales could get a meeting with someone somewhere to sell this product; they've got to want to take it and re-sell it to someone else. If they look down on the product, it'll never get re-sold, unless they can perceive a market for it despite how uncool it is. (Fifty Shades Of Grey might not have been picked up by a major publisher had it not been perceived as a book popular among 30-something housewives, the same people to whom romances are marketed, and romances are a big deal.)
Anthony's problem (if it is one for him) may be what the critics say: He's just not cool. Just like in high school, what that means is mysterious. Why Harry Potter and Fifty Shades are okay for adults ot love, but Xanth is not, is as open to guesswork as why some kids in high school spend all their time on the fringes of the lunchroom.
February 22, 2009
one of the few books by piers anthony that wasn't entirely creepy.
also i read this because of the pc game.
also i read this because of the pc game.
December 22, 2024
Wow. DNF at 50%
September 9, 2022
So I have a bit of a weird connection with this book. This was a book that was bought way back in the 90's and put in our house. It sat there for I would say 15 years but either no one got around to reading it, or no one remembered reading it. Eventually when we moved it got donated or sold. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I saw a copy on a clearance rack across the country and figured, ah what the hell? I think it's finally time to read that book that stared me in the face all those years. And...was it worth the wait? um...eh?
So first things first. I know that Piers is a very prolific fantasy author but i've never read a book of his, and therefore, i have never read a Xanth book. Luckily you don't really need to have read a previous book to understand what's going on.
Long and short of it, Boy and girl play, what's essentially a magic video game that acts like very good VR. the world they play in is very magicky and they have to get a prize. they each get a magical companion. the world is also RIDICULOUSLY punny. like, it's so punny, i can't imagine this book ever being translated to another language.
There are several things i have to say about this book, but first, let me get the good things out of the way.
Despite being filled with puns, i never found myself being lost in the book. The writing style was very easy to understand and follow along with. It was easy to skip over the non-essential parts without losing the integral things, and the characters were...by far and large fine.
That's all i have to say about the positives.
Now, onto the negatives.
First of all. The cover. yes i'm starting with the cover. The goblin dude on the cover? he's legit in the book for all of 5-6 pages. he's not one of the companions chosen for the game and is never seen again for the rest of the book. i don't know if this seems nitpicky, but MAYBE don't put a character that's BARELY in the book as your center character on the cover. You know, just saying.
Now onto the actual book. So first of all, this book has one of those weird things where the main characters are mid-teenagers, like 15-16 years old, but for some reason can figure out puzzles like they were in their mid 30's. They have hardly any trouble with complicated riddles and pun-related answers and move along like they're pun champions. I don't like it when authors do this. Because what they're doing is saying "oh, well if 'I' could solve this issue than so can these kids." the problem is, you're an older author. you're not a teenager. teens would NOT be this smart.
Secondly, one of the parts of this game in the book is that you have a 1 in 7 chance of getting a traitor companion. So you know....of course one of the 2 main characters get one. Because of course they do. Like that's not even a twist. that's something you expect to happen the SECOND you read that being a rule of the game. I didn't care for that stupid addition and it didn't add anything to the story as it's resolved in the last 6 pages with hardly any fuss.
Next up is the "Romance". god this one was stupid. Okay, so the book is basically broke up into alternating chapters. 1 chapter with male human, 1 chapter with female human. then alternate for the whole book basically. There's only 1-3 chapters where they interact, but in the BRIEF time that the girl "kim" interacts with the boy "Dug" she develops a crush on him. Like, there's no REASON for this crush, it just kind of happens. Dug shows absolutely no care or attraction to her AT ALL in the entire book, but then misreading something, she kisses him and suddenly he's like "hey, let's date!" i mean it was so outta left field, i was like.....the hell just happened? Despite the fact that for the entire book, Dug basically had the hots for the naga lady and suddenly it's like "welp, i have to go back to the human world, so, might as well date this random girl i've known for all of 2 hours". Stupid and didn't make any sense.
This is also one of those books that leaves you with many questions. The book starts out with Dug getting a copy of this game from a friend wagering him that if he plays more than 1 hour of the game enjoying it, then he gives him his girlfriend. First of all, the girlfriend is WEIRDLY okay with this. like she goes "well, you made a bet and if you lose, i'll just be his GF" and i'm like..the hell does that? like... if my girlfriend was like "oh, i bet you and if i lose you have to go out with my friend here" i'd be like any sane person and be like "um..no? what?" i'm not sure Piers knows how relationships work.
Anyway, back to my point. We learn from Kim, that she got to play because she won some Xanth super contest. and nobody else has this game. Yet, for some reason, Dug's random friend happens to have a bootleg copy. What? HOW? how does this random 16 year old kid have a bootleg copy of a game that's apparently so rare that only 1 other person in the world is currently playing it? what? the author literally just says "oh, i guess it's a bootleg copy". oh well, that just answers everything.
There are questions like that just peppered throughout the book.
The ending, by the way was EXTREMELY underwhelming. It really felt to me like the author was on his merry way, just writing the book and he gets to page 315 and the editor is like, "hey, you know the book is due in 1 hour right?" and he's like "OH CRAP!" and writes the climax/epilogue in 20 pages. Considering how long this journey takes the ending is EXTREMELY rushed, and the resolution for the traitor companion is extremely lame. It basically boils down to "hey, you should win Kim" "no, you should dug" "no, you should kim" because neither wants to win until finally kim gets the win and gets to keep a dog she found in Xanth. The end.
I was sitting there in shock like "did...did i miss something? how the hell did it resolve so quickly?" i expected maybe both to get the prize. Maybe the demon shows himself who set the game up at the end and they have to work together? Maybe the naga breaks the spell and defends Dug because she loves him? Nope. nope none of that. just an ending that made absolutely no sense and tried to tell you that Kim isn't an awful character. Which she is.
This book HAD potential. it really did. there was a lot they could have done with it, but they went a route that was safer than safe. They didn't have dug or Kim living in Xanth at the end (yes it IS a real place and not just a video game), they didn't have them defeat the evil demon, they just kind of went, well, you beat the game, time to go home, the end. and that...while it isn't AWFUL it's just.....its been done 1000 times and it's boring and unfulfilling. I feel like it's like you go to a restaurant and the food is decent but you're really looking forward to their world famous cheesecake. You eat the meal, and you're ready for the amazing cheesecake but the waiter's like, "oh, we're closing up shop early today so no cheesecake, but we can offer you yesterday's coffee cake from the fridge." It's serviceable, but a very disappointing ending.
All in all, i hoped for more, which i sadly didn't get. I'll probably give Piers 1 more chance as i like to give authors 2 tries. and this one wasn't TERRIBLE like Christopher Moore's books, just very...meh.
2.5 out of 5, rounded up to a 3.
So first things first. I know that Piers is a very prolific fantasy author but i've never read a book of his, and therefore, i have never read a Xanth book. Luckily you don't really need to have read a previous book to understand what's going on.
Long and short of it, Boy and girl play, what's essentially a magic video game that acts like very good VR. the world they play in is very magicky and they have to get a prize. they each get a magical companion. the world is also RIDICULOUSLY punny. like, it's so punny, i can't imagine this book ever being translated to another language.
There are several things i have to say about this book, but first, let me get the good things out of the way.
Despite being filled with puns, i never found myself being lost in the book. The writing style was very easy to understand and follow along with. It was easy to skip over the non-essential parts without losing the integral things, and the characters were...by far and large fine.
That's all i have to say about the positives.
Now, onto the negatives.
First of all. The cover. yes i'm starting with the cover. The goblin dude on the cover? he's legit in the book for all of 5-6 pages. he's not one of the companions chosen for the game and is never seen again for the rest of the book. i don't know if this seems nitpicky, but MAYBE don't put a character that's BARELY in the book as your center character on the cover. You know, just saying.
Now onto the actual book. So first of all, this book has one of those weird things where the main characters are mid-teenagers, like 15-16 years old, but for some reason can figure out puzzles like they were in their mid 30's. They have hardly any trouble with complicated riddles and pun-related answers and move along like they're pun champions. I don't like it when authors do this. Because what they're doing is saying "oh, well if 'I' could solve this issue than so can these kids." the problem is, you're an older author. you're not a teenager. teens would NOT be this smart.
Secondly, one of the parts of this game in the book is that you have a 1 in 7 chance of getting a traitor companion. So you know....of course one of the 2 main characters get one. Because of course they do. Like that's not even a twist. that's something you expect to happen the SECOND you read that being a rule of the game. I didn't care for that stupid addition and it didn't add anything to the story as it's resolved in the last 6 pages with hardly any fuss.
Next up is the "Romance". god this one was stupid. Okay, so the book is basically broke up into alternating chapters. 1 chapter with male human, 1 chapter with female human. then alternate for the whole book basically. There's only 1-3 chapters where they interact, but in the BRIEF time that the girl "kim" interacts with the boy "Dug" she develops a crush on him. Like, there's no REASON for this crush, it just kind of happens. Dug shows absolutely no care or attraction to her AT ALL in the entire book, but then misreading something, she kisses him and suddenly he's like "hey, let's date!" i mean it was so outta left field, i was like.....the hell just happened? Despite the fact that for the entire book, Dug basically had the hots for the naga lady and suddenly it's like "welp, i have to go back to the human world, so, might as well date this random girl i've known for all of 2 hours". Stupid and didn't make any sense.
This is also one of those books that leaves you with many questions. The book starts out with Dug getting a copy of this game from a friend wagering him that if he plays more than 1 hour of the game enjoying it, then he gives him his girlfriend. First of all, the girlfriend is WEIRDLY okay with this. like she goes "well, you made a bet and if you lose, i'll just be his GF" and i'm like..the hell does that? like... if my girlfriend was like "oh, i bet you and if i lose you have to go out with my friend here" i'd be like any sane person and be like "um..no? what?" i'm not sure Piers knows how relationships work.
Anyway, back to my point. We learn from Kim, that she got to play because she won some Xanth super contest. and nobody else has this game. Yet, for some reason, Dug's random friend happens to have a bootleg copy. What? HOW? how does this random 16 year old kid have a bootleg copy of a game that's apparently so rare that only 1 other person in the world is currently playing it? what? the author literally just says "oh, i guess it's a bootleg copy". oh well, that just answers everything.
There are questions like that just peppered throughout the book.
The ending, by the way was EXTREMELY underwhelming. It really felt to me like the author was on his merry way, just writing the book and he gets to page 315 and the editor is like, "hey, you know the book is due in 1 hour right?" and he's like "OH CRAP!" and writes the climax/epilogue in 20 pages. Considering how long this journey takes the ending is EXTREMELY rushed, and the resolution for the traitor companion is extremely lame. It basically boils down to "hey, you should win Kim" "no, you should dug" "no, you should kim" because neither wants to win until finally kim gets the win and gets to keep a dog she found in Xanth. The end.
I was sitting there in shock like "did...did i miss something? how the hell did it resolve so quickly?" i expected maybe both to get the prize. Maybe the demon shows himself who set the game up at the end and they have to work together? Maybe the naga breaks the spell and defends Dug because she loves him? Nope. nope none of that. just an ending that made absolutely no sense and tried to tell you that Kim isn't an awful character. Which she is.
This book HAD potential. it really did. there was a lot they could have done with it, but they went a route that was safer than safe. They didn't have dug or Kim living in Xanth at the end (yes it IS a real place and not just a video game), they didn't have them defeat the evil demon, they just kind of went, well, you beat the game, time to go home, the end. and that...while it isn't AWFUL it's just.....its been done 1000 times and it's boring and unfulfilling. I feel like it's like you go to a restaurant and the food is decent but you're really looking forward to their world famous cheesecake. You eat the meal, and you're ready for the amazing cheesecake but the waiter's like, "oh, we're closing up shop early today so no cheesecake, but we can offer you yesterday's coffee cake from the fridge." It's serviceable, but a very disappointing ending.
All in all, i hoped for more, which i sadly didn't get. I'll probably give Piers 1 more chance as i like to give authors 2 tries. and this one wasn't TERRIBLE like Christopher Moore's books, just very...meh.
2.5 out of 5, rounded up to a 3.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 14, 2015
This is the first Xanth novel I have read in over 20 years. Actually I think that might be how long this particular book has been sitting on my book shelf. I used to devour the Xanth novels when I was a teen. And while I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and coming back to something that I loved so much, I don't think the universe held up for me quite as well now as it did way back when. I still enjoyed the puns and the characters, but I am not sure if I feel the need to continue on. But, then again, maybe it was just this particular book that didn't grab me as much as some of the others, so I may try to read one or two more just in case, especially since there are now nearly 40 books in the series!
December 25, 2023
I started out living the Xanth universe, however the books have worn down to a series out worsening, tasteless puns.
January 28, 2024
A fun look at Xanth from a more mundane point of view.
June 25, 2007
Ten years ago when I was freelancing I read most of the Xanth series in order. Usually I don't binge on a book series like that but I somehow had most of these books and they were easy to read while I was riding the train to and from San Diego to work with my main client. Although I think I've had Demons Don't Dream for a decade I somehow missed reading it.
So ten years in, my tastes have changed and matured. I read up chapter four and had to put the book aside. The puns were forced. The plot was forced. Then there's the whole demons using a video game to trick humans into fighting their duel for them. Of course there is a Companions of Xanth game but I've no desire to play it having now suffered through four chapters describing it in painful (punful) detail.
So ten years in, my tastes have changed and matured. I read up chapter four and had to put the book aside. The puns were forced. The plot was forced. Then there's the whole demons using a video game to trick humans into fighting their duel for them. Of course there is a Companions of Xanth game but I've no desire to play it having now suffered through four chapters describing it in painful (punful) detail.
December 26, 2015
This is my favorite of the Xanth series. I read this book when I was in middle school, I think. Possibly sooner. It is probably one of the biggest contributors to my love of puns. If you like puns, read this book. Dug and Kim go through their computer screen into Xanth and try to be the first to beat the game. Nada Naga, and Jenny Elf are their helpful (and not so helpful) companions guiding them through the land. They each have their own flaws they have to overcome as they make their way through Xanth. Puns rule.
January 23, 2015
It was a very interesting and entertaining read. It was very similar to what I would imagine a lovechild between "The Hobbit" and "The Legend of Zelda" would look like. My only gripe, is that the author has no concept of what a pun actually is.
August 26, 2019
4 Stars
Demon's Don't Dream is the sixteenth book in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. Dug and Kim will need to battle their way through Xanth, testing their wits and mettle along the way. Facing danger, their is much at stake, not just for Xanth, but Earth as well. Ultimately will need to decide what's truly important.
The Xanth Series is quite a really long series that has spanned many decades. I remember reading the first few books back in the very early 1980’s and was totally captivated by the epic fantasy that unfolded before my eyes. I collected all the books as each new one was released and have revisited them a few times over the years. Recently I had been reorganising my bookshelves, because eight book cases have become insufficient to house all my books (#bookwhoredilemma)- and it came to the point where I was going to have to get rid of some of my older books/series in order to make way for new favourites. I looked at all the larger/longer series first and this is one of the larger series that I have, it came under scrutiny. I decided to reread all the books I was considering getting rid of first- before making a final decision. I can honestly say that although I these books didn’t blow me away as they once did- I still really enjoyed all the adventure, magic, swords & sorcery like epic fantasy that Mr. Anthony is renowned for. He has imbued his stories with plenty of humour, a playfulness, lots of fun, action, some history, conspiracies, secrets, surprising developments, and much, much more. We meet so many varied and original characters along the way- the books are full of wonderful fictional beasts and paranormal creatures/beasts. From centaurs, to demons, dragons, fauns, gargoyles, goblins, golems, harpies, merfolk, elves, nymphs, ogres, zombies, and curse fiends- and a few more I am sure I have missed.
The world of Xanth is wonderfully rich and vividly descriptive. It is really well written and is so easy to imagine, it came to life before my eyes. Each ‘person’ in Xanth is born with their own unique magical ability, which is called a ‘talent’. We follow along on many epic adventures and explore the world as the story unfolds.
I have many fond memories of reading this book/series- and in the end I can’t cull any of my collection. So I decided to just purchase a couple of extra bookcases instead. #myprecious
A series worth exploring- especially for any epic fantasy lover who loves some fun and humour served with their adventure.
Thank you, Mr. Anthony!
Demon's Don't Dream is the sixteenth book in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. Dug and Kim will need to battle their way through Xanth, testing their wits and mettle along the way. Facing danger, their is much at stake, not just for Xanth, but Earth as well. Ultimately will need to decide what's truly important.
The Xanth Series is quite a really long series that has spanned many decades. I remember reading the first few books back in the very early 1980’s and was totally captivated by the epic fantasy that unfolded before my eyes. I collected all the books as each new one was released and have revisited them a few times over the years. Recently I had been reorganising my bookshelves, because eight book cases have become insufficient to house all my books (#bookwhoredilemma)- and it came to the point where I was going to have to get rid of some of my older books/series in order to make way for new favourites. I looked at all the larger/longer series first and this is one of the larger series that I have, it came under scrutiny. I decided to reread all the books I was considering getting rid of first- before making a final decision. I can honestly say that although I these books didn’t blow me away as they once did- I still really enjoyed all the adventure, magic, swords & sorcery like epic fantasy that Mr. Anthony is renowned for. He has imbued his stories with plenty of humour, a playfulness, lots of fun, action, some history, conspiracies, secrets, surprising developments, and much, much more. We meet so many varied and original characters along the way- the books are full of wonderful fictional beasts and paranormal creatures/beasts. From centaurs, to demons, dragons, fauns, gargoyles, goblins, golems, harpies, merfolk, elves, nymphs, ogres, zombies, and curse fiends- and a few more I am sure I have missed.
The world of Xanth is wonderfully rich and vividly descriptive. It is really well written and is so easy to imagine, it came to life before my eyes. Each ‘person’ in Xanth is born with their own unique magical ability, which is called a ‘talent’. We follow along on many epic adventures and explore the world as the story unfolds.
I have many fond memories of reading this book/series- and in the end I can’t cull any of my collection. So I decided to just purchase a couple of extra bookcases instead. #myprecious
A series worth exploring- especially for any epic fantasy lover who loves some fun and humour served with their adventure.
Thank you, Mr. Anthony!
April 26, 2025
This was an improvement from the previous book, The Color of Her Panties, but it wasn't all that great. Anthony has a problem in these Xanth books in particular, where there's really no antagonist, everyone is nice and encouraging, and there's no real conflict. The characters just progress from one minor challenge/event to the next, with essentially no overarching plot or character progression to tie it all together. And this book explicitly leans into that by essentially gamifying the adventure and tying it in with a video game made after the book's release.
And his characters are all samey: earnest young men who are awkward but all react to things in the same way, with a need to do the right thing no matter what, or nice young women who are all fast friends with each other, encouraging, and bland. The stakes are as low as can be too, since it is just a game, although at the end Anthony tries to sneak in a little twist to make it all seem critically important.
Again, this is better than the last book, which was as dull as dishwater, but it felt more interesting in the early going, and became less compelling later on.
And his characters are all samey: earnest young men who are awkward but all react to things in the same way, with a need to do the right thing no matter what, or nice young women who are all fast friends with each other, encouraging, and bland. The stakes are as low as can be too, since it is just a game, although at the end Anthony tries to sneak in a little twist to make it all seem critically important.
Again, this is better than the last book, which was as dull as dishwater, but it felt more interesting in the early going, and became less compelling later on.
Read
October 23, 2025Beloved by millions of readers around the world, Piers Anthony's Xanth novels are among the most popular fantasy adventures ever published. Demons Don't Dream begins a thrilling new Xanth sequence, as a pair of young adventurers play for the highest stakes of all: the future of Xanth--and of Earth as well!Drawn into Xanth by a harmless-looking computer game, two young people find themselves competing for a precious prize: Dug, who is beguiled by a beautiful serpent-princess, and Kim, who discovers her favorite fantasy realm has suddenly become frighteningly real.In a desperate race against time, dug and Kim battle their way across the wondrous, perilous land of Xanth, testing their courage against dozens of fearsome obstacles (and their wits against a host of outrageous puns!) But when treachery, danger, and deceit place Xanth itself in peril, Dug and Kim learn that some things are more important than winning or losing.A breathtaking, madcap quest filled with fearsome monsters and far-fetched fun, Demons Don't Dream is vintage Xanth, an unforgettable escapade from fantasy's most imaginative storyteller.
August 13, 2023
This book has a different perspective than the other Xanth books. Instead of following someone from the royal family, this one follows the game that the demons created.
Dug, a 16 year old mundane traded his girlfriend for the game and picked Nada Naga as his game companion because of her looks, but gets kicked out of the game for trying to see her panties.
I'm not going to go any further except that there is another player from mundania, a teenage girl who picks Jenny Elf as her companion. On Dug's second try at the game, again choosing Nada, is either of the two game companions the false companion? Read the book to find out.
Dug, a 16 year old mundane traded his girlfriend for the game and picked Nada Naga as his game companion because of her looks, but gets kicked out of the game for trying to see her panties.
I'm not going to go any further except that there is another player from mundania, a teenage girl who picks Jenny Elf as her companion. On Dug's second try at the game, again choosing Nada, is either of the two game companions the false companion? Read the book to find out.
March 27, 2018
The language and a lot of the humour in Demon's Don't Dream appears aimed at a young adult audience, a book so filled with more attempts and stretches at puns and wordplay than I ever thought possible in literature. The book is relatively long for the content involved and at times can feel a bit stretched out but is helped by the positive way it tackles issues such as race. It can be fun and whimsical at times as long as you're prepared for the aforementioned puns and jokes.
July 6, 2020
I honestly enjoyed this one as one of my top 3 Xanth books. It's an interesting LitRPG premise with an intriguing implication for the worldbuilding of Xanth. The demon concept is really interesting because "demon" really isn't the best word for what these creatures are...I think the neutral term "spirit" would have been better.
As usual, a lot of puns, and I love puns, so you can go ahead and flog me if you want, Xanth is my kind of series. It's so dorky. I dig it.
As usual, a lot of puns, and I love puns, so you can go ahead and flog me if you want, Xanth is my kind of series. It's so dorky. I dig it.
April 22, 2023
Excellent
The main characters are Kim, Bubbles and Dug from Mundainia (this world) and Jenny, Sammy, and Nada Naga and a game were the characters from this world are in a contest to see who wins the prize. The story covers most of Xanth. It is a story that is difficult to put down once yous you start reading it. I personally really enjoyed it and I believe that you will also enjoy it too.
The main characters are Kim, Bubbles and Dug from Mundainia (this world) and Jenny, Sammy, and Nada Naga and a game were the characters from this world are in a contest to see who wins the prize. The story covers most of Xanth. It is a story that is difficult to put down once yous you start reading it. I personally really enjoyed it and I believe that you will also enjoy it too.
December 2, 2017
This is another in the Xanth series. It, like all the others, is filled with puns and a pretty good story. As with some of the other books in the series seemed to end abruptly. You are left with a feeling of that's all. However, I will continue reading the series as it's an enjoyable break from reality even if only for a few minutes a day.
June 1, 2020
The Xanth books by Piers Anthony were one of the first SciFi/Fantasy series I ever read. I love puns so I have always enjoyed them. Upon re-reading them I can see that they have some weaknesses but overall they stand the test of time. They are a fun and fast read that keeps me amused without any deep thinking required.
September 12, 2023
I got a bit bored with this story. Maybe because I'm getting old, cranky, and harder to please. It didn't help that it took me a while to figure out what the story was all about (I've got a lot of distractions in my life just now), so "dim bulb" here didn't get into the story at first.
Anthony's writing is just as good as always, so maybe it's just me???
Anthony's writing is just as good as always, so maybe it's just me???
January 22, 2024
The cover and the premise enticed me, plus the popularity of Piers Anthony as a fantasy author, but the book was an okay read. The plot points tied up nicely, and the puns were fun until they became a bit tedious. Some good twists but slow in the middle. I'll hand it off to my game-playing family members.
November 13, 2025
It took awhile to get into and I think that was just partially me being confused and not remember how the last book had ended and the back and forth of our narratives. But I feel like once we got half way it really picked up and I started enjoying our new characters more. The ending actually ended up being kind of cute too!
February 6, 2019
My mother passed away and left me her xanth books, we read them together as they came out. My husband picked this one up and I told him if he read it he would be hooked... guess what, my mom is sitting somewhere laughing her... but off.🤩back to xanth!!!
July 18, 2020
Years ago, I read a whole lot of Xanth novels. At tjlhat time, I thought the first 20 were pretty good and after that I thought they were spotty to awful. This one is merely okay. There's a excerpt at the end of this that was truly hideous. I skipped it. Read and make your own judgment.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 26, 2021
Cute but too goofy. I made it past the 50 page mark, skipped to almost the end to check a few pages, and…. I just don’t care. The wordplay is great if you’re reading a short story but I have definitely read more than enough of it.
May 26, 2024
A brilliant book, discussing serious issues of modern life through a fantasy story, full of clever (and not) puns. I agree that it is not quite politically correct, sometimes even disrespectful, but I enjoyed reading this book a lot.
December 22, 2024
nel '93, quando è uscito questo libro, il computer game che si fonde con la realtà non era un argomento così sfruttato. ora forse il modo in cui lo tratta anthony risulterebbe ingenuo, ma allora mi era piaciuto molto.
May 31, 2019
I used to love this series.
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